I have been meaning to visit Artichaut, a Micheline one star French restaurant, just around the corner from my apartment. I chose a cold rainy Thursday to do so and there was a business meeting with Spaniards and one couple in the restaurant-it is a very small space, so I got lucky going without a reservation. The chef is said to have spent seven years in France working in restaurants. I ordered the B set for ¥4150, which included two appetizers, one main dish, and desert. The first dish after soup was vegetable terrine with 13 types of vegetables (pictured above). Almost too exquisite to eat, but very fresh.
The second appetizer was white asparagus with cured ham served warm (my descriptions might be poor due to the menu being written in Japanese and my lack of knowledge of French dinning staples). It was a nice contrast in flavors and textures.
The main dish was a beef dish (beef bourguignon?) garnished with vegetables, which was very flavorful.
There were several choices for desert that day, but I went with the chocolate cake with hot chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream to end a sumptuous meal. This inspires me to seek out some of the other Micheline starred restaurants in the area that I have been avoid fearing the price-lunch is almost always reasonable in Japan no matter where you dine.
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