Tapas Molecular Bar

When I was trying to decide where to go for my birthday it was between RyuGin and Tapas Molecular Bar at the Mandarin Oriental. They both seemed so great, so different and so interesting- so we did both, not in the same night of course!

The Mandarin Oriental is a stunning hotel in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo and the Tapas Molecular Bar is on the 38th floor offering amazing views of the city and a very interesting dinner option. Chef Jeff Ramsey serves just 7 diners a seating and 2 seatings per night. We were very excited and after talking with the chef for a few minutes we could tell he was glad that we were into molecular gastronomy and had been to some of his mentor's restaurants.

After a welcome cocktail he immediately dazzled us with foie gras cotton candy and deep fried shoestring beets (which as most of you know we don't ususally eat beets but these were good!).



And there was carmel corn (corn puree entrapped in carmel), a very tasty frozen manchego sorbet stuffed in an apple "cigar", pearls made out of seaweed served with beautiful shasimi and scallops with pumpkin sorbet. There were about 20 courses all together, small bites of fun and delicious food.

A couple of my favorites from the evening were the lamb chop that you had to eat in one bite as it was filled with jus, like a soup dumpling the jus exploded in your mouth when you bit into it! And also the miso soup which was suspended in tofu skin with powdered wakame on the side of it. As you put the whole "egg" in your mouth the flavors all melded together- oishi!





The desserts were just as fun- a "Blue Hawaiian" snowcone which shot smoke out your nose and mouth when you ate it, cheese cake that was niether cheese nor cake and then a fun tasting experiment with a super berry which turns normally bitter and acidic flavors sugary sweet in your mouth.



Chef Ramsey finished our very enjoyable evening by presenting me a birthday gift. An egg which he instructed me to drop on his counter. As I dropped it he smashed the egg open to reveal a tiny oragami crane, the inside of the crane read Happy Birthday!



We finished the night with drinks at Dazzle with friends of Murray's who live in Tokyo now. The drinks were good and well made, unfortunately that super berry was still making everything taste quite sweet! The bartenders here would hand carve balls of ice for your scotches and whiskeys, still a big thing in Japan. And I do think the bathroom had the best toilet in all of Japan, all the bells and whistles!

The Big Birthday part 2

Yeah! My birthday night in Tokyo! Martini's at the apartment and then to start the evening we thought we would find Mori's Bar as we had seen this interesting video on YouTube but the info we had was incomplete so we ended up having very nice cocktails at Muduro. The bar was part of the Hyatt in Roppongi Hills. We would come to learn that Hyatt's are THE place for cocktails in Japan.

We had late dinner reservations at Ryugin, which I had read an article in Food and Wine about and the chef Seiji Yamamoto. The restaurant didn't have an English speaking person on shift for the day we were reserved so the woman who had taken my reservation came in just to work with us. Over the top service.

A 12 course meal, complete with champagne, wine pairings and saki was served to us in a very moderately decorated room. It seemed that everything was muted to enhance the beauty of the dishes. One after the other came these gorgeous traditional looking creations but each one had something that made it whimsical, molecular or otherwise unique from what pure tradition would be.

House made bottarga, monkfish liver, shashimi, shark fin, sakura shrimp and seaperch were just some of the fabulous ingredients presented to us.



And then the most interesting dessert I have had- Candy Apple of Minus 196 Degrees Celsius. An actual lady apple filled with powdered ice cream. Break it open and take a bit and it is Apple Pie in your mouth. Beautiful and yummy!

Chef Yamamoto was kind enough to come out a few times to our table, our waitress playing interpreter as he doesn't speak any English. He wanted to know how we heard of him and the restaurant and what we thought of Japan and the food. He also took special time to sign my menu, no easy feet as there is no kanji for Wendy, but he wanted to make it personal and finally got it down.

He even walked us out to our cab and said goodbye. We were the last to leave the restaurant, I think it was 1:30am.

The trains had stopped running so we had no choice but to take a cab home, unfortunately the cabs in Japan are insanely expensive so $100 later we were finally in our apartment. Dayne fell asleep immediately but Forest and I shared One Cups and talked about our fun day!

I loved having my birthday in such an amazing city but also having two totally unique meals! Absolutely memorable. Oh and Forest's bday present to me was to have geisha make overs in Kyoto! Fun!!! (More on that later)



The next day we were a bit worse for wear- jet lag, lack of sleep, lots of drinking. So we slept in and took it easy. We planned on doing a loop of the city by subway and made our way to Shinjuku station. It was loud and big with huge electronic board displays outside.Our first stop was Harajuku and it was a beautiful, warm sunny day so we got off to explore the area, or stalk Harajuku girls as Forest and Dayne did!

