Vietnamese Cyclo - Vietnamese ******
Roppongi
Reviewed by Junko Okabe
Address - Tokyo-to, Minato-ku, Roppongi 6-6-9 Pyramid Building 1 Fl Opening hours - 11:30 to 15:00 and 18:00 to 24:00, 17:00 to 23:00 on holidays Map Yes Telephone - 3478- 4964 Menu - In Japanese and English. No pics CC - OK. Cyclo has a site whose remarkably user-friendly URL is: http://r.gnavi.co.jp/g222004/ (only in Japanese)
A while ago me and seven other wives of gaijn men wanted to go out on our own to be free to gossip at length about our companions. We let Yumi Ahluwalia, long-suffering wife of Bourbon Streets owner, choose the venue, and she decided to go to Vietnamese Cyclo.
It was a good choice: very chic and relaxing, Cyclo is still comparatively cheap (for Roppongi). All items being priced below 1400 yen, you can expect to spend on average 4000 yen including drinks, but quality is high. I must confess that in general I prefer the more homely, Yatai-type restaurants, the kind where the cook sweats in a T-shirt right in front of you, but one cannot deny the excellence of Cyclos stylish offerings. The menu is what you would expect in a place like this: no pictures, the elegance of a French restaurant's, and a long list of interesting dishes to choose from. We had the usual things: raw spring rolls, fried shrimps, noodles, chicken and so forth, but there is more unusual stuff to try.Frank's note:
Until the end of June, groups of at least five people will receive a free bottle of wine presenting the waiter a coupon that can be downloaded and printed out from the following URL.Also, according to a member of a conversation group I also participate to who spent four years in Vietnam and should therefore know what he is talking about, Cyclo is the real thing, true Vietnamese cuisine. He says also that:
"The goi ga (spicy chicken salad) and bun bo hue (the beef soup from Hue) are especially recommendable. The ban xeo (Vietnamese pancakes) was too thick and disappointing and the cha gio (spring rolls) maamaa only, but the overall level is, I think, higher than Thien Phuoc in Yotsuya 3-chome or Saigon in Ikebukuro. Masahiro Uchida-san, the chef, is a vey nice guy (Nihongo dake) and spent several years in Vietnam as well, including some time at the Rex Hotel. As the setting is also really nice and original, it is really worth a try. CYCLO is on the 1st floor of the Pyramide Building (behind the empty WAVE building), in the former location of La Ranarita".