For White Day, I went with some of my fellow single friends to Chemins, a small French restaurant in Akasaka. Everyone had been telling me for ages how good it was, especially how amazing the food is with wine, so I’d been dying to check it out for myself, and I finally got the chance.
Champagne by the glass
I ordered it as an aperitif. It tasted great, but I didn’t check which champagne it was. When I looked at the price list later it was 1,560 yen a glass. A little pricey, but on a day like this you’ve got to lift the mood with some bubbles. Being single at my age is sad enough, so the least I can do is eat well. Besides, the courses here are so cheap that drinking at least this much is only polite.
Fresh flower arrangement
The place isn’t big, but they pay attention to every little detail. It looks like they’ve been running the restaurant in this spot for quite a while, yet there isn’t a single thing out of place. The timing of the service was spot-on too, and I really liked that I never had a moment of inconvenience during the meal.
Table setting
Maybe because the restaurant is small, the tables are small and not spaced very far apart, but it didn’t really get in the way of the meal.
Butter
I think this one was salted
Bread
A bit below Orexis, where I’d eaten the day before, but still pretty decent.
Finally on to the meal proper. We ordered the 3,900 yen menu, where you pick two of six starters. For the main you can choose either fish or meat. For reference, the menu with one starter is 2,800 yen, and the chef’s omakase course is 5,300 yen. Afterwards I noticed a 10% service charge had been added.
Amuse-bouche: madeleines with bacon and salt
I’d thought these were petits fours, but it turns out they come out as an amuse-bouche too. Warm and salty, they whet the appetite just right.
Aomori veal offal, prepared the chef’s way of the day
The offal is in the cup, and the stuff outside is minced meat; each was cooked to bring out the flavor of its ingredients. The portion was satisfying too.
New-onion pudding with the aroma of shrimp and chilled red pepper
A dish that really drew out the sweetness of the onion. The soft, jelly-like texture and the pepper on top gave it a fresh taste of spring.
The house signature: carrot mousse and consommé jelly with sea urchin
Since it’s their signature dish, I ordered it with high expectations, and it blew them away. The gentle sweetness of the carrot, the rich, ocean-scented uni, and then the intense jelly as an accent on top, so smooth and elegant it was like melted silk. Is this really the taste of a dish included in a 3,900 yen course…
Hors d’oeuvre of seasonal ingredients hand-picked at Tsukiji: shiitake pie, firefly squid, and more
The server recommended this seasonal dish with such confidence that I just went for it. Every little ingredient tasted top-notch, and the shiitake pie held the aroma and flavor of the mushroom perfectly concentrated inside. Who knew pie was the ultimate way to enjoy mushrooms? I learned something new that day.
Bamboo shoot and Hokkaido scallop mousse baked hot in pastry, with aonori sauce
Another pie, but this time the bamboo shoot is the star. It too was baked to a flawless finish, so I could fully enjoy the crisp flavor of early-spring bamboo shoots. After eating this much I couldn’t quite figure out the concept of this place. How can they serve dishes made so generously with such good ingredients at such low prices? I guess it means “please buy lots of wine.”
Cabbage rolls of minced suckling-pig leg in a special Basque-style soup
Nobody else ordered it, so I did. The cooking and flavor were just as good as the other dishes, but because it’s a soup, and because it isn’t a seasonal dish, I couldn’t give it a high score. If it had come out at another restaurant I’d have happily enjoyed it.
Meat dish of the day
With starters that impressive, the main was never going to disappoint. That said, it wasn’t made with luxury ingredients. I don’t remember the exact name, but it was some kind of offal dish. It was tasty, but compared with the main I’d had at Orexis the day before, the quality of the ingredients felt a notch lower.
Fish of the day: Hokkaido trout
I ordered this one, and maybe because the seasoning was light, it was just okay, not as good as it looked. Ever since I had the ultimate fish dish at Côte d’Or, most places just feel okay. The aftereffects are lasting a long time.
Dessert: ice cream wrapped in a banana crêpe
It looks simple, but the taste was anything but. It was packed with pure banana flavor. The crêpe is served warm, and sadly the ice cream melted while I was taking photos, so it wasn’t at its best..
Herbal tea
After all that eating and drinking, about three hours had already gone by. When I checked the bill on the way out, it came to 6,600 yen per person. Compared with restaurants of a similar level, that’s a very competitive price. Sure, you could save a bit more if you tried, but at a place turning out food this good, shaving off a little doesn’t mean much. Better to focus on having a good time. My one regret to the very end, though, was that the wine selection here is supposedly fantastic, and I couldn’t order any because of how much I’d drunk the night before.
Front entrance
When we left after the meal, the staff saw us off at the door. Not just the food but the service too must be among the best in Tokyo. The restaurant had one Michelin star until last year, but it was dropped from this year’s list. I really do wonder why a place this good isn’t in it.
A lovely dinner at a great restaurant becomes a precious memory that nothing can replace. I guess that’s why I can’t stop making the rounds of restaurants. This time I barely managed to drag my single friends out, but who am I going to go with next time.. hmm..