Pizza Salvatore – 63 points

I once saw a great interview with Gordon Ramsey, in which when asked about whether RamGord was behind the stoves in any of the restaurants branded with his name, he went into a great rant about whether the journo actually expected that Giorgio Armani had personally stitched the Armani suit the journo was wearing.  He had a good point perhaps, but perhaps not a perfect point.

 

There are certain types of food (and perhaps certain particular restaurants) where the food may depend on the actual physical skill of the person preparing it.  It is often said that good sushi depends just as much on the chef’s knowledge as his actual physical technique in making it; hands that are too small, too warm or too week just cannot physically make the perfect bed of rice on which to lay the perfectly cut bit of dead protein.

 

Perhaps pizza may be the same.  I once had a discussion with a pizza chef from the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples, who said that in training to become a pizza chef, a process that takes a number of years apparently, the first year was spend doing nothing but kneading the dough.  In the case of a pizza restaurant using a wood fired oven (that gets extra points, especially given that they appear to be using hand-cut oak to fire it), it surely takes a number of years experience to get a feeling for how the oven is operating at any one time; how hot the floor is, how hot the walls are, whether extra wood needs to be added, whether there is too much smoke in the over, and most importantly how long the pizza should be left in to reach the perfect state where the dough is perfectly cooked and the cheese, just starting to bubble.

 

Salvatore is by and large my favourite pizza joint in Tokyo.  The person behind the Salvatore chain is a guy called Makoto Onishi, one of the only (perhaps the only) non-native to win the Naples Pizzafest competition.  I am sure he is good, if the best of Naples say that he is good, he must be very good.  And whilst the pizzas at Salvatore are very good, it was clear that he was not wielding the peel today.

 

The food:  A very good pizza, the tomato sauce had the perfect balance of tangyness and fruityness, the mozzarella was buffalo and generously applied; the olive oil was seeping through the pizza onto the plate leaving a nice puddle to be mopped up.  But the bottom was burnt.  I love this place, I love their pizzas, I was looking forward to one today, but the burnt flavour just cuts through everything.  I have faith in this place, I will visit again, but the guy with the peel was not having the perfect day when he put my lunch in the oven .  25 points.

 

The price:  1,400 yen for a pizza, drink, cold soup and a couple of leaves masquerading as salad (nice dressing though)  5 points.

 

The volume:  Good size pizzas, a bit more in the way of salad leaves would be nice though, it is not as though lettuce is expensive at this time of year. 10 points.

 

The extras:  A salad, soup, drink and pizza in the set is not bad, but surely a salad can be more than a couple of lettuce leaves.  8 points.

 

Bonus: For using a wood fired oven, and burning proper hard grain wood in it – 20 points.  For not being able to use the thing properly – minus 5 points. 15 points.

 

The details: 1 Fl Prudential Plaza, 2-13-10, Nagatacho Chiyoda-ku

Phone 03 3500 5700

Web site:
http://www.salvatore.jp/

 

Pizzeria Liana – 53 points

It’s hot, I’m tired and grumpy, which leads me to want to start talking like some dude from the movie Godfather.  Hey, you, yeah you, you know, you insult my food, you insult me, you insult my mother, you insult my country.  And of all the culinary insults out there, I am sure Japan is home to its fair share.  I know that avocado in sushi can upset purists.  Getting rice dirty with a dash of soy sauce on top has resulting in me being on the receiving end of stares that would make Medusa proud.  I have even sat through listening to Big Trouble insult a mate of mine for over an hour for daring to put a block of ice in his scotch, and rightly so.  Pretty impressive though for a wee bonny lass from these fair isles in the east, especially given that she was full of Little Trouble at the time and not drinking.

 

Today’s offering was up there with the best of them.  The place looked promising, big outside deck, a pizza oven with the sort of Italian looking tiles on the outside (even if it was gas fired).  That was until I saw the menu.  Today’s special pizza, Bologna sausage (starts out OK, like a lot of things I guess), with egg (no, no, that is just not right, unless it is a perfectly poached egg that spills runny yoke all over the pizza when you gently pierce it) with a mayonnaise sauce – that is where they go beyond bad taste and start insulting.  To all my readers in Naples (probably none), this is the time to stand up and protect your culture, your heritage, your respect.  A restaurant that calls itself a pizzeria and then puts mayonnaise on its pizzas is insulting you, more importantly, it is insulting your mother.

 

So, four of us (Lapp, Harry, RB and me) all went for the spaghetti (which says something about the offerings in the pizzeria).

 

The food:  Tomato sauce spaghetti with Genovese sauce and mozzarella is what the menu said.  Interesting combination I though, but what turned up was a rather average tomato pasta with a couple of minute bits of cheese and a couple of blobs of pesto on top.  Not bad per say, but just not that good.  It was a pass but nothing more, especially after recently having rather good tomato spaghettis at Goose and Gusto E Vino, of which the one at Gusto E Vino comes out tops.   20 points.

 

The price:  1,000 yen for a pasta, drink, 3cmx3cm square of bread and three lettuce leafs, which they called a salad. 5 points.

 

The volume:  Neither here not there really.  In line with the food, satisfactory, a pass. 8 points.

 

The extras:  The drink bar was nice, although in the heat, ice coffee would have been nice.  The hot coffee was in line with everything else here rather average, slightly stewed, not enough kick to it.  3 leaves is not a salad, but better than nothing I guess.  It failed the bread test, but then almost everywhere does, at least we got an extra square when we asked for one, which RB insisted is worth extra points.  8 + 2 for bringing along some more bread upon request = 10 points.

 

Bonus:  Although after my experience in the heat yesterday, I was not in the mood to sit outside, it did have a very nice street level open seating area, which I am sure would be very pleasant in the evening.  For this 10 points.

