Tokyo sushi day: back at Saito

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I'm spending about 30 hours in Tokyo on a whirlwind trip.  The main event of the trip would be my lunch date at Sushi Saito (鮨さいとう), which was booked when I visited for the first time in March.  Even though I'm busy as hell at work and have a crazy flying schedule, one does not give up a seat at Saito easily.  So I hopped on the redeye and landed at 5 a.m. this morning.

After catching a few more hours of sleep at my hotel, I dragged my tired ass out of bed and headed out to lunch with The Dining Austrian.

The first thing I noticed as we were getting seated was how tight the space was.  Sure enough, today there were 10 seats at the counter... so the chairs were literally touching each other.  And I counted 5 to 6 foreigners at the main counter...

As usual, we start with a series of otsumami (おつまみ) before getting to the sushi portion.

Salmon roe (イクラ) – as usual, the fragrance of yuzu (柚子) zest is alluring.

Deep-fried birthday

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Mr and Mrs Birdiegolf wanted to get together for a belated celebration of Hello Kitty’s birthday, and much to my surprise, the birthday girl chose to have tempura… and requested that we revisit Tenkai (天海).

This being Halloween, and seeing that the group of protestors have decided to descend upon Lan Kwai Fong (蘭桂坊) and Soho to disrupt Halloween, we were grateful to be dining to the west of the action. However, this meant that we were delayed in our arrival, and Hello Kitty was stuck in traffic. The end result of it all was that Nagasawa-san had his resting bitch face on the whole evening…

We were introduced to the three types of salt in front of us, each from a different area and with different flavor profile. These were Heda salt (戸田塩) from Izu City (伊豆市) in Shizuoka Prefecture (静岡県); wasabi salt from Shizuoka City, and seaweed salt (藻塩) from Kure City (呉市) in Hiroshima Prefecture (広島県).

Our starter (小鉢) was a small bowl of Kagoshima (鹿児島) A4 wagyu with some mushrooms and vegetables.

The tempura portion started with a prawn head. This is always good.

Eating fish and meat like a white girl

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Ro Ro and DaRC are kinda hosting a dinner, and Hello Kitty and I have been invited to join the fun.  This was also an excuse for the gang to celebrate two October birthdays, so I decided to bring slightly nicer wines than usual.  Hello Kitty was pretty excited about this dinner, because it would be her first chance to try out the cuisine at The Sports Club (五陵會).

Looking at the menu, and one could be forgiven for thinking that there was a celebratory feast going on...

Pickled cucumbers and century eggs (酸青瓜皮蛋) - I really liked the texture of the pickled cucumbers.  The century eggs produced some interesting results with the Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet.

Bitter gourd with preserved olives and mustard leaves (欖菜涼瓜條)

Deep-fried prawns with salted egg yolk (金沙蝦球) - deep-fried.  Lathered in gooey, salted egg yolk.  How does anyone resist these?!

A day by the north shore

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I bid farewell to the Mandarin Oriental Geneva bright and early, and headed to the Gare de Genève Cornavin for my morning train out of town.  I'm meeting Mr. and Mrs. B, who are taking me sightseeing today.  This is my third time in Geneva, and honestly I didn't get to see much of the area around Lake Geneva on my previous trips.  My friends very kindly picked me up from the train station near their home, and we drove to the vineyard terraces of Lavaux - which have been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It was, unfortunately, drizzling and gray.  Not really possible to take pretty pictures of the lake today.  Oh well...

Our first stop was Lavaux Vinorama - a tasting room where one can sample wines from many different small producers.  To be honest, I haven't had much experience with Swiss wines, not to mention good Swiss wines... but I was willing to keep an open mind and try.  We ordered a few glasses and shared them, taking a few sips of each.  The tasting notes are here.

Lunch was at Là-Haut, a restaurant in Chardonne with views of the lake.  Mr. and Mrs. B had been here when it was under the former chef, and they were curious how the style would have changed under new chef Mathieu Bruno.

Our meal stated with a few mises en bouche:

This was cucumber, verbena, and lemon.  After a nice and refreshing hit, turned somewhat bitter in the middle.

8 years and 400 kilometers apart

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I got done with the last meeting on this trip early this morning, which left the rest of the day for strolling around the city.  After resting up back in my room at the Mandarin Oriental Geneva, we went out around the old town, and eventually ended up at Carnivor du Centre to grab some lunch.

As a treat for finishing a week of meetings, I ordered myself a glass of Kir.  This used to be my go-to drink in French-speaking territories, and I still enjoy it from time to time.

I haven't been getting enough veggies and fruits for the last few days, so I figured I owed myself some greens.  This salade verte au mesclun de jeunes pousses cost CHF 7...