Spanish Dinner

Happy New Year! :) I know it's too late to say it... I was planning to post this story right after the New Year's break, so I said so... Well, I spent my New Year's break from 12/28-1/4 with my family in my home town and came back to Tokyo in the afternoon on 1/4. Soon I came back to Tokyo, I went out for New Year's shopping after I dropped my suitcase in my apartment.

My frined and I made the plan to have a dinner that night, but we didn't decide where we eat. The restaurant "Spain club, Ginza" has been on my mind since it has opened in Ginza, and I asked to her to try this restaurant this time. This is the branch resturant which original resturant is in Tsukishima, and I have been there once.

The restaurant has two floors, and the first floor is a Spain style Bar and the second floor is the formal resturant. The food price is different, and the second floor is bit expensive compared with the bar. This time we had the dinner at the resturant on the second floor.

Navarra white asparagus salad

Conger eel cooked with Tomato

                  Fried Artichoke wrapped in Ham                    Garlic Mushroom

One of the lighting cover was made by the colorful glass plates, and I like the idea. It was really nice.

Spanish Meat ball

All the dishes we had was really good, but the only thing I was really surprised was the price of the bread. Can you see the small bread in the picture? It costs 300 yen for each. Expensive!!! I almost started laughing when I saw it, "So small!" We ordered two breads and I expected the size is bigger than they brought to our table. I just thought it was a kind of joke or something... I won't order the bread next time I have a meal there.

Today's Paella

Kitchen

The resturant sells the Spanish foods such as cheese, canned foods, jam. Spanish wine is also sold near the entrance.

Afternoon tea at Mandarin Oriental Hotel

Mandarin Oriental Hote, Tokyo.

First time to have an afternoon tea at this hotel for me, so I was excited from the morning:) It is located in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. 

My friend and I made this plan last year, and she booked our table.

While we were having the tea, we heard the conversation between the waitor and the women sit next us. Their conversation was if we sit near the window, we can't stay more than 2 hours, but if we don't request the seat near the window, they are allowed to stay until the dinner time, 6:00PM.We were seated in the middile of the room.

Iced Ginger Tea.

Sandwich Assortment

Open Face Sandwich of Smoked Chicken and Marinated Red Cabbage

Foie Gras Parfait and Sweet Potato Mousse with Champange Jelly

Salmon Rillette with Persimmon and Cream Cheese Tartlet

Pork Ham with Cucumber and Potato Salad Sandwich

3 Kinds of Scone

Plain, Chocolate Chip and Cranberry

 

Pre Dessert

Chocolate Jelly

Mandarin Oriental Tokyo Selection Tea

I had the tea above(Ginger tea and Mandarin Oriental Tokyo Selection Tea), Earl Grey, Assam, Orange Chocolat and Caffe Latte.

Slected Petits Fours

Pistacchio Macaron

Strawberry Tartlet

Praline Cream Puff

Chestnut Pie

Fresh Cheese Mousse

Hazelnut Cookie

Sour Plum Sesame Stick Pie

After the lights were dimmed, the candles were lit. We didn't know we chatted for almost 4 1/2hours since we got the restraunt.

There are four restaurants on 38th floor and I saw some people were killing time on the sofa until their company come.

Can you guess from where I took this picture?

It is the view from the restroom(I guess the view from the men's restroom is the same as women's) It's hard to see the skytree in this picture, but you can see it very nicely from the restroom day and night. You can see this view even you don't have a meal at any resturant, you just need to go to the restroom after you got off the elevator :P

Chafu

My friend took me to a cafe I've never been to when I went back to my home town during the winter holiday last year. It seems the cafe "Chafu" used to be a someone's house, and it could be renovated the house to the cafe.

We ordered the lasagna lunch. It comes with the homemade bread,salad and soup.

It was good enough and it filled my empty stomach.

The cafe is sort of quiet and really cozy. It became my favorite cafe in my hometown.

I want to try something sweet next time.

She took me to a cake shop "Morin" after the lunch, and it is the new shop for me, too.

I got the assorted cookies as a souvenir for my co-workers there :)

Potluck Party

I joined the Potluck party yesterday. My co-worker invited me to her house, and her friends and I brought a meal to the party. I prepared the Finnish meatballs, mush potatoes and baked corn on Friday night.

After I cooked them, I placed them on the plate.

