L’effervescence and other Japan

I give you all my Japan eats. I ask in return for some recommendations for Paris. I currently have Epicure booked and would like to book one more restaurant. It does not need to be fancy, in fact I would prefer it to not be. It just needs to be good.

L’eff was a delightful meal. This is not a place that is going to blow you away with the latest in fine dining. The food is pretty straight forward but absolutely delicious. We loved the 50 ingredient salad. The turnip, which I thought was going to be stupid, was delightful. The fish with beurre blanc, puree (carrot I think), and grapes didn’t taste very good at first. Then I got all the ingredients together into a bite and it was brilliant. The service, wine pairing, and meal all delivered. I’m not sure how to recommend this to others, I think if you want just a good meal and want to ignore the michelin stars, then go.

Koke, 1 * (Kyoto) – It was okay. Enjoyed a few courses. Not worth the price. Service was 10/10 and ambiance was 10/10.

Pizza:
I did 4 pizza places and here are the rankings. I eat a lot of pizza, live in NYC, and like a salty cheese and slightly sweet tomato sauce. My favorite neopolitan is probably 2 Amys in DC.

1. Pizzeria da Ciro (Kyoto) – Great, salty, flavorful dough.
   2. Pizzeria Trattoria Vomero Higashi-Ginza (Tokyo) – Great tomato sauce. The freshest I’ve had in a long time. There was a line here everyday and I was curious and tried it. Very happy.
2. Pizza Strada (Tokyo) – Tasted the salt throw, ok sauce. The dough was uneven, one side being much thicker than the other. This was decent.
3. Pizza Savoy (Tokyo) – This was very under salted. I was pretty disappointed. Its okay. I think something went wrong with my pie.

Cocktails:
1. SG Club (Tokyo) – Some really good cocktails, very different. I work near their West Village location and thought about skipping this in Tokyo but I’m glad I didn’t. The Pisco Sour + Parmesan is unreal.
2. Bar Benfiddich (Tokyo) – Had 4 drinks here, all great. They made me a variation on a penicillin I loved.
3. Star Bar Ginza (Tokyo) – Overpriced, toursity. They make good classic cocktails, but not worth it at $20-25 a drink.
4. High Five (Tokyo) – This was very bad. I asked for a penicillin variant, they made me something that was sour, overly peete, with 0 balance. Wifes cocktail was also bad.