French Date in Tokyo

Took V on a date today to Iidabashi to try out how the Japanese do French cuisine. Our original plans for lunch got trashed since we woke up too late, but we quickly recovered for dinner plans.

The Kagurazaka area is home to a decent French population due to the presence of multiple French academies, and with the French comes French food. As far as I can tell Kagurazaka is actually closer to Iidabashi Station rather than Kagurazaka Station for some reason. I did a little research, found a place heralded for its value, called Tokyo Paris Shokudo in the early afternoon and successfully made a reservation for 8 PM (*pat on the back). Shokudo actually is in Iidabashi rather than Kagurazaka, so we might have to head back sometime to check out if there are any patisseries in the area.

V and I both dressed up a bit just in case (well actually I told her to dress up cuz the whole thing was a secret), but when we got there we found a cozy shop low on decor and fancy-pants-ness in general. I realized that putting on a shirt and tie in Japan just makes me look like I came from work in Tokyo. In the US, most people don't wear a tie, but it's totally common practice here. Not sure what I can do about this. I think I need to find another outfit for a nice dinner.

Either way, we totally didn't need to dress up for Shokudo. The crowd was mostly Japanese, the tables were laminate, the tableware a little overused, and the napkins paper. It did make for a nice and cozy bistro feel, but for all the atmosphere would it deliver on taste?

The menu choices were available only in sets; the smaller set included an appetizer, entree, and dessert and cost 2800 Yen. This was more than enough food for us, and there were plenty of choices in terms of appetizers and entrees. We had a lot of difficulty making our way around the menu as it was handwritten. V had difficulty reading the kanji and I had difficulty reading the kana. Shoot, I even had difficulty reading the French.

Interesting side-note: anyone who has experience ordering French knows that les entrees are actually the appetizers and les plats are the entrees. When you talk to each other in English, this can get very confusing, and V and I had a disjointed conversation about what to order because of this.

We figured out what everything was eventually and I ordered the fish of the day and the smoked duck breast for myself and the lamb as well as a smoked salmon mille crepe for V. I'm not sure why I decided to get smoked duck breast since I don't really enjoy it that much. Pretty good this time but I probably wouldn't order it again. The smoked salmon mille crepe was actually really good. Layered pastry with cream cheese and smoked salmon...yep, delicious. The lamb was topped with a basil sauce and was unfortunately overcooked a bit and quite tough. My fish was prepared classically with a butter sauce. The Thai fish that was used had a fishiness similar to mackerel, and I didn't really feel like it fit the dish well.

Overall dinner was good and worth 2800 Yen, but certainly not good enough to bring us back anytime soon. I was hoping for something a little better, but now I'm left with this feeling of whether or not I can trust the Japanese to do French food. We still have some exploring to do, but do we really have the resources to hunt down the good eats? Do we have the money to keep experimenting? More dates?