Momiji Restaurant, Paris

We went to Paris for a few days in July and thought we could share what we ate when we were there!

We had a long and exhausting day (RER train strike, heat, etc.), so we decided to go to dinner at a place that would be easy to find. We had been to Momiji on a previous visit to Paris, when we found it just by walking around the streets near Bastille Metro stop (the restaurant had a big advert inside the station to direct you). Although it is not great Japanese food, we thought it was decent enough and we didn't have to think about where to go. Neither of our French is that fluent, so it's good to just fall back on somewhere you know there would be enough vegetarian options. Although Paris might not be the most vegetarian friendly city, there are quite a lot of vegetarian friendly places or places that might make you something without meat; however, with the language barrier, sometimes it takes a bit of work. Many places also don't seem to have the full menu on display outside of the restaurant but only certain selections or offers.

There are quite a few Japanese restaurants run by non-Japanese in Paris (the same is true in many other Western countries); not that is necessarily an issue, but just want to mention that Momiji is probably one of them. For some reason yakitori (grilled things skewered on a bamboo sticks) seems to be quite popular on the menus in Japanese restaurants in Paris (and we have studied quite a few during our visits there), and Momiji had a quite a few grilled vegetables on offer. Here we had some rather delicious courgettes and mushrooms on sticks!

In the set menu, there was a vegetarian sushi set, so it made it easy! It wasn't anything out of the ordinary tastewise (although you don't see the same kind of avocado sushi too often), but did the trick!

We also ordered this tofu and tomato side. It was quite light and refreshing, especially after a hot day in Paris!

I guess we didn't order a lot of food, but perhaps we weren't too hungry that day. All that came to €41.90, so it wasn't cheap but not too expensive for central Paris I guess. And if you want more authentic Japanese food, should head towards the area near Pyramides station.

Momiji

20, Rue Daval, 75011 PARIS, France

Tel: +33 1 48 06 14 72

Breakfast baked goods

A couple of different breakfasts for this post. First, on our way to the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka we bought some small things at Tokyo station to eat on the way. It was from a counter of Cozy Corner. They offered a variety of western cakes and bakery items, and we got a chocolate eclair (￥116) and a 'little bird' custard filled-waffle (￥116). The 'waffle' was not exactly what you would think of as waffle, a bit soft for that, but very nice and fluffy, almost cake like texture with lots of cool and creamy filling! It even came with a little icepack to keep it cool, impressive attention to detail! Cheap and nice breakfast on the go!





Second, our breakfast on our final day. We made a quick stop at Harajuku again before the weekend mob descended and went to Caffe Solare on Takeshita-dori. We got some (organic but slightly expensive) tea (¥300 each) and some Western style baked goods. They were cream corn bread (¥190), mini pizza bread (¥180) and cream cheese pie (¥170):



I love the cream corn bread! Another slightly Asian fusion creation? They were actually not that small, so not bad value and filled our stomach nicely. There are some similar style bakery goods in the Japan Centre in London, so when I miss my Asian style bread I can get my fix there.

R Burger - Roppongi

We had heard of a few different Japanese burger chains before going, including of course MOS Burger that we tried. On continuing our Roppongi exploration we managed to stumble across one which we hadn't read anything about, and which had some vegetarian options too! Near the famously rowdy Roppongi crossing was R Burger.



This place had all of the burgers in different-looking buns that are quite far away from a western burger. We ordered a set meal (￥750) that came with Steamed-Bun Sandwich with Avocado (アボカド蒸しサンド) - steamed five-grain Chinese style buns with avocado, tomato, cottage cheese, mixed salad and mayo sauce. The menu entry on their website for this one actually says 'ベジタリアンでもOKです' - OK for vegetarians! The fluffy buns were quite nice though the sandwich as a whole tasted quite salady - not as good as the MOS rice burger though not bad, healthy for sure and certainly quite interesting to look at! The set included a drink and french fries, but we paid an extra ￥70 to upgrade the fries to tofu nuggets (豆腐ナゲット). Tofu nugget is an excellent concept, and they were as great as we hoped. The portions were not too big, but not a bad price for what we got.



Looking at the menu online it also offers 'green stick salads' (salad wrapped Vietnamese summer roll style) as well as tofu cake (as in sponge cake!), so definitely one of the most vegetarian friendly fast food places. There are also 2 other branches in Tokyo area (Ginza and Hachiōji), and interestingly 2 additional branches in Bangkok. If you want healthier, and certainly more interestingly and refined fast food, you should check out R Burger!


