Brasserie Perle

The other day on one of my jogs I stumbled upon an interesting looking french brasserie. Brasserie Perle is in a bright yellow house with a cute front patio and is the only commercial building on the entire street. It is in the middle of the block and three turns from the nearest main street. I have no idea how anyone ever finds this place. But once they do, I guarantee you they keep going back. And we know why.

After spending the day with my kanji translator (and failing that, asking my boss) and a copy of the menu I'd swiped, I already had my mouth watering over the beef cheeks, duck confit, lamb and market fresh salmon to come. When we arrived, we also found a chalkboard full of daily specials and a very friendly trilingual french waiter at the ready. Ryan opted for the 5-course chef's menu, whereas I had my eye on two things off the a la carte menu.  Here was Ryan's first course, a small cube of pork something and a sea snail, which he said was quite tasty.

After that, he had a ham and cheese quiche with green salad and a cold pumpkin soup that he said was subtle and creamy and, well...as good as it all sounded, I stopped paying attention to what he was saying when my foie gras arrived. I mean, look at this thing! It was huge and perfectly cooked, with some root vegetables underneath and a wine reduction on top. I usually like foie to have a sweet element and was worried with all the savory that arrived, but the tang of the sauce combined with the ever so slight crunch from the sear were just perfect. Then Ryan had some very tender beef atop veggies and I had the duck confit with a mustard sauce. Once again I was bowled over. How could this small restaurant on a sleepy street in the quietest district in Tokyo have such a great chef turning out such amazing food? It boggles the mind. 

Even the coffee was good!  For dessert I went with the chocolate cake and Ryan had creme brulee. Both delicious. Can't wait to go back!

Interesting buildings and fabulous interiors: Paris

This is a Tokyo blog, so I don't want to spend too much time talking about my recent trip to Europe. However, I would remiss to not share at least a few photos with the friends and fam back home. Here are some highlights of the trip arranged around some kind of a theme, if possible. In this entry I will share some of the amazing and quirky buildings that I saw while in Paris. The first is of course the Louvre with its glass entrance pyramid by I.M.Pei.

Here's another glass and metal modern building that was on the Champs-Elysees, a street of high end boutiques and restaurant near the Arc de Triomphe.Both of which are in stark contrast to this random old building, where it looks like you could tie your horse up out front and order an ale.
I love these next few examples of using every available space (even vertical) to make green spaces.

And back to the modern: below is the exterior of the Pompidou Center, the museum of modern art. There is a great cafe at the top of the building, from which you can see all of Paris...

including this guy, the Sacre Coeur Basilica, which sits atop the hill of Montmartre. I trekked up there with my friend Kristen and saw many of the locations featured in one of my all-time favorite movies, "Amelie".

And this bad boy needs no introduction.

I also saw some amazing interiors. Here is just one of the many beautiful halls of the Louvre. I could have spent the entire five days just wandering the halls of this museum.

But then I wouldn't have had time to see some of Paris' other amazing sights. Here is the interior of the Musee D'Orsay, which is housed in a former railway station that was build in the 1900's. They have signs all over the place about not taking pictures so this initial picture (taken before I saw the sign) is the only one I have. There are many famous sculptures and a big collection of Impressionist paintings. When I was there, they were having a special collection around the themes of crime and punishment that was really fascinating.

And just to give you a bit of vertigo, here is a portion of ceiling from the Cluny Museum, which houses art from the middle ages, and below that is my friend Kristen descending her apartment's endless spiral staircase (there is no elevator).

Benoit and Two Rooms

More Tokyo restaurant coverage. Today, just in time to mentally prepare me for my trip to Paris next week, I had brunch with friends at a French bistro in Aoyama. It was the first nice day in a long series of crappy wet ones, so Peter decided it would be a good day to rally the troops. We all met at Benoit, up on the 10th floor of the La Porte building. I was the first to arrive and, while I waited in the library-themed bar area, got to really admire the beautiful interior of this restaurant. The bathroom alone is incredible.

