Rokusaburo Michiba - The 1st Iron Chef Japanese

Tonight I went to Michiba's restaurant Rokusan-Tei. First of all I have to thank Rob and Toni for asking me why I wasn't going to the other Iron Chef's restaurants. I'm also glad I decided to do the tour.. This was the most expensive of the restaurants, after I list what I ate you should guess how much you think it is.. Whoever gets closest gets a prize, extra points if you can guess in Yen.. :D

I arrived at the restaurant and had the manager ask me if there was anything I wouldn't eat. I said no. I was sat and the waitress asked me the same thing, when I said no she added "you know this is real traditional style Japanese food", yes I did thank you.. :D

There is NO menu here, well no ala carte menu anyway. They have one set menu that has two choices, that set menu changes every month. Think of the balls a restaurant has to have to have one menu for the entire month! Choices were (Noodles or Rice) and (Kobe Beef or Fish dish), that's it, nothing else, seriously! By the way Ginza is apparently why people from America freak out about Japan, there was not a single English sign on any buildings, the only non Kanji signs were the road signs.. Not a problem because I had a google map with Kanji written on it so I was able to find the street and restaurant.

So, back to the balls.. This restaurant deserves those balls.. I have never had Japanese food of such quality, sorry Morimoto you having nothing on Michiba. I'm having a hard time believing the reviews that say Nakamura's restaurant is better, but I will see...

So, onto dinner..

Course one - In the middle of the plate is a tomato in jello, going clockwise starting above the tomato is: Fried Okra, Squid Sashimi in a sweet sauce, fried cheese, boiled okra, mackerel in a soy teriyaki sauce, mushroom sushi. The highlight on this dish had to be the tomato with the cheese a close second.

Course two - Michiba's famous soup with a scalloped scallop.. :) They brought the ball over and the waitress started to walk away and turned to ask if I needed a spoon... NO, what kind of self respecting Japanese person would eat soup with a spoon.. Oh, wait.. I'm not Japanese.. :P No spoon here, soup is to be eaten with chopsticks, trust me it is..

Course three - Squid, White Fish and Yellow Tail sashimi (3 pieces each) with real wasabi. Nice thick cuts, very good.

Course four - Eggplant with Bacon cooked in a caper sauce. Yes Jessie I know.. I ate it and you know what, it was great! Next time you cook eggplant with bacon and capers I will be more than happy to try it.. Seriously though, it was amazing, the capers really balanced well with the bacon and the eggplant added a certain something that really kicked it over the top.

Course Five - Shrimp soup with lotus flower pancakes and other herbs. This dish was a nice seafood broth and the lotus flower pancakes had a real interesting texture to them. They brought over some spicy sauce to add to it if I felt the flavor was not strong enough. I didn't add any because I really liked the seafood broth.

Course Six - Steamed potatoes with a Tofu Sesame sauce. The tofu sauce was frikkin great, I would have eaten anything in that sauce. Seriously I wish I knew how they made it because I would make it all the time..

Course Seven - This was the first choice course, I could have gotten either Kobe Beef or another fish course. I chose the Kobe Beef. It came on a little grill with some veggies. The two sauces are ginger sauce and mustard sauce. The ginger sauce is for the meat and the mustard sauce is for the veggies. I don't really think I need to say how much I loved this course right? I mean Kobe Beef in Japan, does life get any better?

Course Eight - Miso Soup. Nothing really special about it, it was tasty and had lots of onions and mushrooms in it. I was actually waiting for it to cool down when course nine finished cooking.

Course Nine - Steamed Rice and Mushrooms with pickles, dicon radish and some other pickled thing (forgot what it was now, if I remember I will edit this). The Rice was brought over in a bowl a few courses ago and left on the table to steam. When the fire went out it was done so they uncovered it and served it while I was waiting on my Miso Soup to cool. The Rice was normal rice but the mushrooms were very nice.

Course Ten - Dessert.. Finally.. The dish on the left is a chocolate cake with Tapioca on it. It was amazing, such rich cake and thankfully it was small. If it was big it would have been overload. The dish on the right is a custard with fruits, very cold and very refreshing to end the meal.

Drinks - I had two glasses of wine and a glass of green tea.

After the meal the manager gave me a wall hanging off Michiba's saying "I am a fish and cooking is my water", a Michiba post card and a hankerchief.

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After dinner I walked to the Tokyo Tower and took some really nice pictures, it really was pretty. They had a few spots you could stand on glass and look down at the street, it was neat to see everything below you but the pics of that came out like crap. They had a bar at the top of the tower as well if you wanted to have a drink. I just looked around a bunch, took pics and headed out. Didn't feel like having a drink because I was still pretty full.

Heading to bed.. Send me your price guesses.. To give you some reference, the meal at Chen's was $85.00