I'd been meaning to get to this one after going there the day after Portugal beat England in the World Cup, but other things have intervened and Hikaru Okabe @ the Tokyo Food Page has a review that says pretty much everything I wanted to.
The only thing that marred our experience of the evening was a noisy, drunken idiot at the table next to us (judging from his companions and the conversation, we pegged him as some kind of teacher from nearby Meiji Gakuin, there with two seminar students), who spent an interminable length of time going on about how he wanted to take on America and grind it into dust. Presumably he meant in the business arena and wasn't planning on a frontal military assault, but we were trying not to listen.
None of which detracts from the fact that Manuel is great. The location is obscure, but it's a great, relaxing place to hang out, and the number of wines by the glass was extensive. On the latter, I'm not sure how many varieties are listed on the menu; we just kept making appreciative comments and asking if we could try something else, and the friendly staff happily obliged and gave us a quick rundown on what we were getting.
[Read: Manuel Churrascaria: Shirogane-Takanawa - bento.com review]
Meguro Spanish with terrible cooking despite the authentic and high-quality ham and other ingredients -- stay away.
2-16-3 Kami-Osaki, Shinagawa-ku
03-5420-5328
Website
Very rarely in Tokyo have I found myself coming away from a meal feeling that I was fobbed off with poor food and overcharged into the bargain. The latter alone is fairly common; indeed, it's a given in certain parts of town. But getting served bad food is rare. And so, while I've tried to confine myself to writing up favourite restaurants thus far, I'm making an exception to write a cautionary tale about this one.
My spouse and I have been on something of a European spree recently--Portuguese, Italian, French, Spanish--and Casa de Fujimori was a lingering entry on the to-do list given its nearness to Meguro station; in fact, we'd found it full on one previous attempt to get a table on spec. This time we were lucky, at least in that we were able to get in.
The place is spacious and looks the part, and we were getting ready to like it. A couple of initial dishes showcased the quality of the fresh ingredients: a white asparagus and tomato salad, and some excellent, walnutty raw ham from Andalucia, the latter on the menu as part of a limited-time fair involving food from the region.
Then the fun started.
Another item we'd picked from the Andalucian menu, an "omelet" of baby shrimp (sakuraebi), turned up so sodden with oil that we were moved to soak up the excess with some tissues, and despite that proved alternately soggy with oil or burnt to a crisp on tasting. As I couldn't spot any vindictive ex-girlfriends in the kitchen, I was at a loss as to how something so terrible could have made it onto the table.
This vied for worst place with the paella, however. It looked OK on arrival, but as the waitress began dividing it up onto plates for us it soon became apparent that the lower half of the pan's contents were burned black. "You-er-cook it pretty thoroughly, don't you?" said my spouse, to cover her shock. "Yes, that's our style", responded the waitress. Oh well, we thought; at least half of it's edible.
At this point, however, the waitress rolled up her sleeves for the second part of the performance and began attacking the blackly caked-on remainder. Had I been carrying a hammer and chisel I'd have lent her them; she must have been developing forearms like iron rods hacking this stuff off with a spatula umpteen times a day.
She eventually finished, mixed all the black stuff together with the rice remaining in the pan that had, until that point, still been edible, and left us.
We tried a bit, but there was such a colossal volume of oil soaked into the black, manky stuff now mixed with the rice that it left us feeling queasy. I didn't have much appetite the following day, either.
We wondered for a moment whether we'd been unlucky, but the couple at the table alongside us had ordered the same paella, which turned up moments afterward, and they got exactly the same half-burnt dish and the same ritual scraping. I didn't notice whether they ate it all or not -- by that point, our spirits were halfway out of the door -- but perhaps they were old hands who'd swallowed a black bin-liner each before dining to inhibit absorption of the oil.
In short, we left feeling stiffed; I am never going back.
If you are looking for a Spanish restaurant in the area, give Sabado Sabadete a try, and ignore Tokyo Food Page's review ("Perfectly ordinary paella and tapas at inflated Shiroganedai prices"), which is one of their rare misjudgements. You'll come out feeling you've eaten a decent meal for probably less money, and all you have to contend with is the occasional pushiness on the part of the staff in suggesting you order the paella. After all, it's good paella.