After being led up the spiral staircase, past the amazing view coming from the floor to ceiling glass windows, we settled into our seats to peruse the menu, which had both prix fixe and a la carte offerings.

We all went for the three-course set meal. For the first course, Yuki went with the pea soup and I had the Pate en croute that I was so darned excited about, I forgot to take a picture of it. For the main, I opted for the ray wing with heavenly sauteed fennel (hard to find here), leeks and kalamata olives.

For dessert, 6 out of 7 of us decided to have the house specialty of chocolate and caramel with a sprinkling of fleur de sel. Despite looking like something dredged out of the pool in caddyshack, it was out of this world delicious! Then we all took a stroll down Aoyama dori to check out some art, do some shopping and decide where we wanted to go next. It was too lovely out to go home.

We ended up at Two Rooms, a little hidden oasis on the top of the AO building. The second best part about this space is the attitude of everyone there. No one is in a hurry. Everyone is lounging and appear to be on holiday time and the waitstaff does nothing to discourage that vibe. The best thing, of course, is the great view and the shiso mojitos aren't too shabby either. We stayed way too long, but it was a great way to start off my vacation (albeit a couple days early).

Art at the French Embassy

Last week was the closing of a temporary art installation at the former French Embassy. Sometime in the recent past, the French whosits moved to much schnazzier digs next door, leaving behind this rather quirky building with its inverted V entrance and 70s style architecture. Local artists decided to use this big empty space, a "No Man's Land" if you will, before it got bulldozed. For several months, they each used a room of the old embassy (some still featuring built-in filing cabinets and other bureaucratic details) to display their work. For the closing party, there was a dj spinning and red wine and french cheese. Also this robot rolled around the lobby like a roomba, bumping into people, changing course, bumping into other people.

The rooms showed a great variety of styles from sketches to found-art sculptures to interactive art to even a few performance pieces.
Plus, the hallways between rooms were covered with graffiti, some of which were really the highlights of the whole show.

At the very rear of the building, we found the Ambassador's office, which we decided to use as our own lounge. The Ambassador seemed to have rather interesting taste. His office door had beige leather quilted covering and, inside, every flat space --walls, floors, closet doors (including the one hiding the safe), cupboard faces, chairs-- was covered in beige suede.

This was the final night of the show, so there was a fun, celebratory feeling to the event, but the art was a bit tired and tattered. It was clear that all of the pieces had seen better days. But still it was really a blast to see all the local artists and hear so much French spoken.

Tokyo does French

I am considering making a separate blog for restaurants and food, but since our dining out is so sporadic, I thought I'd keep this here for now.

Last night I was feeling particularly flush and decadent and suggested we go to the french restaurant around the corner. It's called Petit Four. It is a very small place and only serves about 12 people. We arrived at about 8:30 on a friday night and were the only ones there. Not sure why this is, whether we were dining too late for this small place or whether business is just slow in August. I certainly hope it doesn't portend to an imminent closing of Un Petit Four, because I am now a *very* big fan.

For our first course, I had the chef favorite, foie gras creme brulee. Yes, you read that correctly. These two favorite things could have combined to form something truly awful, but on the contrary, it was a creamy, fatty heavenly custard (with a crunchy lid) that was cut perfectly with the tart vinaigrette on the salad.

Ryan had lovely little bits of roast beef, pickled things, a creamy tart drizzle and this small salad. There was also a little bit of pate in the lower right corner. We usually do a lot of sharing of our dishes, but I was totally bogarting the creme brule and don't remember having any of his app.
For our mains, Ryan had the fish of the day, which was a delicate white fish with a subtle cream sauce, and small japanese vegetables (that little green is our favorite micro-shiso).
My main was a perfectly-prepared filet that melted away in my mouth, served with sesame puree and basil puree, mushrooms and grilled potatoes.
Desserts were a chocolate cake for me and a panna cotta for Ryan, both sprinkled with fresh pineapple and sprigs of mint. mmmmmgooood.