| Restaurant Review |
By Tamsin Bradshaw |
La Cascata
Escape the city on any budget
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| Photos by Kensaku Shioya |
La Cascata is one getaway the suits of Roppongi-Itchome have kept close to their chests. Located on a leafy green street near the Swedish Embassy, down some steps behind Ark Hills and through a dark hallway, it’s so well-hidden we must have walked by dozens of times without knowing.
The interior is surprisingly spacious for its business-district location. Stark, white-tiled floors and simple furnishings complement the glass ceiling and namesake wall of cascading water. The sun streamed in the day we visited, and the dreamy effect it created was a million miles from Tokyo’s towering office blocks.
Despite being a self-described “New York Italian” restaurant, there is still something very “Tokyo” about La Cascata. The clientele are sophisticated, well-dressed Tokyoites with not a hair out of place; the food, although Italian, is light and typical of local cuisine; and, in true Tokyo style, La Cascata’s specialty is its value-for-money lunch sets.
Ranging from ¥1,400 to ¥2,200, the sets consist of antipasti and/or pasta, plus dessert and tea or coffee. The antipasto buffet includes soup (anything from buttercup-yellow cold corn soup to a strange-looking but not unpleasant bright purple sweet potato variety), salads, salami and dips, to name just a few of the tasty offerings.
After we gorged on antipasti, we sampled a simple but delicious spaghetti with onions, bacon and tomato sauce. La Cascata also serves up dessert on a help-yourself basis, and the selection varies daily. We devoured both options: coffee-colored crème caramel and miniature squares of green tea cake.
Come evening, the menu is more varied, and the Asian influence more apparent. La Cascata’s appetizers are priced between ¥1,200 and ¥2,550 and include beef carpaccio served with mascarpone and arugola. There is a wide range of pastas and risottos, including fedelini with spear squid and bok choy (¥1,700), with delicate Asian flavors. The pan-fried sea bass with shark’s fin sauce (¥3,200) seemed to take the fusion thing too far (and was not something we were willing to eat, on principle). We opted instead for the heartier and at least European sautéed Boso pork and Iberico ham with sage (¥3,200).
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Although the food menu oscillates between Italian and Japanese (and Chinese), the wine list has a distinctly Italian element to it. Gaja’s honeyed 2003 Rossi-Bass Chardonnay (¥12,600) and the delicious Tuscan Brunello di Montalcino 1995 (¥14,700) occupy pride of place. For those who don’t want to break the bank, La Cascata also stocks plenty of other wines from around the world for under ¥10,000.
Conversely, for those who are happy to break the bank, there is the “very popular” weekday Premium Helicopter Cruising and Dinner set, of a night flight over the city followed by a romantic dinner for two at the restaurant. From that ¥40,000-for-two extravagance by night to the affordable lunch sets by day,
La Cascata really is
a city escape that caters to everyone.
1F Ark Towers East, 1-3-38 Roppongi, Minato-ku. Tel: 03-5573-2844. Open daily 11:30am-2:30pm (L.O. 2pm), 5:30-10pm (L.O. 9pm). Menu in Japanese and English. Reservations recommended. Smoking restricted. Nearest stn: Roppongi-Itchome.
www.la-cascata.com
When popular restaurant Roti closed its Harumi Triton Square branch in March, there were a lot of sad diners. Fortunately, a new and exciting restaurant and wine bar has opened to take its place… or perhaps we should say “dramatic,” since that is how Garden Bay describes itself. Garden Bay offers modern Italian cuisine in a casual style at reasonable prices. The dinner menu is quite extensive. For starters, you can pick from carpaccio, tomato and basil salad, pancetta, terrine, or bacon and egg salad, for ¥680 to ¥1,380. For entrees, Garden Bay offers lots of grilled meats, seafood, pasta, rice dishes and some vegetarian fare. No entree item costs more than ¥2,400, and there is an ample selection of red and white wines from Italy, Spain, France, Argentina and Australia to go with your dinner.
The restaurant is also popular with the lunchtime crowd.
Sets, which change daily, include pasta, a rice dish and a one-plate combination of salad, rice and meat. Of course, no meal is complete without dessert, and Garden Bay offers the likes of tiramisu, gateau chocolate cake and fruit tart. The restaurant is available for parties as well, starting at ¥2,400 per person for a two-hour period. Having just opened, Garden Bay doesn’t yet have an English menu, but the staff are friendly and floor manager Kanako Uehara is more than happy to help with any inquiries.
Harumi Triton Square 1F, Harumi 1-8-16, Chuo-ku 104-0053. Tel: 03-5547-0561. Open daily 11:30am-11pm. Nearest stn: Kachidoki. www.gardenbay.jp CB |
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