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| Chef-owner Mochizuki-san |
Tagetsu is a 1 michelin star kaiseki restaurant that is relatively easy to book (for now) and is conveniently located in the Omotesando area. It is in the basement of a building and too bad there is no lift so you need to climb down the stairs. I decided to come here because I read of the good cost performance lunches priced at 5000 and 8000 yen. You can also order the dinner courses during lunch time but that's going to raise the price of course. Anyway, for this particular visit, I reserved the 8000 yen course and this is what I got:
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| Snow crab beancurd skin fritter |
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| Platter of 6 appetizers |
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| Ankimo |
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| The top is some sort of fried yam and the right is tsubugai |
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| The prawn was stuffed with some kind of egg and roe underneath |
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| Sea cucumber |
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| The chef gave me some of this shaved bonito flakes and used some to make stock out of it. I didn't take a photo of it, but he offered me a small bowl of stock to taste |
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| Mushroom with soft shell turtle dumpling |
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| Grouper fish and squid tentacles sashimi |
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| Charcoal Grilled snapper |
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| Steamed Spanish mackerel |
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| Minced chicken with some kind of veg (maybe spring onions?) stome pot rice. |
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| I ate 5 bowls of rice...and yes I finished the entire thing by myself |
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| 3 kinds of dessert |
8000 for all that? Given this is a 1 michelin star kaiseki restaurant, I have to admit, yes it was a good deal after all. I was legit full after this meal and had to stop by a coffee shop just to sit down for a while. One thing I feel the need to bring up however, is that even though Tagetsu tends to market itself as a foreigner friendly restaurant, I did feel somewhat intimidated at first and felt the atmosphere was rather tense. Chef-owner Mochizuki-san didn't exactly smile nor did he try to connect with me despite my attempts to make eye contact with him. I took it as he was either introverted or he simply wasn't comfortable talking to foreign customers.
It was only after I started chatting with the other chefs (one of them probably his sous chef) that the mood started to become more relaxed and I didn't feel so uneasy. Although throughout the trip I conversed with various chefs and restaurant staff, the chefs here were particularly curious about Singapore and why I learnt Japanese, so it was a pretty fun and interesting conversation throughout the meal.
Towards the end, Mochizuki-san finally spoke to me a little and even mentioned that he had some friends in Singapore (like the Sushi Chef at Ashino). I guess he was just shy to converse at first, no hard feelings. After the meal, Mochizuki-san and his wife walked me out of the restaurant, up the flight of stairs, thanked me for visiting and told me to come back again to try the dinner course one day. So...despite this small setback with that initial hostile feeling, I liked the food. It's not extravagant or made to impress but it's a solid delicious meal overall and price-wise, it's definitely very reasonable for the amount and quality of food served during my lunch here.
Website: https://tagetsu.tokyo/
Address: 東京都 港区 北青山 3-13-1 北青山関根ビル B1F
Budget: 8000+ (lunch)
My rating: 4 / 5
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