玄品 新宿三丁目

I love trying new things, especially traditional and cultural activities and foods. When in Japan of course I had to try Fugu, this restaurant is 2nd level into a building down an alley, a tiny tricky to find however, we spotted the ‘fugu’ fish pic on a sign and put two and two together. The restaur...ant has a very lovely traditional setting, was busy when we arrived (best book ahead) we went the 19 fish course which covered every which way to eat Fugu. A lot of food but worth it. The staff were attentive and helpful in explaining and cooking the fish, only a slight language barrier, easy to overcome. Highly recommend this restaurant for anyone curious to try Japan’s delicacy!!

May 2018に訪問

Puffer fish is one of the iconic Japanese dishes so it’s worth tracking down a restaurant that serves it and trying it at least once. This was my third fugu meal, the other two were on my first visit to Japan in 2010, and I’ve got to say the dishes have been remarkably consistent in terms of composi...tion and quality in all 3 restaurants. I found this restaurant using Gurunavi Japan, a terrific resource. I used the map on Gurunavi website to find the block the restaurant was on; after that I asked the desk in a nearby hotel if he knew where it was, and it was in the building next door, on the second floor. (He didn't know about it, but he looked it up on his computer for me.) The name of the hotel was Hotel Access In Shinjuku, although the street sign is in Japanese, not English – look for a blue sign near an arched doorway. When you’ve located the hotel, go up the open-air staircase next to it. The restaurant has an English menu so they are not averse to foreigners. I got in without a reservation (going on a Monday night probably helped), and they serve solo customers (some places I looked up require a minimum of 2 people for fugu). I chose the Tenraku set menu: chewy fugu skin appetiser, thin sashimi, deep-fried, hotpot with vegetables (cooked on the table in a paper lined basket with a metal disc on the bottom), rice porridge with egg cooked in the hotpot water, and a scoop of ice cream to finish off. The menu had pictures so you could see what you were ordering. The service was very good (ie typical Japanese graciousness), the hostess who took my order spoke English, although the waitress who served the food didn’t. The cost of the meal including a drink was ~7,000 yen which is pretty good for fugu.

February 2017に訪問

Why would you go to Japan and miss this? We sure didn't! Found this place via a blog when we searched for a place to had fugu and managed to squeeze it into our schedule. This place was initially a little hard to find as it was an upstairs restaurant, sort of hole in the wall. Note: most places we ...initially found were nearer to our hotel. However, when our hotel contacted them for us, they were told they do not entertain foreigners. This in itself was a little disappointing! Pro tip: get your hotel to book a reservation before hand. We went there without a reservation and was turned away as they were very full. This was on a Tuesday night! Had to book for 2 days later. Service: despite the lack of English speaking skills, the staff tried her hardest to understand us, get our orders and even describe the dishes. This led to several interesting and hilarious descriptions, but we loved her. They were quick and attentive to our needs. Food: I have nothing to compare this to, so take this with a pinch of salt. Because we came with the notion that this could be our last meal and this will definitely be our first and last fugu, we decided to "take it all the way" and ordered the Higen Kiwami set. At that time, that was something like 240 dollars for both of us. To add to this, my partner ordered a fugu fin sake - warm sake with a fried fugu fin inside. The entire set consisted of entree, sashimi, fried fugu, BBQ fugu, hot pot fugu and mix fugu porridge, ending with a dessert that doesn't have fugu inside it. In the entire course, it also meant that we finished pretty much all of the safe to eat bits of the fish. Personal favourite: fried fugu pieces. Best thing I ever tasted in my life. It was tender, moist - beautiful. Personal dislike: fugu itself had no taste and takes on the taste of the things it's cooked with. In this particular dish - it was nothing. There was only rice, water and eggs so it came off as, while filling, completely bland. Coolest experience: the infamous numbing feeling at the back of your mouth, coming from eating the fugu. interesting thing: the hot pot was basically cooked in paper, with the remnants used to cook the porridge. The paper is a particular type of wax paper so it didn't spill. Very cool idea and efficient - just throw and you're done. After the experience, I would have love to go back and do it again if it wasn't this expensive or "dangerous". However, if I was to do it again, I would probably remove the porridge and hot pot, which made it just a little too much while doing nothing for us, and ask for one more serve of the fried fugu, with rice.

January 2013に訪問