Michelin Star Dining: Cerise by Gordon Ramsay

So not everything I write about here has to be weird of wacky or sub-culture related. I mean, I do other things beyond hanging out at the convenience store or dressing as a zombie sex goat or whatever it is that I'm normally doing on weekends.

This post is a pretty standard, non-wacky thing that I did. I visited Cerise by Gordon Ramsay, the newly Michelin starred fine dining establishment here in Tokyo. Gordon Ramsay actually has two restaurants in Tokyo, Gordon Ramsay at the Conrad and Cerise by Gordon Ramsay (also at the Conrad but whatever) but Cerise is the less expensive of the two.

Anyway, my dining companion and I opted for the course menu which is a three course dinner with an option at each course. For sampling purposes, we got every option so that everything could be tried. I'll review the meal course by course.

Here is the menu listing for the first course:

Click on the picture if it's cutting off for some reason.

Here are pictures of the dishes:

This one is obviously the goat cheese and fig salad. I only sampled this one but it was light and flavorful as well as having a nice contrast between the cheese and the sweetness of the figs.


This one is the ox cheek. Readers of this blog will note that it looks similar to the Mammoth snacks I posted in a different entry. The taste however what a million times better than those. It was a nice savory flavor intertwined with the saltiness of the bresaola. The horseradish cream was actually very subtle in flavor considering the strength of horseradish in general.

Second course menu:

here are shots of the dishes:

This is the sea bream. Actually, I am not a fan of fish in the slightest but I gave this a try just to test if the magic of fine dining could fix my hate of seafood. Nope. Everything that wasn't fish tasted good though but the fishy-ness which wasn't overpowering was still too much for me.

This is the lamb, which I ate. It was spectacular. The lamb was extraordinarily tender and didn't really require a knife for cutting. The bacon and braised lentils rounded out the flavors quite well.

Final course was dessert, which I forgot to take pictures of before eating so the ones below are half eaten. Sorry.

Dessert course menu:


The desserts, in their half-eaten state, look a bit like this:

The tiramisu is essentially an ice cream dessert with various toppings. It was actually quite good. I don't like espresso so I didn't sample it with the topping but the ice cream was delicious.

What I ate was the apple dessert. It was bavarian cream, which is delightful but I wasn't overly impressed with the ultra strong sour apple flavor of the crushed ice on top. It wasn't bad at all but it probably could have served the overall flavor better if it used some kind of fresh apple instead. Just my opinion though.

Overall, the dinner was great. The restaurant itself was relatively empty and the staff was very attentive and helpful. The cost per person was about $60, not including drinks (expect to add a lot more if you drink a lot) which makes it not terribly expensive in terms of fine dining. I'd recommend a visit if you are into delicious food in a high class atmosphere.

A single tasty doughnut

Where I am from, doughnuts are serious business in all aspects of that meaning. There is an unexplainable glut of doughnut shops in town (though admittedly they are mostly a bizarre cluster of Dunkin Donuts within walking distance of each other). However, there are many other options for doughnuts, mostly of the chain shop variety.

Since being in Japan, doughnuts don't quite have the same level of clout as they do where I am from but, that being said, there are options. The largest by far being Mister Donut, which serves up the standard range of donuts you would expect at any chain doughnut shop. There are others though. There is the wildly popular Krispy Kreme that still manages to constantly have a line despite being open for years now. There is also the overly expensive and far too heavy Donut Plant which tends to be greasy for some reason. There are even Japanese type donuts that are given Japanese flavors like miso or green tea (the actual cake however is essentially castella in a ring shape and not really a donut).

However, I think I have found an unlikely source for a great doughnut. Actually we aren't talking your specialty doughnuts like Boston Creme or whatever, we are just talking about a plain, old fashioned, home made style doughnut that is not greasy and tastes great. The unlikely source of this doughnut? Wendy's.

Yeah, the fast food restaurant Wendy's. They have a doughnut on their 99 yen menu and it's just a plain doughnut (with the option for sugar or cinnamon) that comes incredibly close to home made, non-chain store style donuts (despite their obvious pre-made shape). Here is a pic:

This one is with a cinnamon topping.

It sounds like a weird suggestion for doughnuts but so far, if you want a plain, no frills yet deliciously homemade seeming doughnut in Japan, Wendy's is your best choice.

Personally, I'm a Krispy Kreme fan all the way but occasionally, when the mood for a quality old fashioned doughnut arises, I'm bound to be at Wendy's.

Pig Pork Buns

It seems to be the ultimate goal of any Japanese company to make things as cute as possible. Some companies take the easy way out and just slap a hello kitty on the pink version of their product (I'm looking at you television, microwave and dildo producers!!) while others go to ridiculous lengths to find that just right amount of cuteness that will get people to buy their product.

Of course, food is no exception. There is practically a cottage industry of cute patterns and cookie cutters for bentos. All types of classes and groups for the betterment of bento cuteness and food display. This has even translated over to western food, where my friend La Carmina, who is a million times more popular than me and rightly so, has produced a book about cute foods with a less Japanese flair.

Where is this going? To the convenience store obviously. Wait, that's where I was going when I found this entry into the world of cute food:

This is is Pig Pork Bun. Very meta. It's a pork bun, which, for those who don't already know, is a kind of steamed bread that has a filling of pork and vegetables (although there are other types as well). This one, filled with pork, is decorated as a pig.

Here is a side view so you can get a better idea of it. These are actually mini-buns so they aren't incredibly big. They run for about 80 yen if I am remembering correctly. You can buy them at Sankus convenience stores and I'd guess Circle K as they are the same company.

However, those who know me know that I am not a cute food enthusiast but a horror enthusiast. I am not excited by cute food in the least so I had to make this a little more grotesque. What better way than eating it?


There we go. Pig pork bun, leaking it's porky innards out for the world to see. There is some cute horror for you.