Tokyo Eats - In the neighborhood Part II (Picture heavy!)

More food pics from the neighborhood, from the Atago Green Hills Forest Tower and the Toranomon Hills Tower. Hubby and I made good friends with his colleagues, and all of us hangout and eat with E. and D. a lot, like a couple of times a week, at either their place or at the Toranomon Hills Tower.

From the Atago Green Hills Forest Tower Lounge, this steak plate is J.'s favorite. Hubby tried it once and now he orders it pretty often too. You have a choice of rice or bread. The bread is just a tiny wheat roll, but J. once made the mistake of ordering 10 grains rice instead and as you can see, it came out on a huge plate! For some odd reason, there's a huge difference between the bread and rice portion. Go figure.

The Japanese set meal is my favorite, because there's a choice of meat or fish, and every week they change it up!

Here's a chicken hamburg.

This is my favorite so far: grilled steak slices tossed with seared Japanese mushrooms. Omg, so good!

This salmon fillet with glace was yummy!


Finally, a dish I ordered there I don't love, not because it didn't taste good but because it was such a pain to eat. If I remember correctly, these were Spanish mackerels, and they were full of tiny little bones that were just hard enough not to eat but still too soft and small. I think this meal took me 2 hours, 1.5 of which were spent de-boning the damn fish!

This was another mistake, again not because it didn't taste good. This was oyako-don, only with salmon and ikura and not chicken and egg. I made the terrible dumb mistake of assuming the salmon would be cooked, because here's a shocking secret: while I love mentaiko and ikura, I don't otherwise eat raw fish. Yes, I love sushi, cooked sushi, that is :P The most I'll eat is a spicy tuna roll at home. Otherwise, it's a no go. Yes, laugh at me, mock me, laugh some more, whatever. I don't care. I've tried many times but found the texture revolting. In in a pinch I can force myself to swallow it, which I did in this case--I picked out the raw salmon cubes and downed it like Chinese medicine using the miso soup. Lesson learned.

After forcing myself to eating some raw fish, I rewarded my effort with this delectable pear tart here. Let's just say for the 2 months it was available, the group of us would order it every single time we dine at this lounge. I was the first to discover it and was able to convince J. and D. to give it a try. J. was reluctant and said she would take a bite of mine first. Sure enough, one bite and she ordered her own LOL! Good lord it was delicious and wasn't sweet at all! The pear was tender, and the crust was perfectly crispy and flaky *drools*


Snuck into the pool one night for this photo of Tokyo Tower all lit up ^.^


For Halloween, none of us wanted to bother with a costume party, so instead we held a small potluck. Below are my contribution, raisin toasts with avocado (learned from J.), pasta with meat sauce, and caprese salad.



H. was with us that day, so E. and D. took all of us up to the roof of the building for the view.

Just when we thought that was some spectacular view, we were invited to a housewarming party at H.'s new home (a different H.). This H. is another of hubby's colleagues, and his family went through a lot of crap to secure this apartment in Yokohama. He also has to commute everyday in and out of Roppongi to work, but he says it's totally worth it. And seeing where he lives and the view they have, I'd say the man is quite correct! Oh the nostalgia of being in Yokohama. I seriously thought we would never see the place again *sniff*

On the 2nd floor of the Toranomon Hills Tower, there's a great Italian place where we would go to lunch--Arbol. They serve some yummy stuff for a really decent price! My favorite is the snow crab arrabbiata. Theirs is actually not spicy at all, which makes me think they cater more to the Japanese palate (I mean, can you blame them?), but it's delicious nonetheless. That said, the general consensus is that the lasagna is best. The tiramisu dessert was okay. I've had much better elsewhere.

On the 3rd floor is another spot I frequent, the 3rd Cafe, not because their coffee is any special (it's okay, and I'm not a coffee drinker either way) but because it's a nice space to camp out at and write ^.^ Their problem is that they have only one CD play on a loop, all day, all week, all month, all year. So yeah, it gets tiring hearing the same thing over and over again.

A cafe latte.


Also on the 3rd floor is The Sweet Dynasty Hong Kong where we've had dinner several times now. Taihouki serves much better Chinese food, but they also allow smoking indoor and doesn't have good circulation. So we make do with Sweet Dynasty, which serves okay Chinese food but fantastic desserts ^.^ They serve some of the best boba I have had, although admittedly my favorite flavor is matcha coconut milk because it's the least sweet of all their offerings. I've tried the Hong Kong milk tea and it was loaded with sugar! I'll post the dessert photos later.

See my previous Tokyo Eats - In the neighborhood post.