The area was really busy, people everywhere and lots of shop keepers announcing their deals via megaphones on the streets. We wandered around and Dayne and Forest got shots of some Harajuku girls after deploying a surround technique to capture their prey!

My 40th Birthday in the World's Largest City

Happy Birthday to me! We decided to head to Japan for this year's holiday trip and I wanted to have my big birthday in its big city. The world's largest city with over 35 million people in the greater Tokyo area. Isn't that amazing? I can't even wrap my head around that number!

Dayne and I met Forest in the Narita airport and took the airport express into Tokyo, which took about an hour. We had rented an apartment right by the Nishi-Ogikubo train stop. It was very small but perfectly outfitted for the 3 of us and 30 seconds from the train station. After a very long lesson in all the different types of recylcing we were expected to adhear to from our property manager (glass, combustable, non combustable, food, etc) we walked over to the grocery store for martini makings and snacks. It was late and we were all exhausted after a full day of traveling so we decided to "do it at home" so we could get up early and head to the Tsukiji Fish Market.

6am the next morning I woke up Dayne and Forest eager to take advantage of us being out of wack with the time change to head to the fish market. I was greeted with choruses of "are you kidding me? what the hell time is it?!" but it was my birthday so they had to let me have my way!

The market was crazy even at 7:00am. And dangerous with small fork lifts buzzing everywhere, not caring if you were in their way or not. Huge tuna frozen solid were being broken down and sold off. So many different varieties of shellfish- most we'd never seen before- were on display as were live fish, dead fish, dried fish, eels, squids, monk fish liver and all other matters of things that come from the sea. The market is huge and every square feet is bustling.



After dogging forklifts for a while we decided it was time for breakfast. With the help of a local we found the line for the best sushi in Tokyo- Sushi Dei. It was 8:30 and the line was 2+ hours long. We took turns exploring the outer market shops, bringing back food for each other to try and holding the place in line.



After 2 hours we were finally in the short line near the front door and windows. Everyone was peeking into the very small restaurant, with just 11 seats, trying to figure out when their seat would be available. Finally the woman host asked us to choose either the 7 piece or 11 piece sushi menu and the next thing you knew we were sitting on impossibly small stools and all the staff was yelling "irasshaimass!!!" It was 10:30am.



We ordered beers and the sushi started coming. 1st up the most impossibly marbled fatty tuna I've ever seen. Then came sea bream, octopus salad of sorts, mackerel, sea urchin, egg, miso soup, maguro, LIVE surf clam, flounder, weird mushy small shrimp, maki, horse mackerel (YUM), sea eel (couldn't do it after Dayne and Forest's reactions) and finally a call your own piece. I was so stuffed that the only thing I knew I could make room for was that amazing fatty tuna. Forest asked the chef to give her his favorite, now how can that be safe? Forest got COD SPERM SAC! She said it was pretty good and announced to all that it was very creamy! LOL!

We tried to walk off our breakfast by walking around the beautiful Ginza area until we found a liquor store that Jim from Vessel told us about. Finally home to take a nap and rest up for the big birthday dinner- Tokyo style!

And finally by sea...

On our last full day in Kauai we decided to take a 6 1/2 hour Zodiac tour of the Napali Coast to get a bit more up close and personal to the amazing rugged peaks and valleys. We toured with Capt. Andy's and for the most they were very good. The captain and crew were fun, informative and seemed to really want everyone to have a great time and see as much as possible.

We started out of Port Allen and immediately came upon a pod of Spinner Dolphins! They were so funny to watch, playing around our wake, jumping and racing each other. Then it was about a 30+ minute, somewhat wet and wild ride up to Polihale, which is the last place you can get to by vehicle. Many people camp on the beach here with these dramatic mountains just next to them. All the way up you could spot huge sea turtles bobbing around in the water!

We decided to head up to the north end of the coastline before stopping for lunch. The weather was sunny and warm which was good as the captain pointed our Zodiac directly out into the huge waves crashing on a reef. For about 20 minutes we rode HUGE waves, our small boat seemingly being tossed around but yet still somehow in control. Very fun and adrenaline inducing!

