Tokyo New City Guide. Mayumi Yoshida Barakan

RESTAURANTS

      Kaiseki-ryori

      When the tea ceremony became popular in Kyoto during the Ashikaga period, kaiseki-ryori was a light meal of three or four dishes served to help protect the stomach from the strong green tea. Kaiseki literally means a "warm stone on the stomach," a reference to the heated stones monks placed in their robes during meditation to help them forget their hunger pains.

      Kaiseki is one of the most expensive kinds of Japanese cooking with haute cuisine prices that can be easily over ¥15,000 per person. Some restaurants do offer less expensive courses, others have a bento box that will give you the general idea of what kaiseki is like. While the best kaiseki meals in Tokyo are extremely expensive, for just a little more money you can stay in a beautiful ryokan an hour or so outside of the city where a fabulous kaiseki meal will be included with the room charge. Menu—Kaiseki restaurants usually serve a set menu.

      How to Order

      • Since kaiseki usually comes as a set meal, you can order according to the price.

      • There is a set of very formal rules for eating kaiseki-ryori, but since even most Japanese don't know them, you should just follow the basic rules we mentioned before.

      Asakusa's Tatsumiya. The restaurant's noren is hung out in front of the door announcing to customers that it's open for business. © 1984 Tobias Pfeil

      KOCHO

      Shin Yurakucho Bldg., B1-2, 1-12-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku. Tel: [phone] (B-2), 3214-4746 (B-1). Hours: 11:00 A.M.-2:00 P.M., 5:00-9:00 P.M., closed Sun. & hol. If you can't manage to wrangle the introduction necessary for dining at the prestigious, exclusive and very expensive

      KITCHO (8-17-4 Ginza, Chuo-ku. Tel: [phone].), Kocho is a very acceptable alternative. Deep in the basement of a central Tokyo building, your excellent kaiseki meal will be served in a thatch-roofed dining area surrounded by bamboo groves and a pond full of majestic carp. Here lunch is from ¥25,000, dinner from ¥52,000. On the B1 floor is a more casual area serving slightly less refined kaiseki cuisine. [M-10]

      TAKAMURA

      3-4-27 Roppongi, Minato-ku. Tel: [phone]. Hours: noon-3:00 P.M. (reservations only, four people or more), 5:00-10:30 P.M., closed Sun. Lunch courses from ¥10,000. Dinner courses from ¥15,000. With an absolutely wonderful and very Japanese atmosphere, this restaurant looks and feels like a teahouse in the mountains. There is a lovely garden and each room has a hearth. [M-1]

      TSUKIJI TAMURA

      2-12-11 Tsukuji, Chuo-ku. Tel: [phone]. Hours: noon-3:00 P.M., 6:00-10:00 P.M. daily. This famous restaurant has recently been rebuilt, and is now in a seven-story building. On the first floor you can have kaiseki-ryori at a table with chairs: lunch from ¥6,000, dinner from ¥8,000. On the second and third floors you can sit on tatami mats and have lunch from ¥10,000, dinner from ¥30,000. [M-22]

      HANNYAEN

      2-20-10 Shirogane-dai, Minato-ku. Tel: [phone]. Hours: 6:00-10:00 P.M., closed Sun. & hol. In lovely grounds shared with the Hatakeyama Collection, Hannyaen is a sprawling, traditional Japanese-style estate. Your kaiseki meal will be served in a room overlooking the garden and an evening will include a performance by koto players. Although the food is not absolutely top grade, the atmosphere is suitably intriguing to justify the costs. ¥40,000 per person. Lunches are possible for groups of over five people. [M-19]

      HOUMASA

      3-2-21 Moto-azabu, Minato-ku. Tel: [phone]. Hours: 6:00-10:30 P.M., closed Sun & hol. Houmasa is ideal for perfect kaiseki cuisine without the formality of most top-ranked restaurants. You can sit at the counter and watch the chef, or on tatami at the two tiny tables along one wall. It's best if you can order a la carte in Japanese, but they also offer an omakase course (chef's choice) for ¥13,000. [M-2]

      KISSO

      Axis Bldg., 5-17-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, B1. Tel: [phone]. Hours: 11:30 A.M.-2:00 P.M., 5:30-10:00 P.M., closed Sun. Kisso serves excellent, but simple kaiseki in one of the most pleasant contemporary settings in Tokyo, which probably explains why this restaurant is a favorite with the local design elite. Lunch from ¥2,500, dinner from ¥8,000. [M-1]

      Shojin-ryori

      A traditional form of vegetarian cuisine, shojin-ryori was developed in Buddhist temples where eating meat, fish, or any animal product was against the tenets of the religion. The style of cooking was brought from China to Japan by the Zen monk Dogen (1200-53) after his training in the Chinese monasteries. The meal was rearranged to suit Japanese tastes and is now rather like a humble version of kaiseki.

      Shojin-ryori is served in restaurants or at temples, where it is a special meal for guests. The monks themselves usually eat one bowl of rice in the morning, a bowl of rice and one of soup for lunch, and nothing for dinner.

      Menu

      • Shojin-ryori is usually as a set course of several dishes with rice and soup.

      • In place of meat and fish, they have devised numerous ways of preparing soybeans, one of the main ones being tofu.

      How to Order—Just ask for kaiseki.

      DAIGO

      2-4-2 Atago, Minato-ku. Tel: [phone]. Hours: noon-3:00 P.M., 5:00-9:00 P.M., closed Thurs. Charming building and gardens in this restaurant attached to a Buddhist temple. Meals served in traditional private rooms. Lunch from ¥12,000, dinner from ¥14,000 [M-11]

      BON

      1-2-11 Ryusen, Taito-ku. Tel: [phone]. Hours: noon-1:00 P.M., 5:00-8:00 P.M., closed Tue. This is a wonderful restaurant, but slightly out of the way. Lunch from ¥6,000, dinner from ¥7,000, prepared in a style that originated in Manpuku-ji temple in China. Tables are all in simple, Japanese-style semi-private rooms. [M-40]

      SANKOIN TEMPLE

      3-1-36 Honcho, Koganei-shi. Tel: [phone]. Hours: noon-2:00 P.M., 2:00-4:00 P.M., closed Tues., Aug. 1-31, and Dec. 25-Jan 10. (Located a ten-minute walk from the north exit of Musashi Koganei Station on the Chuo Line.) This convent, built in 1934, is the most famous temple serving shojin-ryori. Reservations are accepted up to one month in advance; during the busy spring and autumn seasons, you should book early. Courses from ¥2,000 [off Map]

      MURYOAN

      6-9-17 Akasaka, Minato-ku. Tel: [phone]. Hours: noon-3:00 P.M., 5:00-9:00 P.M., closed Mon. Like Bon, Muryoan offers a type of monk's food that originated in China: fucha-ryori. All meals are served in private tatami rooms. Lunch ¥11,000, dinner ¥17,000 [M-6]

      Sushi

      A favorite question of the Japanese to the foreigner used to be "Can you eat raw fish?" While in years past about seventy-five percent of the answers were a definitive (if not disgusted) No, most visitors now look forward to their first real Japanese sushi meal. Raw fish has been demystified, and chances are that now you'll be asked "Can you eat natto?' which is a sticky kind of fermented soybean that half of the Japanese population won't eat themselves.

      During the Heian period, a primitive