We met at a cocktail party in Tokyo late last year and one email led to another and to two dinners together on two trips to Tokyo in a row.
I suggested having dinner in Kien, a small Michelin-starred establishment in Tokyo with good food and reasonable prices for a kaiseki-style dinner.
There are of course many good kaiseki restaurants in Tokyo, headed by Michelin three-star establishments like Ryugin and Yukimura, both in Azabu.
Kien is in a category below Ryugin and Yukimura, in terms of Michelin rankings, but the food is very good and prices are not astronomical so it’s the kind of place you can feel good about eating in any time.
So far I’ve had very nice memories of dinners at Kien.
My last dinner here was also with a couple, this time visiting from England, who are very old friends. Again, we overstayed our welcome, drinking and eating until way past closing time, talking about old times in Japan and in London.
Two Saturdays ago, we’d brought bottles of champagne and red wine and had the full-course kaiseki dinner that actually included a very nice wagyu sirloin steak as a main course, in Tokyo, living and loving a never-endingly delicious #Travelife.
