Bistrot Kuwabara

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🇫🇷 French Bistro / 📍 Higashi-Shimbashi

📓 Visits: 2

What's an authentic Paris steak frites? Anemic fries swimming in grease that would have been better left in the freezer? A poorly-trimmed and tasteless piece of grey beef topped with a rondel of garlic butter? Tables so packed-in that staff have to help you in and out and every time your neighbour lifts his fork you can smell his BO? A bill for 60 Euro and a scowl from the waiter? A good Paris bistro is either a closely guarded secret or impossible to book. It's no wonder that so many people end up in a tourist trap and proclaim that French food is better in Japan. Eat a Bistrot Kuwabara and you just might think the same.

There's only one main dish on the menu here: onglet (aka skirt, aka hanger) steak and chips. Priced at JPY 2,500 for 160g of beef, the steak is inclusive in a short course menu.

While you wait for the steak, you're served a simple salad of lettuce with a dressing made from walnuts, fresh Parmigiano and vinegar. This is very strongly flavoured. If you weren't awake when you ordered (or you fell asleep while waiting up to 20 minutes for it to come) this will wake you up.

The steak will take 30-40 minutes but it's worth the wait. The meat is soft, contains no gristle, is buttery and rich in flavour. The crust is excellent. The sauce is epic. The chips are outstanding. If this doesn't make you sigh with pleasure then you have a cold heart.

Two different kinds of bread are served. The first doesn't have much flavour and the second contains nuts and rasiins, which I don't really care for.

If one steak wasn't enough for you you can order a second with another portion of chips for JPY 1,800 and it'll be a 20 minute wait. But if you do that then you might not have room for the excellent desserts.

A special of tarte tatin was superb: thick, deep, sweet, sharp apple filling; proper buttery pastry; caramelized top.

Another dessert of rum baba with rum raisin ice-cream was not quite as good. A baba yeast cake is difficult to get perfect and Kuwabara's is a little dense. The ice-cream tasted like it contained glycerine. Happily, there was no shortage of reasonable quality rum.

The meal ends with a mouthful of decent coffee and a financier which is mostly butter and sugar. How much you enjoy that will depend on your preference of ratios of almonds, sugar, flour and butter in a financier.

Everything is made in the kitchen from scratch. The sauce takes 3 days to make. Chips are made from fresh potatoes and cooked in 50% vegetable fat and 50% lard. Ice-creams and bread are also made in-house. Beef is supplied from the U.S. via Excel Farms. Cheap U.S. beef is often chewy or of little flavour or both but this is a great example of what can be done with a cheaper product when you use a better cut and treat it with respect.

The restaurant looks like how a 13-year-old might imagine a Parisian bistro. A more mature designer might have raised the temperature and served the steak on a hot plate. French radio quietly adds to the atmosphere. The waitress doesn't speak English but menus (pictured below) are in English/French (and Japanese) so you can just point if you need to and you'll only be asked what you want to drink and if you want dessert. You're required to order a drink, otherwise you'll be charged 400 yen. If you order hot tea it'll be served in a pot (as it should be).

If you're wondering who Kuwabara is then you won't find him in Tokyo because the original Bistrot Kuwabara is in Fukuoka. The chef in the Tokyo restaurant is Ryuichi Nakamura who sees all customers off and can speak some English. Nakamura-san says his Japanese customers are not suitably impressed but his non-Japanese customers love it, so ignore the Tabelog rating and reviews. Is it authentic? Not if that means something like my experiences in Paris. What it is is everything you'd hope for from your steak frites in Paris, and now you don't have to leave Japan. Sorry, Parisians.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1301/A130103/13275503/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.6 (food: 4.2, value: 5.0)

📱 Booking: 🟩 Bookings are not strictly required but recommended. They basically only seat guests every 30 mins so depending on when you arrive (including if you come 10 minutes or earlier for your booking) you may be made to wait or asked to come back. Same-day or day-before booking is fine.

📍 Location:

📅 Visit May 2023

Course 2,500
Tea 550
Rum Baba 800

💴 Damage: 3,850
⏱️ Time taken: 1h5m

📅 Visit March 2023

Course 2,200 ("nyan nyan campaign" - who knew?)
Tea 550
Tarte Tatin 550

💴 Damage: 3,300
⏱️ Time taken: 1h

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