Meeting a reader for the first time

I was undecided whether to post this or not because this happened quite some time ago — mid-Jan and I’m sorry to say my passion for checking out restaurants has waned considerably.

It’s partly because I’m determined to lose weight and also my intellectual focus has shifted elsewhere. But, I will still blog about Tokyo from an expat perspective, trailing partner issues, and Japanese culture.

Nevertheless, this is a special post so it would be a pity not to talk about it.

One of my readers, T, emailed me to meet up while she was in Tokyo visiting her boyfriend last Jan. I was pleasantly surprised and flattered that anyone who read my random thoughts online would be keen to talk to me in the flesh. She seemed like a pretty cool chick so there were no fears that it would be a weird encounter.

On that chilly wintry day, we had lunch at Le Parc, a dim sum restaurant that sells itself as “nouvelle cuisine de Hong Kong” on its name card. The décor is old European-style with heavy wood panels, hefty carved doors, and moss green carpeting. It had none of the loud red and gold typical of Chinese joints.

It was nice speaking to a fellow Singaporean and making references to home over delicious pieces of dim sum.

The cold platter was very good, especially the century egg. I usually prefer it to be doused in sauce or dunked in porridge but it was good on its own and went down delightfully with the pickles.

Sweet and sour soup…

The prawns in the chee cheong fun were fresh and succulent. I would absolutely recommend this dish.

Now here we get to the “nouvelle” part of the meal. When it comes to dim sum, I’m a traditionalist and what used to whet my appetite were the usual suspects (har gao, siew mai, shui jiao, chok, fried radish cakes).

But this is not to say the following weren’t any good — they were but it’s not really dim sum the way I like it.

We had room for more after the set lunch so we ordered an extra one for the road. Har gao… Mmmm, it was tasty and savoury.

Conclusion: There is a common complaint that there may be plenty of Chinese restaurants in Tokyo but you’ll be hard-pressed to find good quality fare. So, I would highly recommend Le Parc to Chinese food lovers. Don’t let the label “nouvelle” deter you as I found the flavours to be quite authentic and Cantonese in spirit. It’s reasonably priced for a fancy-ish lunch at 2,000JPY and dinner should be around 4,000JPY per person.

Address: 1-19-6 West Ebisu
Tel: 03-3780-5050
Opening hours: 11.30 – 15.00 & 17.20 – 23.00 (Mon to Fri); 12.00 – 22.00 (Weekends & Public Holidays)

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