V landed at Haneda at 8 something, and although I went to pick her up, I failed to get there on time. Twice she has flown in, and twice I have managed to get to the airport late. Actually, this time I didn't even make it to Haneda and met up with her at Shinagawa instead.
V had eaten on the plane, but I was starving. So, we took her stuff back home then set out to try 大戸屋 - Ootoya. We had seen this place on TV a couple of times, and I forget what dish it was that we saw, but something they had on the menu was apparently amazing.
Ootoya is actually quite a large chain, and I didn't know this, but it's a fairly normal Japanese eatery akin to Yayoiken across the street. From what we had seen on TV, I thought it was actually something a little fancier, and although it did have a little bit of an upscale feel, it was pretty good and cheap.
I got myself a pork katsu and V had an orange chicken salad. Both were quite decent, but not really worth all the rave reviews. We never even figured out what the famous thing we saw on TV was. I would recommend Ootoya for those who have one nearby, but it isn't worth our precious time. We had to wait quite a while to get our food and even had to call someone to make sure our dessert came out.
Actually, that thing was the best part of the meal probably. There was some soy based pudding on the bottom, and you know V and I are a suckers for things with green tea and red bean.
The rest of the 13th was uneventful. We got home and waited for the clock to tick midnight. Then it was time for me to start eating my chocolates and V got surprised with some Star Jewelry. Well, that was the ending of the first part of Valentine's day anyway.
I bought that in secret of course. When I walked into the store wanting to buy a necklace, and then walked out with it just fifteen minutes later, I'm pretty sure the store girl was super excited about her sale. I'm just an efficient shopper.
Valentine's Day in Japan is more about chocolates than anything else, and it's typically the women who do the gifting. The chocolates aren't necessarily for their significant others either as often times office ladies gift for their coworkers. Actually, they're basically required to.
We had a late start to our V-Day, but it's just as well because it was raining. Regardless, we went out and ran some errands including the obligatory flowers and long awaited flowers from Odakyu Florist. I didn't see any other guys with flowers, but they're obligatory for me anyway.
For some reason we didn't eat anything all day, and by 6 or so I was starving. Our dinner reservation wasn't until 7:30, but I convinced V to leave early to see if the restaurant would seat us. We made our way to Roppongi Hills and navigated the various buildings until we finally got to Terres de Truffes.
So, I had felt extremely nervous about this reservation as the rating on Tabelog was conspicuously low; yet, I decided to take a gamble since it was a restaurant that focused on two of V's favorite things: French food and truffles. I was even more nervous when we were allowed to be seated early because we were the only people in the restaurant. This was really strange to me because times had actually been relatively unavailable on Opentable. Turned out to be a good gamble.
Literally everything at Terres de Truffes had truffles in it, and the first thing they did was bring out an Aestivum and a Melanosporum. We received a little culinary lesson that served us well for the rest of the meal, as we did our best to understand the difference between all the different truffles in Japanese. Our meal with the appetizers: a black truffle and foie gras pie
and a fish carpaccio.
My foie gras pie was hiding an entire black truffle inside and was pretty tasty overall. It might have been the first time I've ever had foie gras, but I couldn't actually identify it inside the pie. The truffle was unmistakable of course.
To borrow V's words, her fish carpaccio was extraordinarily balanced. It included some caviar and seawater jelly and was light yet complimented the truffles remarkably well. It was better than my pie anyway, and after Round 1, V was winning the menu choice battle.
Round 2 was our main dishes for which I chose a scallops dish, and V, in typical V fashion, went with the duck.
The scallops, mushroom, and truffle combo went pretty well. The black truffle sauce on the bottom really brought everything together, and although the scallops were slightly overcooked, I had myself a pretty good time.
V's duck was perfect with a nice assortment of vegetables. She isn't particularly partial to red wine sauces, but felt like this one was simply amazing. Terres de Truffes was really all about matching French preparation with the delicacy of truffles and this duck really was the culmination of that. Ok, I still feel like I'm selling it short. It was goddamn delicious...literally mindblowingly delectable. One of the best things we've ever eaten.
Terres de Truffes is one of those places that does one thing and that one thing very well. If you like truffles, you can't go wrong. Yeah, it is expensive, and when we went back to take a look at the tabelog reviews, that was one of the primary complaints. Some of the reviewers apparently didn't even know what truffles really were before they went... V's selections were decently sized, but most of the plates were quite small and probably the main reason we were full at the end is since we ate quite a bit of bread dipped in truffle oil. Still, the tastes of Terres de Truffes were impeccable.
We ended the meal with our desserts: hot custard
and waffles.
The waffles were supposedly infused with truffles, but it didn't really come out. The waffles themselves were nice and crunchy but were probably the poorest representation of truffles we had all evening. My hot custard had candied truffles on top that worked well; I enjoyed it anyway, V didn't think it was that great. I supposed dessert was the most disappointing part of our meal, but really, we both had a great experience at Terres de Truffes.
When we got out of the restaurant it was snowing like crazy! It had been a while since V had been snow, and it brought out the joyful drunkenness she had been suppressing inside the restaurant.
A great finish to what V described as the best Valentine's Day ever.
Sooooo hungry now.
ReplyDelete