In a small plaza sits two storefronts – Aoyama and Aoyama
VIP. Enter to the one on the left and if you’ve made reservations, chances are
you’ll be escorted back outside and into the VIP one. Yes, it’s a bit strange
that they’re not connected, but when you want to expand and the opportunity
arises (albeit not directly beside your existing restaurant), you need to seize
the availability.
Just ordering your meal can take time if you’ve never
visited. There’s a leather bound menu that already has numerous options, but
then you’ll also want to sift through several laminated loose pages, and there’s
even a wooden board with drawn images that gets circulated with other a la
carte items.
Indeed, the cheeky wooden board drew us in to try some of
their hand rolls ($3 for spicy tuna and $3.50 for spicy salmon). Having been
spoiled by ones that chefs insist on handing you and having you eat right away,
I did find the seaweed chewy and a bit tough to bite through. However, for the
price, these are great, a pretty generous portion of fish wrapped in seaweed,
although the spicy mayo needs to be spicier.
During the weekend, Aoyama offers a “sushi set upgraded
weekend special” ($125) that comes with a more sushi and luxurious appetizers,
compared to their regular option. To begin, there’s a sharing platter of small
eats containing
chawanmushi (a
savoury egg custard), lobster tempura,
yakitori
skewers, other small nibbles, and a pot of seafood consommé.
Normally,
chawanmushi is
served hot. At Aoyama, it’s cold so ends up being denser and almost the
consistency of a savoury flan. The temperature and jellied soup takes some
getting used to, but it tasted good, the
dashi
(?) flavours seeping through. Finishing it with a teacup of the
umami-filled seafood consommé is a nice combination.
Plump pieces of lobster tempura is dressed with the
all-colour-no-heat spicy mayo. Nonetheless, the lobster was cooked nicely, it
just needed a bit of salt or something else to dip it into. Surrounding the
dish were pods of dry edamame and tempura burdock root that was cold but tasty
to nibble on.
What makes yakitori skewers
delicious is when they’re hot off the grill and you can smell and taste the
smoky caramelized glaze. In the platter, the chicken and scallion yakitori were cold (having been brought
over from the other store) so the chicken became hard and the sauce congealed
and lumpy. Really, Aoyama should consider replacing these with a starter that
doesn’t need to be hot.
Something to consider when you make a reservation: what is
important about the meal for you? Is it hot food or a comfortable sitting
environment? While the VIP room is spacious and has an ambiance of a brightly lit
piano lounge, there isn’t a kitchen so food is transported over in a
non-insulated metal container arriving lukewarm to cold. To get the best of
both worlds, you’ll want to order cold items when sitting in the VIP area.
Luckily, the huge plate of sushi that’s part of the set menu
can withstand the frigid journey. That evening, it contained two types of tuna,
the fattier toro and the regular blue
fin variety; sweet soft pieces of unagi (barbequed
eel); surprisingly clean pieces of aji (horse
mackerel) that’s further topped with tons of ginger and green onions; tried and
true kampachi, salmon, and salmon maki; a decent take on tamago (egg) that had the flavours but
not the lovely layers; as well as generous portions of hotate (Hokkaido scallop), ebi
(raw shrimp), and uni (sea
urchin).
In terms of the sushi rice, something I’ve really started to
learn to enjoy, it had a great consistency but needs more vinegar and could
benefit from being warmer. The rice is an important element to get right given
it’s such an integral part of sushi.
Since the set meal lacked vegetables, an order of the wakame salad ($6), ice berg lettuce
tossed in a creamy sesame dressing and topped with a sweet seaweed salad, was
welcomed and helped add that freshness we were craving.
Off the a la carte menu, the seafood
zousui ($18), a Japanese-style congee, was beckoning during the
cold winter night. Pieces of shrimp, salmon, crab, a fair-sized scallop and
various mushrooms gave the dish a lovely sweet seafood essence.
The rice sits at the bottom of a clear seafood broth, rather
than being boiled for hours so that the grains combine with the soup, so you’re
able to taste just the soup and then also have it with the soft rice. Indeed,
the broth is king and despite being tepid had a warming property to it. If
there was more seasoning and the seafood was added near the end of the process
(so it doesn’t become rubbery) it’d be even better.
A bowl of tempura udon ($13) also seemed like a good choice.
While the broth is rather run-of-the-mill, it was at least hotter than all the
other dishes and the noodles chewy and springy. Something about ending the meal
with a hot bowl of soup really suits me.
The VIP room was so comfortable that after two hours we still
wanted to stay. A round of desserts helped extend the experience a little
longer.
Deciding on the black sesame
mochi ice cream ($4.30), it arrived two to an order. The small ping
pong sized
mochi needed a few minutes
to rest as at the beginning it was tough to cut through. A thin chewy layer of glutinous
rice flour pastry encapsulates plenty of ice cream. While it was pretty, the
dessert lacked sesame flavour and tasted more like vanilla ice cream. For real
black sesame ice cream you’ll want to stick with the ice cream with red bean
paste ($4.50) combination.
Once the store between Aoyama and Aoyama VIP vacates, they
can finally combine everything into one continuous restaurant. At that point,
patrons finally won’t need to decide between quality of food or atmosphere.
Until then, choose carefully.