Monday, December 22, 2008

All you CAN eat

Oh, the food. As I mentioned yesterday, part of the reason Josh and I headed to Tokyo was to partake of the famous Sunday Brunch at The New Sanno hotel. The New Sanno is an interesting place - it's a privately-owned hotel in Tokyo that is only open to members of the U.S. military. The rates are incredibly low, it's a 5-10 minute walk from the Tokyo Metro, and it is a really nice place. Josh and I haven't stayed the night before, but some of our friends sang the praises of the brunch, so off we went. Here we are, happy and hungry, before heading in:This isn't at the Sanno; it's a restaurant in Tokyo Tower.
We were too hungry to get a photo together before eating - see the look on Josh's face? That's hungry.

We were also too hungry to take any pictures of the room or the food, so let me paint you a little picture. It's a pretty standard hotel ballroom with big, low-quality Japanese decor. There's a giant Christmas tree/photo op spot in one corner, and a jazz pianist in another. The servers are everywhere, bringing coffee, water, and cheap champagne with mind-boggling efficiency. Plates disappear as soon as they are set to the side, which happens frequently if one wants to taste everything.

I won't try to name all the food that was there, just all the food that Josh or I tasted. We avoided most red meats, which were plentiful, and most poultry, for that matter. I started with salads: small tastes of pasta salad, marinated beets, green salad, Greek chopped salad, marinated artichokes, and yellow potato salad. I also grabbed some of the first American-style sushi I've seen here, in that first round - spicy tuna roll and California roll. The salads were decent, with the beets standing out as DELICIOUS, but the sushi was awful - Japanese sushi chefs should stick to the real thing, I think.

Next was grilled swordfish with sundried tomato sauce, corn chowder, smoked salmon on toast points with the fixin's, and a little caviar. In the meantime, Josh put a hurtin' on a couple impressively large plates of scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, bacon, pork sausage links, and a vegetable and cheese omelet with more of that yummy sundried tomato sauce. I had a little of the breakfast items too, and then we headed for the waffle bar.

Oh, the waffle bar.

Waffles are one thing Josh and I don't make at home. We don't own a waffle iron and don't really want one - we'd have them all the time! So that was one indulgence we planned on for the brunch. The chef made smallish waffles, about the size of a saucer, right on the floor, and we each grabbed two. I had whipped butter and maple syrup on mine, with whipped cream and sweetened strawberries on the side. Josh went for the basics, and we were both floored. They were crispy, they were slightly sweet, they were cakey and light in the middle. Oh, nonny. The waffles.

After a couple bites each of a couple cakes, puddings, and some ice cream, we were DONE. D-to the-ONE. Observe:FLATTERING.

This is why I built a couple hours' walk into our post-brunch afternoon. There was shopping, there were costumes (not on us), there was religion and a long train ride. What a day! More to come.

3 comments:

Frankie said...

Why did you guys avoid red meat and chicken? Is it a health thing, or something specific to Japanese cuisine?

Bob said...

Sounds like a great time, and excellent food! (Except perhaps the waffles made right on the floor.)

Funny guy, eh?

EmilySullins said...

Ack! Waffles on the floor! Good one, Pops.

I'm kind of geeking out that Frankie, who Can't Relax, is reading my blog. (http://frankiecantrelax.blogspot.com) Go read her site and laugh, and cry.

I'll write a full post on our weird eating sometime soon, but the basics are that I don't really like red meat, and I don't think it's worth the environmental cost. Josh used to be really heavy, and he restricts his diet to stay in shape - although he still ate bacon at the buffet! We both eat chicken from time to time just for diversity and because healthy veg food is hard to find in restaurants. And I'll never give up fish.