This post was written in 2006. Shop details and prices may have changed since then.
I finally went to La Bettola bis, known as one of the hardest places to book in Tokyo. In the Tokyo restaurant guides
it’s always near the top, yet the dinner course is an amazing 3,300 yen, so I’d been dying to go at least once. A friend happened to be visiting
Tokyo, so I booked two weeks ahead and got us in.
Here’s the entrance. The atmosphere is far more polished than the main restaurant, which just feels like an ordinary eatery.
They have 18 tables and take bookings in two sittings, at 6 and 8. So they only seat 36 people a day…
No wonder it’s so hard to get a reservation…
Just a shot of the flowers, which are there to decorate the table.
And just a shot of the tableware. Cute. The whole restaurant is nicely done. The waitress was lovely too,
and the gloomy vibe of the main restaurant was nowhere to be found.
The bread. Bread is a bit of a weak spot at La Bettola, and sure enough it was weak here too… Not bad, though.
The menu system here is unusual. There’s no main course; you pick any three dishes from the starters and pastas. Aha… only then
did the lower price compared with the main restaurant make sense. At the main restaurant you got to pick one each from starters, pasta and mains…
So we chose three starters and three pastas.
First up, a fried oyster carpaccio.
A total hit. How can something be this good… The oysters weren’t top-grade enough to eat raw, but fried, the flavour was out of this world.
You could call it one of the winter treats of Japan.
Cola and wine… our drinks. Just snapped them for the sake of it.
The second starter was sausages and fries.
The taste was so-so… Sausages don’t seem to be their strong point either… but hey, I didn’t come here for German food ^_^;
You may have noticed something odd about this photo… Yes, even though they’re called starters, you can order main-style dishes
from that list… Sure, you eat them before the pasta, but I was relieved it wasn’t only the kind of thing you usually think of as a starter.
The third was beef braised in wine sauce.
It tastes superb, and it’s the dish I always order whenever I come to La Bettola. There are no words for how tender it is…
The house’s famous dish, uni (sea urchin) pasta.
The standard was so-so… I didn’t get the thrill I had when I ate it at the main restaurant…
Mushroom pasta. Not bad, but I can’t say it was great either…
The last pasta was fresh pasta with rabbit. I’d once read in a restaurant guide that the fresh pasta here was top-notch, so
I gave it a try.
You can choose the type of pasta and the type of sauce yourself and combine them.
I don’t remember the exact name of this pasta, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget how soft and tender the fresh noodles were.
So pasta can taste like this… Fresh pasta isn’t served at the other La Bettola restaurants, only here.
If you ever go, make sure you order it…
After the mains, dessert came out. But I can’t really remember what this one was… Anyway, it tasted good.
A top-class tiramisu cake. You’ll regret it if you skip this one.
It comes very close to the homemade cake Ko** once made. I wonder if that gives you an idea of how good it is…
Overall, La Bettola bis is a great restaurant in Tokyo for wooing someone.
Taste, atmosphere, price: it doesn’t fall short on any of them. Well… this being Tokyo,
there are definitely places with better food and atmosphere, but there you’d have to pay at least 15,000
to 20,000 yen per person…
I’d love to go back if I get the chance… next time with a lovely lady ^_^