The host( my co-worker) cooked two types of pasta and pumpkin salad, and her friends brought Masu-Sushi(Trout Sushi), Salmon salad, vegi(cabbage and bean) salad and Smoked salmon&mozzarella. Every meals were really good, and I enjoyed the party a lot.

It's time for Christmas, so I also baked the Christmas icing cookies.(Please see my Kitchen tab, too) Last time I baked the icing cookies was last December, and the icing was totally perfect. But this time the icing was a bit loose and it took time to dry completely...It doesn't look good this time, but I brought them to the party anyway. (I don't think I can eat them all by myself...hahaha...)

The host prepared the apple compote and other her friend baked the macrobiotic cookies, too.

Surprisingly, they all said, it's cute. I was so relieved they liked my cookies.

THANK YOU, all!

We also bought the Christmas cake as a dessert.

The little dwarf is trying to cut the strawberry with his saw...cute!

We exchanged the present and I got the herb bath salt and soap. I also got the microbiotic muffin from the host. ( She prepared it for each guests.) I won't show you the message from her, but the nice message was on the bag.

Welcome back, Cinnabon!

I LOVE CINNABON:) It's really sweet, and I feel guilty every time I eat it(high calories). But I love it! It was founded in Seattle, and I ate a lot while I was living in Seatlle. Cinnabon has been in business in Japan for 10 years, but all the stores were closed couple years ago. It might be too sweet for Japanese? I missed it so much.

Cinnabon store reopened in Roppongi last November. Last night, when I got the store, there were many people stoond in line to get it outside of the store. I usually don't like to wait in line, but I waited for 30 min just to buy two of them because of the Cinnabon :) I know there are Cinnabon fan in Tokyo like me. After I came back home, I ate one. The taste was the same, but there were two things I felt the differences compared to the one I used to had.  The sugar frost was less than I expected, and the bread part was thinner than I know... Anyway, welcome back to Japan, Cinnabon!

Birthday celebration at Imperial Hotel, Tokyo

In August, my friend celebrated my birthday at Ritz Carlton Hotel, Roppongi, and now it was my turn to celebrate her birthday. This year, her request was the aftenoon tea at Imperial Hotel, Tokyo. It's time for the Christmas, so the decoration is really nice there now.

The big tree welcome us when we enter the entrance.

I made the reservation thru the internet and requested the Christmas aftenoon tea. When we seated, the waitress took a photo of us and she brought it to our table as a birthday present while we were eating. I liked their service a lot, it's going to be nice memory. They also decorated our plate with the birthday message board. It seemed my friend liked it a lot, too.:)

Top plate: Strawberry cake, Citlus Jello and Chololate tart

Second Plate: Scone(biscuit) and orange bread

Third plate:Quiche, Tuna and Smoked salmon sandwich and Smoked duch with potato salad on bread

First drink I ordered was original iced tea. I forgot the name of the tea, but it based on the black currant.

Scone with the clotted cream and blueberry jam.

Strawberry and the whipped crema looks like Santa :)

We kept talking and talking...We got the lounge at 2PM and left at 5:30PM. It was already dark when we went outside. 

The Imperial lounge "AQUA" also has the tree.

My Christmas decoration

20 years ago, this tree came to my house. I kept begging my mother to buy it for me for a few days. Very end of Chiritsmas night, it was on sale at a store, and then my mother finally said "OK" :). My current apt is so small...so I could not bring it to Tokyo here. It is in my parents house, and I enjoy decorating it every year when the time comes.

There are about 50 branches and it starts to assemble them to the shaft. I guess the height is about 2.3m(7.5ft).

I bought the lights and the tree skirt(left) while I was living LA, and the other tree skirt( right) was made by my mother.

Paper ribons for the decoration. I'm also using these ribons for 20 years.

These are the ornaments I collected for 20 years, and I have a memory for each of them. Some are the present from my friends.

Nesting dolls

 I collected them while I was living in Seattle. I rarely see them at a store in Tokyo, but the price is sort of expensive. Now I stopped collecting them because of the price here...

Birds Chritsmas tree
I can't keep a big tree in my tiny apt, and this is the one I can keep it here instead.

Glass trees

Since I moved to Tokyo, I started collecting the glass trees. Every year I buy one,but this year I haven't seen the one I like yet.

The Christamas is no religous meaning to me, but I really like the decorations. It's just lovely, and it makes me happy. :)