Hoshinoya Tokyo – Kaiseki Dinner & Breakfast – One of the things that I always look forward to the most when staying at a Ryokan in Japan is the Kaiseki dinner. These dinners are typically included in your room rate and consist of a multi-course dinner that will often reflect the season in which you are visiting and therefore also include the top seasonal ingredients available.

Kaiseki Dinner

Having visited Hoshinoya Tokyo in the autumn, our Kaiseki dinner was an amazing selection of fall cuisine. What was truly special about the meal, in addition to the amazing food, was the unique and sometimes surprising presentation of the individual dishes. As you can see form the picture, the menu was not so much a presentation of the food we would be enjoying with each course, but rather an outline of the theme. Our excellent server for the evening would be providing the story and contents of each course as they arrived.

The first two items that were presented to us were not on the outline and were first a cheese appetizer (or an amuse-bouche):

The second appetizer was a delicious mushroom soup accompanied by an Italian style bun:

After being teased by these wonderful starters, we were now set to begin our themed filled dining adventure…

“Animal Trail” – A fantastic venison presented to us in an bowl that was covered with autumn leaves:

“Five Flavors of delight” – These five balls all had tiny bites of amazing tastes:

“This is an apple?” – Well, yes it is an apple. However, it was not edible and instead it was a unique way to present our next dish, a mix of apple and crab:

“Let’s make a dish” – Scrumptious chestnut dish:

“Sawara in Autumn Collection” – Sawaraa is Spanish Mackerel and is one of the best types of mackerel in Japan:

“Matsutake and beef. Oh, so golden!” – Matsutake is an amazing Asian mushroom and paired remarkably well with this beef:

“A juicy harvest * 2” – we were definitely surprised to have our server flip the dish after we enjoyed the 2 balls of Japanese pear…:

…there was pudding waiting for us on the under side of the bowl!

“After a hundred years of solitude…” – This pile of leaves initially had us confused, only to have them lifted off to reveal a wonderful ice cream:

“Precious little things” – An assortment of deserts:

We paired our dinner with a lovely wine that was recommended by our server. Every element of the dinner was amazing. From the quality of the food, coupled with the theme of autumn, and the background stories behind each dish was perfect!

After dinner, we headed to the common room on our floor (check my previous blog HERE for details) where we enjoyed a glass of complimentary glass of Sake with a refreshing piece of seasonal pear:

Breakfast

Breakfast at Hoshinoya Tokyo was served in our room by confirming the time the day before. Being Japanese, they were extremely punctual on their arrival, so a quick tip is to make sure that you are ready for their arrival at the scheduled time.

When arranging for breakfast you have the option of choosing a western style breakfast or a Japanese style breakfast. Here is the western style breakfast that I enjoyed:

My wife chose the traditional Japanese breakfast:

Breakfast was also served with a selection of breads, juice, and coffee:

Of course, everything tasted great and it was so convenient not having to rush to get ready to make a breakfast time at a restaurant and we could casually enjoy our meal while planning for our day.