A Bit of France in Tokyo

I decided to be a little adventurous after all my walking. So I went to a place I had not been to before.

Down more of the little streets in the Jingumae area of Shibuya. I found this lovely little patio with an inviting restaurant through these doors.

Away from the crowds is La Fée Délice.

A French crêperie in the heart of Tokyo. The patio was perfect with the beautiful weather.

With it's eclectic ambiance. The roses meant I was in the right place.

Since I was treating myself this day, why not coffee? Mais bien sûr!

And of course a crêpe. Not just any crêpe, but the bouquet d'orange. Slices of orange, orange marinees fleurs d'oranger, vanilla ice cream and pistachios are drizzled with Grand Marnier. And then lit.

Sadly you can not see the flames from the flambé. It was enchanting.

Because it was a birthday, I wished お誕生日おめでとうございます to Mana and then devoured my crepé. It was amazingly delicious.

I didn't want to leave this pleasant little place. But eventually I had to. Back out into the crowds to the Meiji-jingumae 'Harajuku' Station, which was my choice for traveling to Harajuku both the last trip and this one. Less travelers and avoiding the notorious Yamanote Line with it's masses of people. It was a good choice for this period of needing to distance from other people. And the Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Line is easier to get to in Ikebukuro Station also. It's nice to have choices.

La Fée Délice is a wonderful little restaurant with very nice service. Their Instagram account is here https://www.instagram.com/lafeedeliceofficial/

It's a Food Trip in Tokyo

I mentioned a couple of things I ate in Tokyo, including that fun meal at the Vampire Cafe. Here's a few other things. Seasonal label of Oi Ocha Green Tea. I buy Oi Ocha in the US too. Making sure I was hydrated in that hot weather was important. Glad I did well with that. 

Only bag of Calbee chips I bought, near the start of my trip. Forerunner of the "everything is lemon flavor" of that time of the year. These actually were good. 

I did get some things from Boulangere Asanoya, including those cute little pies. This was their lemon bread, which was also good. 

I found Halloween KitKats at the local konbini! Since I had not tried pudding KitKats before, I went for it.

Cute little packaging. The flavor wasn't bad, but the chestnut KitKats were better.

My one super overly sweet treat. Konbini chocolate crepe. Fresh crepes at stands are better but this was okay. 

Mostly I ate this. Salads, along with nigiri sushi. I think my sushi craving was because I needed salt and protein, but didn't want heavy food. It's great that many konbini have decent sushi for not a lot of money. 

 A few things that made it home with me. Barely. Curry from both Hiroshima TAU and Marui One Annex Shinjuku. More of that Hiroshima lemon and orange flavored black tea, along with a lemon jam and lemon juice. They didn't have the setouchi lemon juice that I usually get.

 As for the curry, the one on the left was from Hiroshima TAU. Hiroshima oysters and seasoned with Hiroshima brand Lemosco, a lemon hot sauce, this was one hot curry. I was a little disappointed that there weren't more oysters. I ended up saving part of this and reheating it with shrimp the next day. 

The other was Tochigi Prefecture Lemon Milk Curry from Marui One Annex regional antenna shop. It's on the first floor and they always have interesting food from all over Japan. It's a good place to get stuff to take home for gifts. I was a little hesitant about this since it said it was a milk curry, but it was actually good! Chicken with a nice balance of lemon. I'd eat this again if I can find it. But it's difficult because the US prevents imports of curry with meat in it, unless there is major testing first. 

And sake from Hiroshima TAU. It's a nice sake shop on the second floor. I bought that sake I like along with a bottle of something a little special. 

From Sempuku Brewery in Hiroshima, this is another of their sake for the anime movie "In this Corner of the World". It's their Chisaku Momiji ginjo sake made with maple yeast. It was a lovely sake, very nice smooth flavor.

