Ben's Cookies Ginza Six (Tokyo, JAPAN) ★★★☆☆

I was still kicking myself for missing out on the chance to get my favorite chocolate cookies from Ben's Cookies in Tokyo 4 months ago (I did make up for it in Kyoto). Of course, I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice especially when my lunch venue was just steps away from their Ginza Six outpost.



I certainly didn't expect a lineup of over 20 people here. Am I missing something?

Perhaps this was the reason why. They had these cute little gift boxes available for Christmas and New Year. I was tempted to get my team members one each but I guess that's not feasible with my limited luggage space.

At the end, I just got ourselves a box of 25 pieces. That should be enough to keep ourselves from fighting over the last couple of pieces like we did last time.

Their white chocolate and milk chocolate cookies are my favorites. But sadly, there seemed to be a problem with this batch we got. While the typical Ben's Cookie was supposed to be soft and chewy with a warm, gooey centre, these ones turned out to be a little more crunchy. Was there something wrong with the temperature in the oven?

Food Rating: 5/10

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: B2F Ginza Six, 6-10-1 Ginza, Shibuya, Tokyo 104-0061, Japan

Closest Metro Station: Ginza

Tel: +81 3-6263-9881

Website: www.benscookies.jp

Opening Hours: 10:30am - 8:30pm daily 

ESqUISSE エスキス (Tokyo, JAPAN) ★★★★☆

Little nugget got sick on our fourth day in Tokyo, then mom got the virus from him. A few days later, just a day before we are about to leave, it was my turn to get really sick. While I could hardly walk, my memory was serving me well and I still remembered my highly anticipated lunch at two Michelin starred ESqUISSE (one of my first bookings for this trip). Am I going to call in sick? Not a chance.



Perched on the 9th floor of a building in upscale Ginza district, ESqUISSE (literally means "sketch" in French) blends top-notch Japanese ingredients with exquisite French cooking. Executive chef Lionel Beccat cut his teeth at Maison Troisgros in South of France and went on to helm the kitchen for 2 Michelin starred Cuisine[s] Michel Troisgros in Tokyo for 6 years before joining ESqUISSE in 2012.

Apart from the Michelin Guide, ESqUISSE has also been a fixture in the annual Asia Best Restaurant awards. This year, they are ranked No.83 on a list filled with Tokyo-based restaurants.

ESqUISSE normally serves three different tasting menus (5, 6 and 7 course) during lunch but since it's Christmas season, they are only offering the longest version at this time. 

Bread, tomato, white truffle – My lunch got off to a flying start with a homemade brioche with thin slices of winter truffle hanging on top.

Between the brioche and white truffle from Italy, there were dried tomatoes and pesto to give the nibble some nice savory flavors.

Crab, fennel, caviar – A pretty innovative dish with spanner crab meat and fennel hidden underneath a sauce made with cream cheese, finished off elegantly with caviar on top.

A minimalist dish with some lovely acidity to match the sweetness of the crab meat and saltiness of caviar.

Squid, spinach, seri – Japanese squid cooked over creamy squid juice, was served with organic spinach leaves. The squid juice was the catalyst here combining well with the Comté cheese, sake and seri, the Japanese water celery for a heart-warming finish that proved to be perfect on a winter day like this.  

Some sourdough bread was served up while I patiently waited for my Ise ebi dish to arrive.

Ise ebi, carrot, kumquat – Beautifully cooked Ise ebi topped with fennel paste, was perfectly complemented by some subtle sweetness from the carrot purée and kumquat. A light vegetable broth provided the ebi with a fine finishing touch.

A well-designed dish but with a minor blemish from the slightly chewy shrimp.

Sawara, cauliflower, yellow wine – Next up was superbly cooked Japanese sawara fish matched with a rich and tangy yellow wine sauce. Served on the side was a small cauliflower and simple condiment of Comté cheese which has been flavored with citrus. Another dish with minimalist presentation but highly successful results. 

Turnip, pine nut, black truffle – Here I got a change of pace from the chef with a slice of poached turnip covered with black truffle and pine nuts sitting on a deceptively intense beef broth flavored with pine needles. The crunchy turnip worked with the truffle and nuts a lot better than I thought; and the broth really added some nice meaty flavors to the mix. 

