Anniversary Dinner, 2019
So our anniversary happened to occur while we were in Japan. We didn’t plan our trip around our anniversary, but it was nice that it coincided with it. A few weeks before we left for our trip, I started looking for restaurants for our anniversary. In one of the many lists of places to eat in Tokyo, I discovered the Tapas Molecular Bar, which is a Michelin starred molecular gastronomy focused restaurant located within our hotel, so I called them up and made a reservation.
When we arrived to be seated, we were shown to the bar where all the action would take place. There are only eight seats at the bar, so you’re guaranteed to be able to talk and interact with the chefs behind the counter. We were then greeted by Chef Kento, who would be showing us all of the dishes and guiding us through our experience for the night. He grew up in Vancouver BC and moved to Japan a few years ago, so he was fluent in both languages.
The restaurant has two seatings per evening, and our group was the second seating. According to Kento, the previous group were all Japanese, so he spoke in Japanese for them, but for us, none of us spoke Japanese, so he had to speak English. But I think he made a comment that our group was more fun for him because we were more engaging with him during the night, while the previous group was more serious. It would have been interesting if our group was half Japanese and half non-Japanese speakers, because then he’d have to code switch a lot, which would be exhausting for him.
Anyway, back to the dinner. Our introduction for what was to come came in the form of the traditional hot hand towel:
I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie Spy, which stars Melissa McCarthy, but during our towel moment above, both of us were reminded of the following scene from that movie:
Fortunately for us, Kento told us beforehand that it was a towel, so no palate cleansing for us.
Next, we were instructed to unwrap the box that was behind the towel, and what we found was a small toolbox with utensils and other tools inside:
We were then told that we would be using all of the items in the toolbox for our dinner, and that the menu was also in there. So we started rummaging around trying to figure out where it would be. After a minute of searching we found it:
The entire menu was printed on the back of the measuring tape. Each dish was inspired from various parts of the world, thus the various flags that you can see in the photo. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take the tape home with us, so we don’t have a menu of the meal for me to reference for this blog post. Instead, you’ll just have to enjoy the photos and my attempts to remember what anything was…
Our first dish was some type of spherified item (egg yolk perhaps?) with some beef, I think:
We were off to a great start! Next was our first interactive dish of the night, a spring roll topped with some type of cottony food item that we would dissolve with the liquid in the pipette:
And then we continued into another interactive dish. I zoomed in on the photo of the menu earlier, and I think the following was chef Kento’s take on Saag Paneer:
I think I was basically injecting the ball with the Saag part of the Saag Paneer, and much like the previous dishes, it was all consumed within one bite. It’s amazing to think that all of these dishes took the chefs a lot of time, and we’re on the other end eating them up in less than a minute.
The next dish was a take on the classic Chinese Drunken Chicken. Chef Kento had already prepared the chicken, but needed to finish it at the table:
Ooooh, fire…
The final dish wasn’t engulfed in flames, but looked still looked pretty good:
Next, Chef Kento presented us with a cigar box with dry ice and ‘cigars’:
I think these were filled with foie gras, among other items, but I can’t remember. The cigars were presented to us on individual plates, and we were encouraged to hold them like cigars for our photos. Except, I had no idea what that looked like, so I was holding them like you would a cigarette, and Nick and Chef Kento were like, um, no, and had to show me how it was done. I look so unnatural holding a cigar, real or fake:
And now we come to the part where I can’t remember what we ate, so here are some photos of the beautiful dishes that came next:
And now we come to dessert. We were having so much fun seeing everything being prepared, talking to Chef Kento, and also to the couple next to us, who were celebrating their honeymoon, that we didn’t realize that we had gotten so far into the meal.
Our first dessert was a twist on the American apple pie:
For this dish, we needed to use the tiny hammer that was in the tool box to crack open the outer shell. Inside were apple juice pearls that would spill out. Eating the entire thing gave the impression that you were having an actual apple pie.
The next dessert was a mango custard that needed to be made individually, and included the following demonstration using ladles and a bowl of dry ice:
So he basically fills the ladle with the custard and then dips it into the dry ice to set the outside, but the inside is still liquid. Once it was plated, it took about a minute for the walls to start melting, which is why he had to prepare each one individually:
And then each party at the bar was given a surprise celebratory plate of sweets. For us, it was an anniversary plate, for the couple to my right, it was a honeymoon plate, and for the family to Nick’s left, it was a birthday plate:
And for our last dessert, we each had meringue mushrooms, but these were special, as shown in this video:
Chef Kento basically said, put it in your mouth, bite, and then breath out your nose. It was an interesting experience…
And that was the end of our dinner. We continued to chat with Kento about food and living in Japan. It was a great evening of delicious food and wonderful experiences.
Our next day in Tokyo would be spent wandering the palace garden and Shibuya.