Bonus: Here's a review in Japanese I wrote about the place on Livedoor Gourmet in the hope of steering others away; in case it gets taken down, the text is pasted after the jump.
目黒にはよく行きますし、この店の看板を通ると「今度入ってみよう」と思っていたのですが、金曜日の夜やっと入ってみました。
皆さんがパエージャを絶賛されていますが、私に言わせればパエージャを含め、味は「普通」から「まずい」の間でした。
まずはアンダルシアのフェアをやっているとのことだったので期間限定のメニューより桜海老のスペイン風オムレツを注文したのですが、出てきたものは大量の油がしみていて、ティッシュで油を吸い取ったあとじゃないととても食べれない品物でした。それでも、食べてみると焦げと油のダブルパンチでとてもプロの料理人が作ったと思えない味でした。
次は人気のパエージャですが、美味しそうな表面の下に黒い悪夢が隠れていました。店員が皿に分け始めると、上半分はちゃんとしっとりとしたご飯になっているのに、下半分は真っ黒で鍋に焦げついているのが見えてきました。連れが驚いて「し、しっかり焼くんですね」と一言。すると店員は平然と「そうですね、うちはこういうスタイルで」的な返事。さらに驚くことに、上半分の焦げていないところを皿に分けてくれたあと、黒焦げの部分を全力で剥がし始めたではないか。食べさせる気なのです。
これは決して和食でいう美味しいおこげではありません。油の染みた、黒い、食べると胃の調子がおかしくなってしまいそうになる物体です。がんばって少し食べてみたが、まずい以外表現のしようがありません。
しかも、うちだけ外れたかなと思いきや、隣の二人連れもうちと同じ種類のパエージャを頼んでいて、やはり同じように黒焦げを剥がして食わせる拷問のワンシーンが隣でも繰り広げられました。
仕入れている素材（生ハムなど）は最高級のものなのに対して、料理の腕がまるで素人レベルだったとは本当に驚きです。数日たっても、あの食事を思い出してみると怒りがこみ上げてきます。感想を要約しますと「ぼられた」の一言で、二度とこの店には入りません。
Akita izakaya with an emphasis on fresh local ingredients
Izumi 2-6-14, Akita-shi
018-864-3220
Website
Didn't get out much on a sojourn at my spouse's relatives in Akita this Golden Week, but we did try this izakaya out last night. Turns out the owner is an avid fisherman and potter, which means freshly-caught ayu on the menu and handmade sake cups and flasks. Portions are on the small side and prices are highish for the locale, but the main attraction is the reasonably-priced and extensive range of sake, with varieties from inside and outside the prefecture taking up roughly equal space. The one blip was the chinmi selection, which went slightly too far into obscurity for our tastes--various bits of ooze from obscure fishy internal organs that were a touch too bitter and/or salty. The bill was about Y5,000 per head for an ample amount of food and drink.
Upper-class Nishi-Azabu tonkatsu.
Nishi-Azabu 2-24-9
03-5466-6775
Website
These people are very serious about their pig. The Gifu kenton pork that is Butagumi's standard is a specially-bred, low-volume variety produced at a few selected Gifu farms, and seems to be the most popular item on the menu; they also serve an Iberico pork tonkatsu limited to 10 servings per day, and--just to underline their fanaticism--the restaurant has a blog that seems to exist purely for the purpose of announcing the limited-edition pork varieties that form the remainder of the menu. I mean literally the remainder, by the way--the menu consists of five varieties of tonkatsu (roast and fillet for each of the Gifu and limited varieties, and roast only for the Iberico) and nothing else. (There is a drinks menu, of course.)
The tonkatsu is dead-on perfect -- cut into thick pieces, with a crisp coating of breadcrumbs around very juicy, tender meat. There's some fat, but it melts away before you have a chance to worry too much about it. The Japanese cliche about particularly tasty foods making you want a bowl of white rice doesn't usually affect me, but on this occasion the sheer appetite boost from the pork drove me to ask for a second bowl.
Budget: about Y6,000 for two, including a couple of drinks.