Beef, beetroot, blackcurrant – Finally, it was time for my meat course.

Prized wagyu beef from Tochigi Prefecture (栃木県) served medium was really soft and wobbly. I thought the red wine reduction was a tad thick and strong. There were a lot of savory flavors and acidity (from the black currant and powder) in the dish but just not enough sweetness (beetroot confit) to balance things out. 

Pumpkin, persimmon, saffron – My favorite dessert out of the two. Light pumpkin mousse was paired with fresh persimmon, saffron jelly and lemon juice so a bit of zesty flavors and aroma of a chilled wine (which I forgot to jot down the name of) on top of all the sweetness.

Cocoa, pear, buckwheat – This tasted a bit like a mille feuille with the savory-sweet buckwheat and cocoa puff pastry hugging around a patch of salted caramel ganache and pear compote, finished with a touch of cocoa sauce flavored with brown sugar on the side. Not bad.

I was absolutely stuffed at this point and they tried to kill me with one last sweet treat, a sweet "dumpling" with syrup and what I thought was apple compote as the filling.  

Chef Beccat wasn't in today but I did bump into Monsieur Lionel Lavernhe, the restaurant's director who had been working at L'Osier a while back. I recognized him right away and almost told him about the time that he rescued my camera from his crew back in 2014. Couldn't believe that was a decade ago already.

Food Rating: 7.7/10

Price: ￥￥￥￥

Address: 5-4-6 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0061, Japan

Closest Metro Station: Ginza

Tel: +81 3-5537-5580

Website: www.esquissetokyo.com

Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 1:00pm, 6:00pm - 8:30pm daily

S. Pellegrino Asia's 50 Best Restaurants: 67th (2023)

Fructus Shibuya Scramble Square フラクタス 渋谷スクランブルスクエア店 (Tokyo, JAPAN) ★★☆☆☆

Our legs were getting a little sore walking around Shibuya coupled with the fact that the streets were absolutely packed with locals doing last-minute shopping for new year, we had no choice but decided to call it the day. Our last mission of the day was a quick visit to the Shibuya Scramble Square food hall for some bread tomorrow.



But I had another thing in mind. Perhaps one last dessert or pastry before we took off in approximately 36 hours.

Fructus is a local French patisserie specializing in delicate pastries like Mont Blanc, chocolate cakes and cheese cakes, and they happened to have an outlet right here in the food hall.

Mont Blanc – This looks like a "serviceable" Mont Blanc tart. I don't think I have one during this trip. 

Looks like they had two layers of chestnut purée on the outside, one which had been sweetened. Well, I must admit that I didn't fully enjoy it. The chestnut purée was a bit on the hard side and as usual, it comes with a centre of fresh cream which just made the whole thing a lot sweeter than it should be.

Food Rating: 4.2/10

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: 1/F Shibuya Scramble Square, 2-24-12 Shibuya, Shibuya, Tokyo 150-0002, Japan

Closest Metro Station: Shibuya

Tel: +81 3-3499-2727

Opening Hours: 10:00am - 9:00pm daily

Kipposhi Ramen 拉麵吉法師 (Tokyo, JAPAN) ★★★☆☆

I promised my ramen-loving son back in August that we would bring him to Kipposhi Ramen (拉麵吉法師) for their signature blue ramen (藍色拉麵) but with our super tight schedule in Tokyo, we never got the chance to do so. Four months later, I finally kept that promise just ahead of 2024.



Kipposhi is located just a few steps from Shibuya's newest attraction, Miyashita Park but it's not the easiest place to locate even with your Google Map (more on that later). We got in just after 6pm and managed to get ourselves a table without problem.

As it turned out, Kipposhi is not a one-trick pony. Apart from their now-famous "Blue Ramen", they also have a green, red and yellow ramen ready to be served!

Clear chicken soup “Blue” (雞清湯 青) – This was what we came here for, their highly coveted blue ramen! I previously read about how they turned the clear chicken soup into blue color; and the secret recipe was some sort of seaweed. But apparently not according to their English menu. Here they mentioned that the blue color actually came from a type of blue salt.

