A note on the words: a gougere is a small choux puff made with cheese in the dough, and an amuse-bouche is the single-bite opener a French kitchen sends out before the course proper. Meuniere means a fillet floured and cooked in butter, and beurre blanc is the emulsified butter-and-wine sauce that usually goes with it. Sawara is the fish the Japanese call by that name, a slender relative of the mackerel, and nanohana is the flowering shoot of the rapeseed plant, eaten as a green. Rapee is French for grated, so a carrot rapee is simply shredded raw carrot. Morille is the French name for the honeycombed mushroom the Japanese call amigasatake, and a jus is a sauce made from the roasting juices. A gratin is browned under heat, and bechamel is the white sauce of butter, flour and milk. Kirsch is a clear brandy distilled from cherries. Petits fours are the tiny sweets served with coffee at the end. Dejeuner is French for lunch, gourmand for a big eater, and grande maison for a great house.
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Maison Paul Bocuse on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hello, this is Hangover Meshi. So, lunch this time was “Maison Paul Bocuse” in Daikanyama! I have been getting into French cooking lately, and I kept thinking I ought to go at least once. A little time opened up, so I booked and off I went. It is right by Tsutaya. Maybe ten minutes on foot from the station? The building alone is already ridiculous, ha.
From here you go down the stairs to the basement. I say basement, but the courtyard opens up in front of you, so it does not feel like one at all.
The interior is something too, ha.
MENU DEJEUNER 6,050 yen
MENU SPECIAL 8,470 yen
MENU GOURMAND 14,520 yen
It runs from the four-course DEJEUNER, to the five-course SPECIAL, to the GOURMAND with beef as the main.
This time I went for the middle one, the MENU SPECIAL. Very much looking forward to it!
Inside really does feel like walking into an aristocrat’s house, and it is beautifully done.
This must be where they shot Grand Maison Tokyo, I am guessing. It looks like something I have seen before, and there is an open kitchen you pass on the way to your seat, which really lifts the mood! Wonderful.
Right, here we go!
I had things to do afterwards so I could not drink, and the opening toast was a non-alcoholic sparkling!
While you wait for the food they bring you these: gougeres, shaped rather like cream puffs. There is cheese inside and they are good!
A very fresh, clean plate. Delicious. There is something about the salt at a place like this — obviously it should be good, but it really is exceptional.
It feels restrained on salt, and yet because the savory depth comes through so clearly the flavor reads as strong, almost rich. Good stuff.
This is the lobster ravioli.
I had pictured ravioli as something much smaller, but one properly large raviolo sat right in the middle.
Being big it has real volume and real substance. The sauce too, but it is the lobster aroma spreading through your mouth that is the happiness here! Delicious.
And then the fish course. A meuniere made with seasonal sawara.
The fish courses are so good that you really are better off adding one. Look at that cooking. How on earth do they do it?
Crisp skin and plump, moist flesh — excellent. The garnish is nanohana and carrot rapee. And the beurre blanc is superb… it does suit fish, does it not.
The main is roast Iberico pork.
It is a fairly firm piece of meat, and my impression was that the fatty part at the edge was tough and hard to get through with the knife.
The flavor is of course perfect. The jus scented with a mushroom called morille is irresistible. The mushroom sitting on top of the pork is that morille, which in Japan they apparently call amigasatake.
And what came with it was the saffron rice gratin.
This gratin goes wonderfully with the pork too. They use a variety of Akita rice called Sakihokore, and the very gentle bechamel and the saffron rice suit each other perfectly. It is delicious, though looking at the whole thing, it is quite a lot of food!
Beautiful deep red strawberries. They look wonderful.
You crack through the fence of caramel around the outside as you eat. Yes, good. The pistachio is, as the name says, wonderfully fragrant, and that side is delicious too. Happiness!
Before dessert they asked whether I would like some cheese — I was too full to manage it, ha ha.
Delicious right down to the very last thing! Thoroughly satisfied.
The atmosphere aside, it was simply delicious. I got to spend a very enjoyable stretch of time, as much entertainment out of the ordinary as it was a meal. There is something fun about feeling like you have stepped inside a drama. Is this what they mean by a grande maison, I wonder. French cooking really is good.
This is a place I would like to use again for an anniversary or some other special day!
Recommended!
Maison Paul Bocuse (French / Daikanyama Station, Nakameguro Station, Shinsen Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★★☆ 4.5
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
