Garden Lounge, Hotel New Otani - Super Sweets Buffet

Having watched several videos on this dessert buffet on youtube and on instagram, I had really wanted to come and try it for myself.

We came to the Garden Lounge of Hotel New Otani for their expensive super sweets buffet （スーパースイーツビュッフェ）, which costs 7,700 JPY/ pax, as a form of celebration.

This hotel has a cafe called Patisserie SATSUKI (パティスリー SATSUKI), which specializes in fruit short cake. And at this buffet, you get to try the mini versions of it.

While it is a desserts buffet, you do get savoury items, such as various finger sandwiches, pasta, curry, etc.

Look at the amount of food on our table!

Super happy to finally be here!

I like that not only their cakes are yummy, but the savoury dishes are all very good too. Here I have the eggs benedict, burger, beef stew and a cheesy baked dish.

While I wanted to eat more of their hot savoury dishes, I held back because I wanted to eat more of the Pierre Herme collaboration dessert, which is this rectangular cake here. This is really good, I especially like the biscuit base! Maybe because I prefer cakes with a biscuit base, I liked this more than the short cakes.

As much as I tried to stay away from rice or pasta, I couldn't help it but ordered this curry rice. As you can see, there are both red and green curry here. I saw online that you can ask them to put 2 curries on the same plate and I did that. I also knew from reviews that the curry is very delicious. Hence, I went to order a plate too and true to the reviews that I saw, the curries were very delicious!

After the super sweets buffet, we were both super full and needed to walk around to burn some of the calories from the sugar.

We walked around the garden in the hotel and found some really nice hydrangeas.

There was nice little Japanese garden like area and the new green colour of the new leaves makes the area a nice photo spot.

Here is a view of the fancy hotel in the background.

As we explored around the hotel, we found a place that is probably for holding weddings too.

The lighting there was really nice for photos.

This buffet was really expensive, but I am glad that I came because after watching all the videos about it online, I kept thinking about it. Now that I have been here, it is like one of those "been there/ done that" kinda moment. So now, I do not have to keep wondering about how the food is like in my head as I already know. And I most likely would not return because it is very expensive.

As I get older, I cannot eat as much. So buffets are really not worth the money for me. I tried to compare the amount of food that I ate to the amount of food that a youtuber that I watched ate when she visited. I did not even eat half the amount that she ate.

Flowers & Chocolate

Met up with ST san after a long time due to the pandemic. Our first time meeting in 2 years. The pandemic really separates people.

We went for Malaysian food in Chinatown.

Since we are already there, we went to explore the nearby English Gardens.

On the way there, we reached an observatory with this view of the Gundam Factory.

The garden was pretty busy when we got there as it was after lunch time.

But it is still possible to take some nice pictures with only the flowers in the background. ;)

After that, we took a long stroll to Hammerhead for desserts at the Vanilla Beans Cafe. ST san was the one who introduced me to this cafe many 6 years ago.

J and I ordered a chocolate cake and the chocolate journey, whereby you got to try a piece of chocolate that is made from beans of different regions with different intensity of cacao. I like the tasting sheet so much that I brought it home with me!

I like that you get to taste the different types of chocolate. It is really good for identifying the kind of chocolate that you like or don't like.

Meanwhile, ST san had the big chocolate partfait that J and I had tried before. As it is really big, I would not dare to challenge having this all by myself.

After identifying the chocolate that you like, you can buy it from their shop right next to the cafe!

After dessert, we walked around a bit and spotted this caramel shop called Caramel Labo,

When we were there, they were having this caramel tasting plate for only 110 JPY. It was too good to pass on so all 3 of us ordered 1.

The caramel was nice and I liked that they served it with a cup of hot tea to help dilute the sweetness in the mouth.

After that, we continued walking to Yokohama Station. J and I decided to grab chicken rice and laksa there for dinner as it was already late.

We also ordered this tsukesoba, which was surprisingly very yummy!

 

Back at Cova again

It has been super long since I've dined at Cova and I am really glad to be back with I-san, who was my ex-colleague.

We came for the lunch course, which had increased price from the last time I visited.

I felt like the presentation has gotten even better. This is I-san's oyster appetizer which looks like a decoration. My fish appetiser does not lose out in taste and presentation too.

I do not have pictures of all the food as due to measures for the pandemic, every table had a plastic screen in the middle, to prevent human droplets from spreading.

These 2 mains here are mine. Fettucine carbonara and grilled pork! Yummeh~

Lastly, dessert is raspberry ice cream with fruit jelly like thing at the bottom.

After lunch, we had fun catching up over tea.

After the super heavy lunch, I went for early dinner with J.

Can never say no to sushi, especially since Sushi Ro is my fav. conveyer belt sushi chain restaurant in Japan.

I like that they always have some specials every month. This is here one of the specials for the month that I visited. Various seafood topped on 3 pieces of rice ball. Very generous amount of seafood, in comparison to the amount of rice! 

 

ブリル飯店, Lumine Yokohama

Lunch at ブリル飯店 at Lumine Yokohama.

I made a reservation at Ikyu for a 2,800 JPY lunch course/ pax.

Website: https://restaurant.ikyu.com/116608/?ikgo=2

First time here and I like how spacious and comfortable the seats are.

First up, was the tea that came with our course. I like that we each get a pot of our tea of choise, so we are not limited to just sharing 1 type of tea.

Our lunch course came with 2 small appetisers - the steamed chicken and the  pickled vegetable. 

Then next is the shrimp spring roll which had whole shrimps in it, char siew tart and the pork siew mai.

So far so good as all the dishes served to us were delicious!

The we have the vinegar pork with steamed man tou. The vinegar pork was very flavourful and you can definitely taste the vinegar in it. You will definitely need to pair it with the steam man tou to even our the flavours.

We also get a mini bowl of shrimp wonton. The noodle and soup was soso but the wonton was nice.

And lastly, dessert which were annin tofu and sesame ball.

I like that the sesame ball had a flavourful sesame filling. I only wished for the skin part to be thinner.

Overall, I really liked the atmosphere and the pace of the food served here. Good for when you want to have a relaxing meal.