I thought the chicken broth was pretty light in flavors and unlike a typical chicken paitan ramen (鶏白湯), the noodles were not really sticking to the broth much.  

The soft-boiled egg was pretty nice.

The roasted chicken fillet was fairly tender.

Clear chicken soup “muscat” (雞清湯 白葡萄) – The green version of clear chicken soup ramen was infused with muscat juice and thus the green color. It came with more or less the same ingredients; but I thought the broth had some fruity notes added to it (a tiny bit of sweetness and acidity).

Little nugget was so happy to finally check this one off his list.

Back to the location of Kipposhi, it's situated inside this building on the mezzanine floor. The easiest way is to first locate the 7-11 store on the ground floor.

Miyashita Park is more than just a park obviously and there are some really hip boutiques out there. I was fortunate enough to squeeze out some precious time for some window shopping before our ramen dinner. That took some seriously effective time management!

Food Rating: 5.5/10

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: Daines Ichibankan Shibuya 102, 1-11-5 Jinnan, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 105-0041, Japan

Closest Metro Station: Shibuya

Tel: +81 3-6712-7285

Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 3:00pm, 6:00pm - 9:00pm (Thu - Tue)

Lina Stores Limited Omotesando リナストアズ 表参道 (Tokyo, JAPAN) ★★★☆☆

Two hours in Omotesando was all it took for little nugget to realize that he had enough of shopping already (more like watching us do shopping). Instead he wanted to spend time on an afternoon tea so we wound up sitting down at Lina Stored Ltd. (リナストアズ 表参道), just a couple of hours before dinner time.



The interior design of Lina Stores Ltd. takes inspiration from a modern European café.

I had to start off with a cappuccino first just to get my daily caffeine fix out of the way.

Mom who has been under the weather, had a few coughs here and there and so......she's getting herself a chestnut choux bun! A dilemma as I could tell from her expression. To eat or not to eat, that was the question! Of course, she couldn't resist since she's such a big chestnut fan.

When little one said he wanted afternoon tea, I was expecting something sweet and the idea of ordering a pasta dish never came across my mind. But this was a pretty good pick if someone wanted a savory dish. The thick, hand-rolled pici pasta was nicely tossed with pork and porcini mushroom, finished off beautifully with a shower of shaved Parmigiano Reggiano. I had a couple of wracks at this and apparently, the pasta drizzling with mushroom sauce was perfectly al dente.

This guy was busy with his toy at the same time while he was enjoying his pasta. Very good work of multi-tasking.

This was the way we wrapped up our lazy afternoon. We didn't have dinner planned out yet but we're heading towards Shibuya, and hopefully we thought of something on the train.

Food Rating: 5/10

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: 1/F Spring Terrace Omotesando, 3-10-5 Kita-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0061, Japan

Closest Metro Station: Omotesando

Tel: +81 3-6427-3758

Opening Hours: 11:00am - 11:00pm daily

The Roastery by Nozy Coffee (Tokyo, JAPAN) ★★★☆☆

Instead of shopping at the outlets, we all chose to spend a quiet day in Harajuku, Omotesando and Shibuya. It's not what we expected from Day One when we were drawing up our plan but everyone seemed to be a little fatigued following the week-long vacation.



Upon our arrival in Omotesando, Jelloman and others immediately went to check out Kiddyland leaving yours truly with a few minutes of Me Time which I decided to spend wisely. After stopping by a few shops on Cat Street, next up for me was The Roastery by Nozy Coffee, a coffee shop known for its freshly brewed coffee and doughnuts. Yes, doughnuts! 



I'm actually here for their New York rings.

NY Rings (470yen) – The cronut-like creation seemed to have shrunk a bit after a few hours.

But the exterior remained very flaky like a typical croissant. Not bad.

Time flies when you're having a good time. Didn't realize more than a few minutes have passed and I am starting to get messages left and right on my whereabouts. It's time to meet up with the gang again for our next destination.

