The older I get, the more I seem to go only to places I have already been. It may just be the process of turning into a stubborn old man stuck in his ways, but honestly, it is also because there are not many places in the world that cook better than this. The restaurants that middle-aged guys swear by are mostly like that. In that spirit, I visited Bona Festa, a restaurant I have long considered the best.

A glass of wine

The dinner course is somewhere around 5,000 or 6,000 yen. The price changes depending on the dishes, and if you order this and that it can come close to 10,000 yen. Of course, even the simplest course is plenty delicious. This time I added one a la carte dish to the basic course, and it turned out to be a great choice, which made me very happy.

Appetizer

White fish on top of coleslaw. Coleslaw, as you know, is something you get at just about any fast food joint, so it is curious to see it treated as a proper dish like this. Surprisingly, the flavors went together well too.

House-made butter

It is the kind of butter so good you end up eating it by the spoonful.

Bread

There was tomato inside.

Salmon salad

It looks like an ordinary salmon salad, but the freshness is outstanding and it goes so well with the sauce. Whatever you order here is delicious.

Seafood salad of the day

Colorful plating.

Bread

After the appetizers, warm bread comes out, and dipped in that butter it disappears in an instant. You cannot help asking for a refill.

Uni soup

The soup is inside the bread. I have had it before, but it is just superb.

Pumpkin soup

I would really love to learn how to make this soup. I have no idea how a dish that looks this simple can taste this good. I need to practice a bit at home.

Scallop with uni sauce and fried ashitaba

The scallop is delicious and the uni sauce is delicious, but put the fried ashitaba on top and eat all three together and something synergistic happens. Crispy, savory and fresh, that kind of taste. It is amazing how ingredients that seem totally unrelated come together in one place to deliver such incredible flavor. How on earth did they come up with a dish like this?

Beef stroganoff

The combination of top-grade beef and the sauce is gorgeous.

Special of the day, the giant mushroom

The visual was so striking I wondered what it was, but the top is a hamburg steak and the bottom is a huge mushroom. They hollow out the base of the mushroom, stuff it with filling, cover it with the hamburg steak and pour sauce over it, and it really does look like a giant mushroom. I was overwhelmed by the look of it first of all.

Cross section

It is not an ordinary hamburg steak; you can feel the coarsely chopped bits of the filling as you chew. The hamburg steak and the sauce went together beautifully, and the texture of biting into the filling inside the mushroom and the mushroom itself was excellent. Honestly, I feel like giving a standing ovation to the idea behind this dish. After eating something like this, trying to eat a hamburg steak back in Korea.. I guess in Korea I should just stick to Korean food, right?

Dessert

A proper sorbet comes out.

Petits fours

Delicious chocolates came out.

Sweet coffee

Hot milk

Once again I left completely satisfied. These days I do not get the chance to go often, but I would like to keep coming at least once a year.

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