He then moved us closer in to the coast where we explored a few sea caves, pulling right into them. So amazing and beautiful!

At this point we had a bit of a problem, the Zodiac has 2 engines and one of ours died. And it really needed both to get our boat of 10 all the way back to Port Allen which is now at least 1 hour away depending on the currents, waves, etc.

After multiple tries to get it cranking we went on one engine over to Nualolo Beach, accessible only by tour operators who qualify. It was a barren beach made up of rocks and a little open picnic area where the guys served us a really good hot lunch. We snorkled before, snorkeling was ok but nothing spectacular. For lunch there was a pineapple chicken dish, great rice, fruit, salad and dessert. After lunch we went on a walking tour of the ancient Hawaiian fishing village that use to be there.

The village was really interesting. Remains of burial grounds, houses and springs. All around the valley walls you could see the scars of old waterfalls.

We even saw a monk seal lounging on the beach which is incredibly rare as they are on the endangered list. Our guide explained that they are so friendly the locals call them the dogs of the sea. They will just come right up to people and boats and unfortunately this made them easy prey for hunters.

Unfortunately during this whole time the captains were hard at work on our raft but couldn't fix it. They ended up taking a family of 6 off our raft and adding it to the now very crowded second raft, leaving just 4 of us on our handicapped vessel. We were really worried that it would take hours to get back but the captain did a great job and we were back in just under 2 hours. And we had a great time along the way still hitting some huge waves and getting tossed around as if we were riding a mechanical bull!

We were exhausted when we got back to the hotel, and salty and sweaty! A dip in the pool and a tropical cocktail were perfect. We stayed at the hotel that night and had an ok sushi dinner at a small place next door.

The last day we didn't leave until 10pm for our flight home so the Marriott was nice enough to give us keys to the Members Locker Room and we just stored our luggage and hung out at the pool all day. I was very sore from the raft expedition!

We had dinner that night at Roy's before heading to the airport and catching our red-eye home.

A fantastic trip and a great way to spend our 5th year anniversary. Kauai has definitaly become one of my favorite islands!

For the full set of our Kauai photos click here.

p.s. the photos in this segment were taken with our underwater camera which uses film and has a protective cover which gets foggy- that's why they look all dreamy and kind of old fashion. I like it!

from the air, from the land...

In an effort to experience Kauai from every possible angle- after flying overhead and driving up it's steep cliffs- we decided to hike it and paddle it! Following a tip from Fodors Message Boards we found our way to a small ancient Hawaiian village and rented a kayak. We were given some instructions on paddling up the Wailua River and hiking to our destination: Secret Falls!

We made it into the kayak without toppling ourselves and our gear in the river and headed out. After a few wrong turns we finally found the beaching ground. We then asked some people who were leaving as to where the train head started as we couldn't see anything and were pointed to an area on the opposite side of the small arm of the river we were on (big secret hu?). So we waded across and started on the trail, soon taking another wrong turn only to end up at a dead end with no falls in site (Amazing Race contenders for sure!).

Back on the trail in the correct direction we had a really nice hike. The trail was barely marked in most areas and you definitely felt as though you were in a tropical jungle with exotic flowers, vines and birds surrounding you.



Our first glimpse at the falls confirmed our thoughts that the secret was out but soon all the people left and we actually had the falls and it's pond all to ourselves to swim in- very cool.

As the next wave of people came we left and headed back to our kayak. Heading back up river we came to the landing for the Fern Grotto. A short hike in and we were rewarded with an amazing open cave filled with ferns sprouting out and cascading down. Grotto = Cave - cool!

We headed back to the river, passing gorgeous and fragrant flowers and plants. The water felt so good in the heat I could have just jumped in and swam back to the village!
After hitting a bbq place for lunch and a Mai Tai we made our way up to the north coast for some snorkeling. The views all the way up made for such a nice drive!! We arrived at Tunnels Beach late in the afternoon, the water was warm and clear and we finally saw our first turtle! Unfortunately we didn't have the underwater camera with us so you'll have to take my word for it.

We snorkeled for a while, layed on the clean sand and admired the views of Bali Hai and then made our way farther north to Ka'a Beach passing really interesting caves and cliffs covered with vines. We got to Ka'a about an hour before sunset and it was very pretty and calm- people either packing up from a day spent at the beach or arriving to take in the sunset.

