zomg tokyo! day 15
tagged under
livejournal,
tokyo
Day 15 (20 September)
Two full days left means it's time to go shopping! Souvenirs that have become necessary, gifts for other people, and impulse purchases must all be acquired! And, under no circumstances, are more undergarments to be purchased.
The highlight of shopping was, at least for Matt, buying a new messenger bag. His previous one After examining almost every bag in Tokyo, Matt had decided on a Zero Halliburton one. The lowlight was searching for cufflinks.
Matt brought his favorite collared shirt with its French cuffs, which he planned to wear to Tapas Molecular Bar, located in the Oriental Lounge in the hotel. The Tapas Bar is limited to seven seats at each of two nightly seatings, so we made reservations well in advance. However, we did not notice that the cufflinks for said shirt never made it into the luggage until the day of, so we ended up searching for acceptable ones in almost every store in Tokyo. At least it felt that way. Every pair we saw was either too expensive (23000 yen), too ugly, or some hideous combination of the two. As it approached 1730, an acceptable pair was located in Mitsukoshi. Mini-esque cufflinks for 6000 yen. The old Mini, not the new one.
Purchase complete, time to hurry back to the hotel so we could shower off the rain in time for our 2030 reservation. Or was it 2000? Maybe 2015? After a bit of arguing, we stopped at the front desk for the Tapas Bar. Well, that turned out to be an amazing decision since our reservation was for the 1800 seating. That left us with exactly negative minutes to get to our seats. Instead of getting nicely dressed, we just hopped in the elevator, dropped our bags in the room, and hurried back upstairs for food.
The theme of the evening was air, which should tell you just how bizarre the foods were. Seeing as how there were more than 25 courses, you'll have to make due with descriptions of the weirdest molecules. And in no particular order... Early on came the Strawberry and Pesto Spaghetti. The spaghetti wasn't actually spaghetti, but stuff squeezed out of a tube in the shape of spaghetti. As for the sauce, it tasted almost like a tomato pesto sauce. I could have eaten an entire serving of the stuff, but had to do with a tiny molecule.
-196 Kyoho Grape consisted of...... grapes! Two grapes, to be specific. The first was flash frozen with liquid nitrogen. The second started out as a balloon filled with grape juice, wine, and probably something else. It was rolled around in liquid nitrogen to create a frozen outer layer, then the ballon was removed. There's a reason it is called -196, and my mouth didn't exactly appreciate the temperature.
The Juicy Lamb was very appropriately named. Despite ample warning and instructions from the chef, mine went squirt. Lamb juice was everywhere. Yummy delicious lamb juice. Oops.
Miso soup usually comes in liquid form. In this case it was liquidish, reminiscent of an egg yolk. And just like the lamb, it went squirt. At least this one was in my mouth, where it tasted like regular miso soup. Weird.
My favorite molecule was, by far, Blue Hawaii. It's the perfect name when you think about it. It was blue and made of Hawaii. Oh wait, maybe not. I didn't quite follow what exactly it was, but if you put a big spoonful in your mouth and chewed with your mouth closed, blue smoke would come out of your nose. Maybe the smoke was from Hawaii? Regardless, how often do you see blue smoke coming out of people's noses, much less good tasting smoke? Maybe once in a blue moon.
My second favorite was the final course, which started with miracle berries. You chew on the berry for 1 minute, then spit out the seed. It does some funky stuff to your taste buds, and suddenly sour foods, such as lime, taste very sweet. The sensation lasts for up to two hours, so afterwards we headed over to the bar. Matt absolutely had to have a gin and tonic to find out how it would taste. His analysis was weird, but good. I maintained my gin boycott and took his word for it.
The day went seriously downhill from there, when we headed downstairs to our room to begin packing. I'll spare you the details.
Two full days left means it's time to go shopping! Souvenirs that have become necessary, gifts for other people, and impulse purchases must all be acquired! And, under no circumstances, are more undergarments to be purchased.
