Breakfast with Mt. Fuji

Posted on 2014/02/08 05:45:45 (February 2014).

[Wednesday 5th February 2014]
Was treated to wonderfully clear skies this morning, and ate breakfast with a view of Mt. Fuji.

In the evening I met up with Andy again, and we decided to make a second attempt to go to Gen Yamamoto (it had been closed on Monday) - the cocktail bar I'd heard about from a few different sources recently, so decided I had to try out.

It's nothing like any other cocktail bar I've been to - rather than just ordering the classics, here the done thing is to order one of the "omakase" tasting menus and let Yamamoto-san (who seems to be both owner and sole member of staff at this bar) choose the drinks for you.

There's a big focus here on seasonal ingredients, and all of the drinks in the tasting menu contain an interesting and unusual seasonable Japanese fruit or vegetable. The fruit/vegetable themes of our drinks ranged through ginger, kiwi fruit, a Japanese citrus fruit whose name I forget, winter tomato, white pumpkin and kumquat. He used a range of different bases from Spanish gin, through some Japanese sake and sho chu, Lithuanian rye vodka (!) to finally Yamazaki whisky. The real standout drink for me was the winter tomato with the Lithuanian vodka, flavoured with shiso - I suppose you could say this was a take on a bloody mary, but was quite a departure - wonderfully sweet and fragrant. However I enjoyed all of them.

After the cocktails we thought we should probably have something to eat (we didn't ever really get round to that on Monday) so mainly as it was close by, we decided to go for a return visit to Savoy pizzeria, and this time ate in. The pizza was excellent again and it was great to watch it being made in front of us - particularly how impressively quickly it cooks in their giant wood fired oven, which rather dominates the tiny restaurant.

Rounded the evening off at a British pub called The Tippler's Arms. Not much to write home about really.

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