We Say Oui to Kagurazaka

In the midst of Tokyo’s garish fluorescent glow, Kagurazaka feels like ananachronism. With its stone paved alleys and sloping, lantern-lit lanes,it retains much of the quiet charm of the city in its pre-war heyday. The quaint old townhouses and discreet black fences that line the residential streets lend the area an atmosphere reminiscent of Kyoto.

The similarity is rooted in more than architecture. In the late Meiji era, Kagurazaka became famous for its pleasure quarters, where geishas delighted guests with their grace and beauty. Shops specializing in kimono and green tea remain, and Kabuki actors and musicians still frequent the area.

In recent days, Kagurazaka is becoming known as a fashionable dining
destination. Trendy eateries line Kagurazaka Slope, and the winding back streets are dotted with tiny wine bars, cool cafes and exclusive ryotei Japanese restaurants. The neighborhood offers something for every predilection -- from traditional wagashi sweets to modern Spanish tapas and, perhaps most notably, excellent French cuisine.


Kagurazaka is home to a sizeable French population. L’Institute Franco-Japonais de Tokyo is located a short walk away from IIdabashi station, and specialty food shops carrying top-quality cheese or pastries abound. The area boasts a number of refined French restaurants, as well as an array of casual bistros serving authentic fare.

Brasserie Gus, a small, unpretentious restaurant hidden along a narrow street off of Okubo Dori, is particularly popular with my foodie friends Tamami and Sugita. The menu sticks to hearty classics such as buttery pork rillets with corchicons pickles, escargots sizzling in garlic butter and roast lamb in red wine sauce.


By 7:30, most of the seats are full of young, casually stylish guests and getting a reservation can be difficult.

Possibly more difficult, however, is choosing from the several delicious-sounding options. The choice between the silky foie gras terrine and the rich goose liver and lentil pate can only be described as painful. Both are dense and creamy, and I have soft spots for both.

Selecting a main dish is no easier. Although the braised beef cheek was
awfully tempting, I can never pass up a good confit de canard. Though confit is as much of a brasserie staple in Tokyo as it is in Paris, I have been burned more than once. In the wrong hands, the dish can end up soggy, tough, or heart-stoppingly greasy (I was so happy to hear that a certain place, whose confit was guilty of all three of the aforementioned sins, closed, that I clapped). Happily, the duck at Brasserie Gus was none of those things. The skin was crispy, the meat tender. This dish, like all of the mains at Gus, was served with a side of mashed potatoes and a medley of sautéed vegetables -- broccoli in cream, mushrooms in garlic sauce and cabbage finished with a touch of vinegar. Creative it isn't, but that's not really what you look for at a down-home place like this.


Our merry band of boozers passed on dessert and opted instead for a small cheese plate to go with our third bottle of wine, a lively red from Saint-Emilion whose name escapes me just now. Another pleasant surprise came with our bill: The tasty food and Gallic hospitality were a bargain at only Y5000 per person.

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Strategy Is Everything

This is as true in sake tasting as it is in war. At a recent sake fair in Ochanomizu, however, I found myself without one, drifting around aimlessly and looking somewhat dazed. By the time we'd arrived, the event was winding down, and the atmosphere exuded the incipient gaiety that accompanies the shift from spitting to sipping. We were on a totally different wavelength, though. We'd just rushed over from another tasting at the Japanese Sake Brewer's Association and had only 30 minutes to get through everything.

It wasn't even that big of an event, but felt slightly overwhelmed.

Although I've been to a lot of sake tastings over the last few years, I still feel like a novice when it comes to navigating my way through them. It can be tough work, depending on the scope of the event, the size of the crowds, and the accessibility of spittoons.

When I first got into sake, I dug the big tastings. They were like huge frenzied parties, and I reveled in all the jostling, tispy excitement. These days, I'm much more partial to the small tastings. I prefer to go in the afternoon and I always, always, always try to spit. I still have fun, but it's fun of a different sort -- a tamer, nerdier brand of fun, more like playing Scrabble than playing drinking games.

I devise different tactics for different tastings. For really large ones, I tend to focus less on the breweries I know well and look for labels that are new to me. I'll take note of the popular producers (ie - the booths that are most crowded) but may not actually taste the sake there, as I'll likely encounter it elsewhere.

If the layout is organized by region, I usually start with lighter brews from the north-east and work my way west. Sometimes, I just stick around one or two areas and try everything on the tables. Recently, I've been curious about Gifu and Mie prefectures, so I've been looking out for sake from these regions.

Most of the time, I corner someone I know and ask them what's good.

"What's your plan?" I turned to my friend Elsie, who was in town for a visit.

