A note on the words: shime is the closing dish of a meal or a drinking night, usually rice or noodles — here, unusually, a curry at the end of a French course. Ryotei is a traditional high-end Japanese restaurant, the kind with a quiet entrance and private rooms; usagi means rabbit, which is where the shop gets its name.
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Akasaka Usagiya on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Right, this is Hangover Meshi. So, this time, Akasaka! There is a temple right in the middle of Akasaka, and inside the grounds of that temple, Jodo-ji, there are actually restaurants ^^. There is a sushi shop in there too and it is delicious, but this time I was taken to one of the other places.
The name: “Akasaka Usagiya”!
It looks for all the world like a quiet ryotei, a traditional Japanese restaurant, but it is in fact French, ha.
On top of that they apparently put on magic shows, which sounds rather fun!
Usagiya Standard Course, 11,000 yen
Usagiya Premium Course, 14,000 yen
You can add all-you-can-drink and so on, it seems. Plenty of different plans, which looks fun!
The magician apparently comes to your table at a good moment, ha. Something to look forward to!
Right then, the course begins!
Straight out of the gate, something extremely cute ^^
A rabbit and a moon! The shop is called Usagiya — the rabbit house — after all. I felt my heart thoroughly seized from the very first plate ^^
An appetizer set on a spoon, and a rabbit-shaped cracker with cheese perched on the rim of a glass — a charming little dish.
The spoon behind it is bent right over, and out came a line about how it had been bent by a certain famous psychic, which was fun ^^
The visual impact, or rather the sheer cuteness, is going off here!
Baguette as well!
Hokkaido scallops, sauteed — plump and springy, and when you eat one, sweet!
Hokkaido scallops, as you would expect. Delicious. The porcini-scented sauce suits them, and the prosciutto has the drinks going down too!
Out came something like a chicken pot pie! Careful, the dish is hot, they said.
Inside is a soup of truffle, foie gras and aromatic vegetables.
The pastry keeps the aroma sealed in, so cracking the top open releases a lovely waft of it.
You break the pastry up and eat it together with the soup. Cracking!
The rich white wine sauce and the plump steamed sole are both very good!
Even among white fish, sole seems to me particularly soft and airy. A melting texture!
The main meat course.
Roasted beef fillet with a great slab of foie gras sitting on top ^^ Lavish.
The sauce carries the flavor of truffle. Mmm — the rich foie gras and the beef wrapped in the fragrance of truffle, and it is delicious!
What a luxurious plate this is.
You can add a curry to close, they said, so I asked for it: a white curry.
It goes beautifully with the rich butter rice. This is, how to put it, good enough that it might be a waste not to order it!
Dessert!
After that, coffee, and we are done.
There were two magician slots between courses, and the magic was genuinely something. Or rather, it was magic that pulled the guests into it, and I had no idea at all how any of it worked, which was great fun! It may well have been a long time since I laughed this much over a meal. The food was all properly made and very good. The Japanese feel of being in a temple’s grounds, and then French cooking, and then a fun magic show — a lovely jumble of things, and I thought it a very good place to spend an enjoyable evening! I should like to go again at some point.
Akasaka Usagiya (French / Akasaka-mitsuke Station, Akasaka Station, Tameike-sanno Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.4
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