The highlight of shopping was, at least for Matt, buying a new messenger bag. His previous one After examining almost every bag in Tokyo, Matt had decided on a Zero Halliburton one. The lowlight was searching for cufflinks.
Matt brought his favorite collared shirt with its French cuffs, which he planned to wear to Tapas Molecular Bar, located in the Oriental Lounge in the hotel. The Tapas Bar is limited to seven seats at each of two nightly seatings, so we made reservations well in advance. However, we did not notice that the cufflinks for said shirt never made it into the luggage until the day of, so we ended up searching for acceptable ones in almost every store in Tokyo. At least it felt that way. Every pair we saw was either too expensive (23000 yen), too ugly, or some hideous combination of the two. As it approached 1730, an acceptable pair was located in Mitsukoshi. Mini-esque cufflinks for 6000 yen. The old Mini, not the new one.
Purchase complete, time to hurry back to the hotel so we could shower off the rain in time for our 2030 reservation. Or was it 2000? Maybe 2015? After a bit of arguing, we stopped at the front desk for the Tapas Bar. Well, that turned out to be an amazing decision since our reservation was for the 1800 seating. That left us with exactly negative minutes to get to our seats. Instead of getting nicely dressed, we just hopped in the elevator, dropped our bags in the room, and hurried back upstairs for food.
The theme of the evening was air, which should tell you just how bizarre the foods were. Seeing as how there were more than 25 courses, you'll have to make due with descriptions of the weirdest molecules. And in no particular order... Early on came the Strawberry and Pesto Spaghetti. The spaghetti wasn't actually spaghetti, but stuff squeezed out of a tube in the shape of spaghetti. As for the sauce, it tasted almost like a tomato pesto sauce. I could have eaten an entire serving of the stuff, but had to do with a tiny molecule.
-196 Kyoho Grape consisted of...... grapes! Two grapes, to be specific. The first was flash frozen with liquid nitrogen. The second started out as a balloon filled with grape juice, wine, and probably something else. It was rolled around in liquid nitrogen to create a frozen outer layer, then the ballon was removed. There's a reason it is called -196, and my mouth didn't exactly appreciate the temperature.
The Juicy Lamb was very appropriately named. Despite ample warning and instructions from the chef, mine went squirt. Lamb juice was everywhere. Yummy delicious lamb juice. Oops.
Miso soup usually comes in liquid form. In this case it was liquidish, reminiscent of an egg yolk. And just like the lamb, it went squirt. At least this one was in my mouth, where it tasted like regular miso soup. Weird.
My favorite molecule was, by far, Blue Hawaii. It's the perfect name when you think about it. It was blue and made of Hawaii. Oh wait, maybe not. I didn't quite follow what exactly it was, but if you put a big spoonful in your mouth and chewed with your mouth closed, blue smoke would come out of your nose. Maybe the smoke was from Hawaii? Regardless, how often do you see blue smoke coming out of people's noses, much less good tasting smoke? Maybe once in a blue moon.
My second favorite was the final course, which started with miracle berries. You chew on the berry for 1 minute, then spit out the seed. It does some funky stuff to your taste buds, and suddenly sour foods, such as lime, taste very sweet. The sensation lasts for up to two hours, so afterwards we headed over to the bar. Matt absolutely had to have a gin and tonic to find out how it would taste. His analysis was weird, but good. I maintained my gin boycott and took his word for it.
The day went seriously downhill from there, when we headed downstairs to our room to begin packing. I'll spare you the details.
1 comment:
OMG yes!!!!!
"My favorite molecule was, by far, Blue Hawaii. It's the perfect name when you think about it. It was blue and made of Hawaii. Oh wait, maybe not. I didn't quite follow what exactly it was, but if you put a big spoonful in your mouth and chewed with your mouth closed, blue smoke would come out of your nose. Maybe the smoke was from Hawaii? Regardless, how often do you see blue smoke coming out of people's noses, much less good tasting smoke? Maybe once in a blue moon."
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! hahaha. Hilarious! =)
Post a Comment