R Burger - Roppongi Branch
港区六本木4-9-8 リラビル1F
TEL ： 03-6805-3119

Koots Green Tea - Roppongi

Tonight we set out to look at the some of the cool new buildings and the famous nightlife in the Roppongi district. After our huge lunch, we figured we didn't need a big meal and would just grab whatever looked good along the way. We started out at Tokyo Midtown, a 6-buidling (including the tallest building in Tokyo) mixed-use development that opened in 2007. It houses a number of fancy shops and restaurants, but we decided to get something cheap and small in the Plaza/B1F level to exercise some money saving measures when coming near the end of our trip/ assaults on our bank accounts. We figured that most of the fancy stuff would not have been vegetarian anyway!

We decided to give Koots Green Tea a try because it has something a bit more substantial than Starbucks or cakes on offer, and their menu with English in front of the shop made it easier as well.



I guess they get quite a lot of foreign visitors at Tokyo Midtown, since a number of international companies like Xerox and Cisco have their offices in this building, and the server spoke some English. We ordered some onigiri (around ¥200 each and much larger than you get for a similar price in the UK) and were told we had to wait a few minutes for them.



From right to left, the onigiri were perilla and hijiki, green perilla and leaf mustard, and edam and olive. All were good but it was the edam and olive was the best and most interesting, with slightly melted cheese working surprisingly well with the rice. Definitely worth the (short) wait and not something you're likely to get anywhere else than Japan.

We also had ice tea and a green tea cream an-mitsu, green tea soft cream with red beans (¥790 as a 'dessert set' together).




Tasty but we had better green tea parfaits! The place was not somewhere you would go and sit to eat for too long but for a quick stop and some interesting onigiri it might be worth a go if you are in the area and want some comparatively cheap eats.


Koots Green Tea (Tokyo Midtown branch)
東京都港区赤坂9-7-2 B-B101
TEL： 03-5413-7131

Japanese street crepes

We got back Tokyo this evening on Shinkensan. We had a vague plan for the evening but we changed our minds kind of last minute. So somehow we ended up in Ikebukuro, and by the time we were trying to find something we eat, the shops and restaurants in shopping/entertainment/hotel megaplex Sunshine City were closing (might have been interesting to visit Ice Cream City in Namja Town, one of these Japanese food 'theme park' type place where you could find all sorts of ice-cream/soft serve type creations).

Since we already had quite a sizable lunch in Osaka, we decided to just grab some Japanese street crepes at the Crazy Crepes stall next to the Sega Aracde. As the location of the stall suggests, Japanese street crepes are popular with young people. It's very causal and cheap food that you might eat while standing or walking on the street. Some of you might have managed to try this lovely Japanese interpretion outside Japan, as you can find them in San Francisco, Melbourne or Vancouver. I think the main difference between Japanese and French crepes are the toppings, but also Japanese crepes perhaps have slightly less egg?

Most of the selections at this 'Atlanta Crazy Crepes' were with sweet and cold toppings, but there were also a few savory toppings (tuna, egg salad, teriyaki chicken - the most bizaare combo was cabonara teriyaki chicken!) and also a few combos with chocolate or custard cream served hot. Depends on toppings, they were around ¥400 each. I got one with strawberries, and IF got a chocolate one. They were both quite yummy, but the downside was there was no place to sit down and we weren't too sure if we were allowed to go into the arcade with the crepes! Depends on the type of crepe (how much cream it has!) you get, I'd say it's definitely enough for a snack or light lunch.

If you visit Harajuku in Tokyo, you would see the two famous crepe stands on Takeshita Dori, Marion Crepes and Angels Hearts (which are right across from each other). We didn't manage to try them, but at least I managed to take a photo of what was on offer at Angels Hearts. Oh well, there is always next time!

MOS Burger

Another day, another while spent wandering in search of a dinner location. Key lesson was probably that while Seven Elevens, Family Marts and other konbinis (コンビニ, i.e. convenience store) make for useful markers on a map once you're close, there are far too many of them to use before that. Although the post code was consistently signed, they were somewhat useful. Anyway, after a relatively short time we successfully found the Shimbashi branch of Mos Burger (モスバーガー) for some Japanese style fast food.



Not every branch has rice burgers, apparently, but we checked the website to make sure before going. We ordered one burger plus onion rings & fries and drink set (¥630), and one burger with salad and drink set (¥630). The burgers and accompanying fries and salad (with Japanese style dressing) were not particularly large to Western standards, but while the sadly non-crunchy fries were not especially to my taste, the burger itself was excellent.



The kanpira (きんぴら) burgers we tried consist of lightly stir-fried vegetables and seaweed for filling with the key point being the delicious tightly packed rice patties, just slightly crunchy on the outside, which could make a good snack on their own (like grilled onigiri) and are more filling than the small size suggested.

Note also the bright green melon soda in the first pic, which was rather tasty by unnaturally coloured drink standards and we may come across again elsewhere!


Mos Burger モスバーガー新橋二丁目店
〒105-0004東京都港区新橋2-12-16明和ビル1階
Phone 03-3507-0065