Address - 153-0051 Meguro-ku, Kami Meguro 1-17-4 Opening hours - Lunch, 12:00-14:00. Dinner, 18:00-24:00 Map - See directions Telephone - 03 5722-3492
Menu - In fractured French and Japanese CC - ??

One Saturday in December, 2002, my companion MN and I visited the tiny French restaurant Bistro Mikami north of Naka Meguro Eki on the Toyoko Sen, two local stops out of Shibuya Eki. It is a tiny place with nine seats at the bar and two tables with two seats each. Perhaps, the place had once been a tiny Japanese-style bar. The dark-wood bar, cabinets, and floors along with the sit-next-to-your fellow diners reminded me of a real French place, although the menu is completely in Japanese on a chalk board.

I ordered a decent, half carafe of 1997 St. Emillion for Y2800 served in crystal glasses. We were impressed with the giant collection of appetizer offerings but, being used to regular French restaurants, we did not at first realize this was a kaiseki-style joint with French fare; we ordered a set menu at Y4000 a person. Offered a selection of 5 appetizers, I ordered duck terrine to go alongside whatever the staff suggested. I got the terrine (wrapped in bacon and not fat as I had eaten a few days before at Harajuku's Aux Bacchanales), potato quiche, crabe frites on a ratouille which cleansed a slightly greasy palate, a terrine with egg with a slight eggy aftertaste, and foie gras with a red-wine sauce on grilled daikon. Another item was a large, fresh clam served with an escargot sauce; all were fine.

Interesting to note was that each dish is served on a separate plate from different manufacturers of porcelain; most of it was rather ordinary, cheap Japanese stuff, but I was surprised to see some of it served on Cunard's QE2 porcelain made by Onga.

After this tantalizing array of appetizers, we received our entrees; mine was a pork chop served with plum sauce stewed in tomato with roast potato, carrot, broccoli and sliced kabu, and MN's was two grilled lamb chops served with rock mustard (the vegetables were the same). Both meats were somewhat overcooked, which was a letdown after such great appetizers.

This phenomenon led us to be more observant of the hip, mostly young, clientele; we were the only ones who ordered a set course; MN noted the others seemed very precise in what they were ordering and were creating suave, custom-ordered sets; the others ordered a long stream of appetizers with some sort of pasta at the end; MN also noted that a kaiseki-style courses always ends with rice after a litany of tiny servings of this and that; we determined that the place was kaiseki-style in its presentation and French in its cuisine, but not its style. One older gentleman, though, openly spoke to the staff about his recent visit to Aladin (supposedly a famous French restaurant); the food was good, it seems, but the service slow.

Desserts, mine crème brulee & MN's sesame bramanche (?), were both very light. You are served a cup of espresso as part of the course. Although I declined mine, but ordered a glass of mark in its stead, MN said the quality of coffee was quite good.

The head waitress, presumably the owner of Bistro Mikami along with her husband cooking behind the open kitchen with an assistant, was a sunny-minded woman who was clearly going to get at the bottom of any question in a direct, but pleasant manner. We did not ask a lot of questions, but the second waitress - a newcomer to the place: she did the dishes - was replaced by a fellow who came in at 21:00 and seemed to be an old hand.

We spent about Y12000 and will surely return, but will be more knowledgeable about how to approach this eclectic, kaiseki-style, French menu.

Frank's note: MN is Alan Hulse's long-suffering wife.