Matsugen (松玄), Azabu-Juban

We had dinner at Matsugen, a restaurant known for its soba. It's located in the neighbourhood of Azabu-Juban, near Roppongi, and might be a little difficult for unfamiliar tourists like us to locate. Thank goodness for Google Maps. Thanks to Wise Guy from RERG for bringing me here! Do look out for his review (shall shamelessly post his links here too), for greater insights.

It's a nice cozy place, with a charcoal grill at the end of the table where they whip up their grill items on the spot. And in anticipation of the great food, we got a mini jug of Hakkaizan sake recommended by the waiter:



Here is our order of Kinki fish being charcoal grilled on the spot. Kinki fish is a seasonal fish that is only found in Japan. Although this may cost a bomb (almost SGD45), it's a once in a lifetime thing ya?

The fish is incredibly FRESH- the skin has been grilled to crispy perfection but the white flesh underneath is smooth and succulent. We polished most of the meat off the fish! (Probably becos we were also rather hungry!)

Here is the next grill item, Anago (eel). Unlike most japanese eel served marinated in brown teriyaki sauce as we are accustomed to, this was just plain grilled eel meat and strangely it does not have a overly strong fishy taste. Just fresh, soft, succulent meat.

I had hot Kake soba- just plain buckwheat noodles in hot soup broth. It was a decent simple dish, but for something more visually appealing (and exciting!), do look for their cold Matsugen soba sets.

This has got to be the BEST ice cream I have ever tasted. This is Brown sugar ice cream in all it's creamy, milky goodness. Wise guy tells me good ice cream don't melt easily and this scoop of ice cream didn't liquify as quickly as in should with the heat (generated from the charcoal grill) in the room.

Impressed by their ice cream dessert, we went for the other item on the dessert menu- Warabi mochi, which was very decent chewy mochi pieces dusted in fine peanut powder, served with brown sugar. Not as mind blowingly good as the ice cream, but still able to hold its own.

Add: Azabu Juban 3-11-12, Minato-ku.