| Restaurant Review |
By Steve Trautlein
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Soba Giro
Head to Akasaka for classic Japanese noodles—with a dash
of Italy
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| Courtesy of Ys Table |
Little did we know when we made our first visit to Soba
Giro that the restaurant’s name comes from that guy: Girolamo Panzetta, the omnipresent magazine cover boy and Japan’s favorite Italian. Following on the success of Panzetta’s Gaienmae restaurant Giromondo, Soba Giro caters to a more domestic crowd with down-home noodle and kushiyaki dishes.
Besides the celebrity owner, there are definite clues that this is not your ojisan’s soba restaurant. First is the appealing décor, which features lots of wood, bamboo and washi in a gorgeously underlit interior. Then there’s the full page of dishes featuring bite-size bocconcini mozzarella, which Panzetta imports twice a week from his native Naples.
Beyond these innovations, Soba Giro is, at heart, a straightforward noodle shop. The basic kake soba costs a standard ¥850, and kushiyaki rings in at ¥250-¥300 a skewer. À la carte items include sashimi (¥650), oden (¥680), chilled tofu (¥480), yudofu (¥650) and shrimp and vegetable tempura (¥980). The reasonable “Otameshi Course” costs just ¥2,300 and comes with three appetizers, three kushiyaki skewers and sarashina soba, with two dipping sauces.
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Nathan Shanahan |
Soba Giro’s grilled items are fantastic—we tried the tsukune chicken meatballs with a mild tare (¥280) and negima (¥300), gently seasoned with salt. But the stars of the show are the soba and udon noodles, available hot or cold. We chose two from the atakai column to alleviate our midwinter chill: tempura soba and “Giro’s Original” goma kake soba. The latter came in a tasty white broth made from sesame, with grilled pork and half a hard-boiled egg. This was a hearty and satisfying dish, as was the tempura soba, which was served with eggplant, shimeji mushroom, shiso leaf and two large shrimp. All the deep-fried items arrived piping hot and were remarkably non-greasy—just like the best tempura should be.
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Unsurprisingly for a celebrity-run restaurant, Soba Giro’s crowd consisted mostly of young and middle-aged Japanese women enjoying a lunch during the New Year’s week holiday. Though surrounding restaurants and shops had cleared out, Panzetta’s hotspot was well full, and the conversation buzzed above the club tunes piped in over hidden speakers. We look forward to returning during warmer weather, when we can take advantage of the outdoor seating, which opens out onto the Prudential Plaza’s spacious street-side patio.
Still feeling peckish after our lunch, we couldn’t resist a taste
of Panzetta’s mozzarella. The bocconcini is featured as part of tomato salad (¥980) and egg custard (¥580), and is even served “sashimi-style” (¥800), but we chose the kushi Giro (¥960), where it’s wrapped in nama ham and then grilled. This dish proved to be just as good as it sounds—smoky, melting cheese leaking around
a ribbon of salty meat. A perfect end to a satisfying lunch courtesy of Japan’s favorite Italian.
Prudential Plaza 1F, 2-13-10 Nagatacho, Chiyoda-ku. Tel: 03-3500-5720. Open Mon-Fri 11am-3pm and 5pm-5am, Sat 11am-3am, Sun and hols 11am-11pm. Menu in Japanese and English. Nearest stn: Akasaka-Mitsuke.
www.ystable.co.jp
With the recent publication of the Michelin Guide, the rest of the world now knows what we’ve known for a long time—Tokyo is the best city on the planet for good eats. And there’s no finer way to sample Tokyo’s gourmet cuisine than by learning to cook it yourself. You can do exactly that at the Cooking Academy of the Michelin two-star restaurant “Twenty One” in the Hilton Tokyo.
In November, the directing chef of “Twenty One,” Stéphane Gaborieau (pictured, far right), flew in from his one-star restaurant Le Pergolèse in Paris to show us how to make steamed sea bass with vin blanc sauce and hamaguri clams, and grilled beef filet with bordelaise sauce and confit potato. He taught us how to transform carrots with orange juice and how to coax subtle combinations of flavors out of shallots, olive oil, garlic and thyme. It was even more interesting, later, to eat those same dishes for lunch.
The next Cooking Academy will be held on Saturday, January 26. Sébastien Lefort, chef at “Twenty One,” will lead a class on how to cook a gourmet lunch based on lamb.
The demonstration will be conducted in English with Japanese translation.
You will sit inches away from Chef Lefort (far left) as he explains step-by-step how to cut, slice, sauté, reduce a sauce, season, and plate the food. Each participant will receive a binder with detailed recipes, color photos of each cooking step, and plenty of space for note-taking. The chef will reveal gourmet secrets, offer tips, and answer any questions you might have while watching him work.
After the 90-minute demonstration, you move to the elegant dining room of “Twenty One” to enjoy the lunch you just learned how to prepare. In addition to the apéritif glass of champagne, each course will be paired with a glass of wine. Chef Lefort, moving table to table, will join each guest for food and conversation. After lunch, the participants will retire to the newly renovated Suite Room for a leisurely English-style afternoon tea.
The price for this informative, entertaining and delicious morning and afternoon is a reasonable ¥10,000. Book early to get a seat.
For more information and reservations, call 03-3344-5111 or check the Hilton Tokyo website at www.hilton.co.uk/tokyo. Michael Kleindl
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