She answered with typical Canadian equanimity. "Don't really have one," she said.

Elise is a serious sake lover. She'd even spent the last two years making it at the brewpub Moto-i in Minneapolis. If that's not dedication, I don't know what is, but the look on her face said that she wasn't going to bust her ass trying to come up with a tasting strategy.

"There's so much here that I've never tasted before. I'm just going to dive in."

"Okay," I muttered doubtfully, assessing the crowd. "I guess I'll, um, do that, too."

My taste buds felt a bit flat, so I decided to shake them awake with some vivid brews from Kameizumi. I'm not usually a fan of the funky, musky, outre CEL yeasts, but Kameizumi handles them well. The sakes are all intensely aromatic -- a swirl of exotically fruity and floral notes that precedes a forceful impact. Fine acidic structure and almost austere dryness, however, keep these bouquet bombs from going way over the top. The flavors seem to float weightlessly over the palate. As usual, Saibara-san had no recollection of meeting me, but at least I was ready to do some more tasting.

I moved over to the next table and onto the full-bodied Shichida sakes from Tenzan Shuzo. I'd tasted these sakes on several occasions (Sadly, Shichida-san, too, had no idea who I was. Am I really so forgettable?) and have always liked them for their smooth mouthfeel and fat, umami-rich breadth.

Looking around at the people merrily sipping sake beside me, I realized that my uptight attitude was preventing me from having fun, nerdy or otherwise. So I let myself ease into the slack, end-of-the-day rhythm that everyone else seemed to be grooving to and just went with the flow.

After bouncing around a bit, I stumbled on the excellent Koshi no Omachi Junmai Nama from Niigata's Minogawa . I often like sakes made with Omachi rice. They tend to have a sturdy structure and exhibit an appealing earthiness, but they can also be a little astringent. The rice for the Minogawa Koshi no Omachi was grown locally, and the sake exhibited the fine-grained texture and lightness characteristic of Niigata brews. The impact was bright and fresh, and it showed a lovely balance of acidity and umami in the midpalate. The texture was soft and billowing, but the finish snapped back as crisply as a freshly laundered sheet. The interesting thing is that the rice had only been milled to 70%. Pretty impressive.

As the announcement sounded bringing the event to its close, I heard a quiet, "Pssst, Melinda-san." I turned around and saw Matsumoto-san from Minogawa gesturing to me.

"Present for you," he said, handing me a bottle of the Koshi no Omachi.

After the tasting, we enjoyed it with panko-crusted fried chicken breasts stuffed with nori and creamy Havarti cheese (namazake and creamy cheeses are surprisingly good friends), drizzled with a honey-soy vinaigrette. Later, I learned that the Koshi no Omachi Nama is only released once a year. Lucky me!

Strategy is certainly important, but there's something to be said for serendipity as well.

This Link is Not Dead

I heard their muffled laughter as I tiptoed through the front door. Thick with alcohol and insinuation, it echoed heavily down the corridor, the sound of grown-ups having a party after the kids have been sent to bed.

“Well, well, look who it is,” James was paternally ensconced in his favorite chair nursing a Manhattan. “Where have you been, little girl?”

I tossed my keys on the table and shrugged. In my errant early twenties, I was notorious for disappearing at random. I might decide on a whim to go down to LA to check out art galleries -- only to find myself riding back to San Francisco with my then arch-enemy, SY -- or fly to New York for my birthday or drive to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon.

“How was it?” Rita’s teeth were purple from red wine.

“Hilarious and utterly exhausting,” I said.

“And yet you’ve managed to do your hair,” Devi noted.

“So…” Rita pressed.

“It was fun,” I slipped off my shoes and eased into the plush bucket chair by the bay window.

“And?” Devi raised an eyebrow over her wine glass. The tag-teaming Dutta sisters at work.

“Oh, you know,” I replied noncommittally, curling my feet underneath me.

“You’re being coy.”

“No.”

“Leave her be,” James brought the conversation to a decisive end. “You’ve got to let the stories percolate out of her. These things take time.”

“Percolate,” I laughed. Classic James."I love your diction."

“Now, somebody please get Melinda a drink,” he said.

It’s been quite a month. Since I last posted, I’ve gotten to know a few of the sake industry's new generation of brewers, tasted my way through a slew of shinshu, received a crash-course in Austrian wine at the VieVinum festival in Vienna, made some lovely new friends and connected with dear old ones on the continent, had an amazing Michelin-starred experience (twice), joined a book club, discovered my inner Tarahumara (well, kind of), and attempted to make my own butter.

I promise that the stories will percolate out of me in good time. Now, will somebody please get me a drink?