Waimea Canyon

It was going to be tough to top our anniversary day! The helicopter tour was really a once in a lifetime experience. And we spent a lovely evening at the Grand Hyatt for drinks and dinner. But with only 5 days on Kauai we were determined to see and do as much as possible- and then kick by the pool on our last day :)

So we were up and in the convertible the next morning, on the road to Waimea Canyon. The views are just over the top amazing! We followed the road up and stopped at each lookout point. It was fun to watch the helicopters flying thru, looking just like tiny dots and knowing that was us the other day. As our book and others suggested we kept driving to the very very end- the Napali Lookout. Here you can see where the canyon ends at the Napali coast. The clouds build up in the valley and you have to wait it out, but when they clear...wow!

This was the only time we were rained on, it started soft and then really dumped for 5 minutes. I was driving with the top down and finally we had to stop in the middle of the road and put it up as I couldn't see for all the water in my eyes. And then it cleared up and we were on our way. The drive and the canyon were just awesome.

As we came down we stopped for lunch at the Waimea Brewing Company which had good beer and yummy Kalua pork nachos!

On our way home we stopped at the Spouting Horn and watched the hole throw ocean water high into the sky for a bit but really we were ready to be back by our pool and catch the hula show that they were doing just before sunset.

Another gorgeous day on this beautiful island.

Remember T.C.?

I always thought that Theodore "T.C." Calvin, Magnum's friend and owner of Island Hoppers helicopter tours, had a pretty good life. Sure, he didn't get to live in a 200-acre beachfront home, or drive someone else's Ferrari, but flying over the Hawaiian islands every day seemed like a decent trade-off.
I'd always hoped to be able to have that experience.

We'd realized that we weren't going to be able to get back to French Polynesia, our honeymoon location, for our 5th-year anniversary, even though that had been our original thought. The twin realities of available vacation time and available funding reared their ugly heads and dictated a vacation that was both shorter and closer to home. Fortunately, we got a great deal on accommodations and airfare and were able to schedule a 5-day stay on Kauai.

Our flight landed in Lihue after dark, so when we drove to our nearby hotel, the Kauai Marriott Resort, we really didn't get to see very much, and were somewhat skeptical that our so-called ocean-view room could actually see the ocean. We just had some sushi and late-night drinks at one of the attached restaurants that night, but looked forward to actually seeing the island the following morning.
Fortunately, the next day dawned bright and clear, and we discovered that we did actually have a view of the Pacific, albeit somewhat obstructed. We spent the morning exploring our hotel (including gigantic koi pond), pool (largest on the island, and in fact the largest in which either of us had ever been) and beach.

On the advice of several friends, we'd scheduled our helicopter tour for our first full day so that we could get a feel for the topology of the island. We walked over to the helicopter operator's office, directly across the road from our hotel, received a brief safety lecture and were bused the mile or so to the airport.

The American Eurocopter EC130B4 "ECO-Star" in which we were flying had room for two passengers in the front seat (to the pilot's right) and four in the rear. The tours, from all oeprators, take a clockwise flight pattern around the island, so the front and right of the aircraft are the best viewing seats. Even though we'd requested those locations, weight distribution of passengers meant that we ended up with the left rear, to our initial disappointment.

Neither Wendy nor I had flown in a helicopter before. When it took off, I thought she was going to squeeze my fingers off. I personally thought the flight was extremely smooth, and with the noise-canceling headphones we were wearing, it was much less noisy than a commercial airline flight. It was a bit disconcerting to slide sideways from time to time, or to rotate in place.
Within five minutes, we were flying through a rainstorm somewhere over the south side of the island, next to a mountain range, with zero forward visibility. Very wild! That lasted a grand total of only a few minutes, and then we were in the clear and heading up over a ridge and into Waimea Canyon, which easily compares to, and exceeds, the [distant] views I've had of the Grand Canyon, or my direct experiences in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Raydah Escarpment in Saudi Arabia.

Eventually we headed to the northwest corner of Kauai and began flying along the incomparable Napali Coast. Our pilot was great, and when he took us into individual canyons he was careful about rotating in both directions so that Wendy and I were able to get clear views of all the cliff walls and waterfalls. In particular, the 3000-foot cliffs and falls of the crater in Mt. Waialeale were unforgettable -- we hovered about halfway up the cliff, rotating in place, and it seemed like we were in some prehistoric Land of the Lost.

The tours unfortunately only last about an hour, so all too soon we had to head back to the airport. But it was a fantastic way to start the trip; T.C would be proud!