 

The details:  7-6-13 Akasaka, Minato-ku

Phone 03 5549 2343

Web site:
http://r.gnavi.co.jp/g254506/

Itaria Shokudo Goose – 74 points

I know that people can get all excited about premium grade koshihikari grown by a virgin 90 year-old farmer, with 100 years’ experience in the fields, whose ancestors have been tending the same rice paddy since before JC was dumping in his nappies, gown in crystal clear snow melt water in Aonuma, Niigata.  But for me, know matter how good rice is, it is never going to get close to a nice loaf of bread (unless perhaps someone has left said rice in a wooden bucket for a few months with a bit of mould to put a bit of oomph into it.)

 

Whilst Japanese bread invariably disappoints, unless you are that 90 year old farmer from Niigata, who lost his teeth sometime before the war and cannot chew anything harder than a duck’s feather, there are recently some very good bread shops in town.  The best baguette I think I have ever tasted is the one baked by Maison Kayser in Takanawa.  Goose did not disappoint me though, the bread, which appeared to be baked in house was very good, served with a bowl split into two; one side with some grated parmesan cheese in olive oil, the other side with a sort of tomato ragu. 

 

More importantly however, they served you as much as you want.  Brilliant, full bonus points for that alone.  So often in Japan, you go to an Italian restaurant and they either charge you for the bread or give you one minuscule portion that disappears as soon as you sit down.  This is unforgivable.  The whole point of the bread is so that you can use it to mop up any sauce, grease, muck or other random stains left on or near your plate.  If you leave an Italian restaurant hungry for lack of bread, the chef should get down on his knees before you and offer to commit seppuku, it is really the only honourable thing to do. 

 

I once heard a long diatribe by a rather demanding Japanese OL, who was charged 50 cents for a cup of green tea at a sushi bar in Sydney.  She ranted at length that it was her natural born right to drink as much green tea as she could at no charge just for going somewhere near the vicinity of a sushi bar and until the wide-eyes understood that, they could never make proper sushi, before going on rant about the nationality of the people working behind the counter.  Well that is how I feel about bread at an Italian restaurant, especially if the sauce is good and I have to leave it there due to a lack of bread to mop with (although I have been know to lick the plate directly if I am sure no one is looking).

 

Itaria Shokudo Goose, whilst you may be a goose, congratulations for getting it right with the bread.

 

The food:  Enough about the bread, the food was also jolly good.  I had a nice tomato based pasta, finished off with a salad on top.  Sounds a bit left field, but was very good, the generous amount of rabbit food on top was much appreciated as with Big Trouble out of town my consumption of green-stuff rapidly goes down.  Lapp had what looked like a very nice niçoise salad, with a generous serving of tuna and anchovies on top.  RB had what looked like a very tasty cream based crab pasta, the pink complexion of which nicely matched his selection of peach flavoured tea to have with it .  The pasta was all freshly hand made, and all the better for it.  29 points.

 

The price:  900 yen for the pasta, with an extra 100 yen for a drink; total damage of 1,000 yen for a good lunch with coffee. 7 points.

 

The volume:  Good size, although for an extra 300 yen, one could upgrade their lunch to an oomori, the endless supply of bread also gets them a few extra points. 10 points.

 

The extras:  The bread, who could want more, well if I am going to be fussy, although 100 yen is cheap for a coffee, they could have added this to the set.  A little desert perhaps?  Maybe even an appetiser or soup of some description; although for a 900 yen lunch I guess I can’t complain.  8 points.

 

Bonus: The bread did it.  Good homemade bread with tasty muck to smear all over it. 20 points.

 

The details: 2Fl, Itenbari Building, 3-7-9 Akasaka, Minato-ku

Phone 03 3582 7924

Web site:
http://r.tabelog.com/tokyo/rstdtl/13022687/

Gusto E Vino – 73 points

The name alone deserves 10 bonus points, love it, eat & drink, all it needs is a ‘be merry’ and it would get a full 20 bonus points for that. This is the sort of place that you would walk by and never notice is there, which probably explains why we never noticed it was there. Lapp suggested it after picking up a take out spaghetti a few nights back, causing much commotion it appears (the restaurant didn’t even have take out containers, leading to someone having to go running off to buy some).

The food: I had a very nice cream based soup (perhaps with a little white wine) with mixed beans and vegetables, a sort of light cream style minestrone, so nice that the rather measly size left me wanting more. This was followed by a chilled tomato based angel-hair spaghetti, the sort of food that isn’t meant to work but does in the 30 degree heat outside. My guess was the sauce was based on tomato, onions, capers, white wine with a dash of Tabasco. 35 points.

The price: 1,200 yen. Not bad for the quality of the food, although broke RB’s lunch budget. 5 points.

The volume: not quite there, more ‘ladies that lunch’ than ‘lads that lunch’ type place. 5 points, mainly because I am going to have to put up with listening to RB complain that by going over budget he can’t afford any chocolate this afternoon.

The extras: great coffee, biscuit that came with it was nice, but a couple more biscuits surely would not have broken the bank. 9 points.

Bonus: I liked the place, the guy behind the counter was very friendly, spoke good English, had even lived in God’s own for a while. He impressed me even more by having one of our best whites, Dog Point Sav Blanc available. Oh to have stayed there on a hot summer afternoon with a bottle or two for company. Extra points for the come back having screwed up RB’s order, although I struggle to understand what someone can have against cheese.  20 points.

The details: Basement of Akasaka Sun Building, 3-12-10 Akasaka, Minato-ku
Phone 03 3224 2661
Web site: http://www.gustoevino.com