Besides food, I did get a couple of concert related items. This Közi photobook was available at the Deep Sanctuary VI MALICE MIZER 25th Anniversary Event. I picked it up for someone but of course I flipped through it. Really nice art photography of the musician and artist Közi. I recommend it for his fans. 

It came with a post card of Közi so now I have a set of him with Mana. Sadly no Yu~ki post card was available. So I don't have a complete set of MALICE MIZER members. 

Since the MALICE MIZER shirts were not available at the show, and the ones I ordered are suppose to ship very soon (yeah having to pay shipping for something which should have been at the concert, not the best thing), I ended up getting one of the new Moi dix Mois dolman shirts. Pardon the not so lovely hotel room bathroom door.

It's bigger and lighter weight than the other dolman shirts that I have. It's good for hot weather wearing. 

I wasn't planning on buying a tote bag, but the blue of the new Moi dix Mois tote was really appealing to me. It ended up being a good thing, made it easier to carry stuff after I fell at the concert. It's bigger than my other snap Moi dix Mois tote, so that is also nice. And there are the picks I bought at ESP Museum. The new Közi and Mana MALICE MIZER picks created for the 25th Anniversary. I bought extra so I could add them to my Moi dix Mois key chain, which now has four different Mana picks.

So that is probably it for my recent trip posts. However there are a few related things I want to write about. Including the new MALICE MIZER costumes and maybe a translation or two. So that may happen very soon.

Oh Crepes

Last week I got the urge to make crepes. It had been a few years since I made them so I wasn't sure how they would turn out. Thankfully they looked fine and the taste was great. Just to note, I used soy milk. I would suggest not using low or non-fat soy milk if doing this.

So what to do with these crepes? My first thought was salmon with lemon along with spinach cooked in butter with lemon. I kind of used this recipe here, but kind of didn't 

http://www.foodrepublic.com/recipes/salmon-and-spinach-filled-crepes/. I left out the tomatoes, cheese and garlic because I wanted to have the salmon and lemon stand out.

And I made a white wine sauce which is a simple white sauce with white wine added in. I use to make this to go with turkey filled crepes. I also used soy milk for this and topped the crepe with a little green onion since I did not have chives. Capers would be good too.

The thought of that sauce with poultry led to my next dish using the crepes. I made a rosemary chicken with crimini mushrooms cooked in butter with a little onion.

This time I put a few fresh parsley leaves on top. Similar to the turkey dish I made in the past. This was so good.

My imagination was in full swing. Chicken crepes with an orange sauce maybe?

I had orange syrup from making candied oranges so I added in some acid in the form of red wine vinegar plus minced onion, orange peel and orange slices. This is a variation on a classic orange sauce like the one in this recipe http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/duck-a-lorange-102145. I left out the butter and broth because I wanted to reduce the amount of fat in the dish.

Put chicken in a crepe, add the orange sauce and cooked slice and it was like a Chinese orange flavored chicken dish. Very sweet and good.

I had one more crepe. Deciding I wanted to go with vegetables I made a veloute sauce with butter, flour, low salt vegetable stock, mushrooms and a little minced onion. I used the recipe here http://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-food/how-to-make-classic-sauces-vegan/ 

Into the crepe went vegetables sauteed in olive oil with a little garlic and onion. I was trying hard not to cook Italian style vegetables so limited the garlic and put in corn, carrots and peas.

Dressed with the veloute sauce and parsley blossoms this turned out very well. The corn added a bit of sweetness that bumped the flavor up.

What I enjoyed about this, besides the food, was the ability to use my imagination. Something to remember is to consider adding a little acid like wine, fruit juice or a nice vinegar to push the flavor up and balance the dish. Especially with orange sauce it helps reduce bitterness.

So what else can I make with crepes?

Well I whipped up chilled coconut milk,

tossed some local strawberries in cane sugar,

and cooked up a batch of dessert crepes.

The end result.

I could have put whipped coconut on top, more strawberries but I really wanted to eat. So delicious!