Food Rating: 5.5/10

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: 1/F Reveur Jingumae, 5-17-13 Jingumae, Shibuya, Tokyo 150-0001, Japan

Closest Metro Station: Meiji-jingumae Harajuku

Tel: +81 3-6450-5755

Opening Hours: 10:00am - 8:00pm daily

Grigio la tavola (Tokyo, JAPAN) ★★★☆☆

I had Lalaport Tokyo Bay penciled in as our only agenda item on our second last day in Tokyo but with everybody starting to get the flu bug (except Jelloman), I decided to simply take it easy on this day. 



Instead of leaving our hotel early, we stuck around until noon time and ventured out to the nearby Akasaka Biz Tower for lunch. There were a few options out there including Harry Potter Cafe but we ended up sitting down at the patio of Grigio la tavola for some simple Italian dishes.

The 3-course and 4-course lunch sets all came with a plain salad that has been showered with a pretty powerful vinaigrette dressing.

Some focaccia before our pasta dishes arrived.

Fusilli with tomato sauce, tuna, mushroom – Little guy couldn't stop coughing these days so we ordered this simple fusilli dish tossed with tomato sauce for him.

He seemed to like it (not that he had much choice)...

Spaghetti with cream sauce, Chinese cabbage, scallop – This was way better than the fusilli. The creamy spaghetti was nicely matched with shredded Chinese cabbage and scallops. It was really tender but firm to the bite. And I like what the Chinese cabbage and scallops brought to the table in terms of contrasting textures. Very nicely done. 

Chicken Fricassée – For those who ordered the 4-course set, there was another meat course following the pasta dish. The chicken steak was served with roasted pumpkin and finished off with an overpowering mustard sauce and rosemary. 

Tiramisu – There was no way I would say no to a tiramisu. Not when I haven't enjoyed this iconic Italian dessert for nearly a month. I thought the texture of this was just perfect but the flavors were a little on the bitter side.

Always got time for a cup of hot milk tea.

Somehow I found it a little too cold to be sitting outside this afternoon but the slow pacing from the kitchen squandered any hope for us to escape the cold weather within an hour.

Food Rating: 5/10

Price: ￥￥

Address: 1/F Akasaka Biz Tower, 5-3-1 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-6301, Japan

Closest Metro Station: Akasaka

Tel: +81 3-5545-6885

Opening Hours: 11:00am - 10:00pm (Sat - Thu), 11:00am - 11:00pm (Fri)

The Yokohama Gundam Factory (Just before closing!)

One of the things we wanted to do while we were visiting Yokohama was a trip to The Gundam Factory. The hugely popular attraction at Yamashita Pier in Yokohama was initially set to be open from December 2020 until early 2022 but thanks to the immense support from fans all over the world, it has been expanded for two more years.

The site boasted a museum and souvenir shop. There was supposed to be a themed café too but it wasn't open during our visit.

Of course, the main attraction was the 18-metre-tall moving Gundam robot from the Japanese animated franchise Gundam, the first moving mech of its type.

We just missed one of the two spectacular night shows that featured the Gundam moving around its deck. 

Little nugget met up with his friends and needless to say, they had to take a few photos in front of the Gundam together.

While I wasn't a huge fan of Gundam myself, it was a trip down memory lane for me as I grew up watching the famous cartoon too.

Following a long long wait, it was time for the second and final show tonight.

     

This was more than impressive~!

After spending an hour and a half at the site, we finally left for a shopping mall nearby for dinner. 

Yeah, sushi for dinner starting with some fresh scallops. Mom doesn't eat raw seafood but she wasn't eating anyways. She just lost her voice yesterday and it wasn't getting much better today. 

Little guy's favorite.

After dinner, we spent some time at the arcade centre where the kids played with the claw machines and more.

It was great to check this off my list of things to do in Yokohama. Rumors had The Gundam Factory shutting down for good in late March 2024 so we just made it in the nick of time.

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: 279-25 Yamashitacho, Naka Ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa 231-0023, Japan

Closest Metro Station: Minatomirai / Bashamichi

Tel: +81 120-158-686

Opening Hours: 11:00am - 8:00pm (Mon - Fri), 11:00am - 8:00pm (Sat - Sun)