u/ExSogazu

I had taken videos for my favorite tracks though…

I really thought for a second that ‘Oh, she kinda looks like Moka.’ I mean, duh. 😂

edit: Video was taken by me, by the way.

Got actually quite excited for this. IIRC, her very first official gig in Korea was 2 years ago and I grabbed the fence then also. 😂

Ginza Ooishi is one of those golden children of this sub that everyone who tried seems to like. There are several reasons that I think what makes this places fall for that particular position. First of all, among the places on Tabelog silver awards and upward, this is probably the easiest place to get a seat. They do not weaponize FoMO with exclusivity. It enhances its friendly, vibrant and casual vibe even more. Secondly, they offer a unique experience. The genre is Kappo, so you get to enjoy the evolution of the ingredients from its raw form to what is served in front of you. And chef Ooishi adds a ton of theatrical elements to it. On top of that, everyone on the team is super friendly and open to communication, so, combining all of that, it felt like actually more of a kitchen table experience than the actual kitchen table. Lastly, the deliciousness of the menu. What I had at the evening was of course creative, but at the same time, it felt quite aligned to the ‘meta’ side of the cuisine, if that makes sense. What I meant by the meta is, almost entirety of the course I had consisted of the things that just known to be working. I constantly thought ‘oh, yeah, there’s no way it would not be good.’ towards what has been about to be served. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the massiveness of the courses. That actually would be the big part of the place’s charm too. I think lots of the visitors mentioned this, but if you want to try the place, you should know your limit and get yourself prepared.

It has been my second visit to the establishment. This is the only restaurant that I have visited more than once, among all the places that I had dined in Tokyo. Also, out of 5 places I tried during this trip, this place gave me the most joy. The dinner has been going on for more than 3 hours and I enjoyed every second of it.

Without further ado, here are the actual course contents. I took lots of photos for the ingredients as well and due to the post limit, I am going to compile them whenever it is necessary.

1.Starting from upper left to the right, a celery root and foie gras and the garlic. Lower left from the right, caviar and Matsuzaka beef soon to be used for the main dish.

2.On the upper left side, amuse bouche about to be served and the right side, sketch for the course add-on, their famous pie with the seasonal ingredients. For this time, it’s uni from Kitakyushu chef’s hometown. Lower left side, Asparagus, both white and green. The white ones are from Bordeaux, France. And lastly, the uni. The regular portion for the pie per one person is the half of it and the whole piece uses a case of them.

3.Amuse bouche. It was supposed to be enjoyed with just one bite. Caviar on top, firefly squid and scallop inside on the tart.

4.The cauliflower mousse in the bottom, jellied uni consommé and langoustine fillet. Unexpectedly, the star on this dish was the cauliflower mousse. Really reach and creamy, probably 10 years old me who hated all the vegetables would have eaten deliciously.

5.Black truffle flan. A simple visual on the surface, but very layered and well thought-out dish. The foam on the surface is cappuccino made out of mushrooms and truffle. There is caramelized black truffle sauce right underneath and on top of Onsen Tamago -Japanese poached egg-. and Chawanmushi egg custard. Repeated use of eggs might have been too bland, but the sauce’s sweet note gave it an enough kick, elevating the whole thing. I think this is one of 3 most memorable dishes of the evening.

6.Appetizers combination, Ooishi’s own rendition of Kaiseki’s Hassun. Vegetables Terrin on 7 o’clock, Galatine with burdock root and ground truffle on 10 o’clock, conch meat on the 2 o’clock and lastly, abalone served with the sauce made out of its liver on 3 o’clock.

7.White asparagus from Bordeaux, France, served with hollandaise sauce, ground truffle and beef sauce slightly caramelized. Straight out of the oven, baked to sizzling hot. When I mentioned meta, this is what I was mostly referring to. Everything in it is known to be delicious and they stay tasty altogether. Again, something that most intense vegetables hater might enjoy very much. Another one of top 3 of the day for me.

8.Unfortunately, the weakest link of the entire evening, Crabe Charlotte. Powdered paprika, parsley and charlotte, served with crab meat and asparagus. It was not that bad per se, but there’s nothing special about it either.

9.A Japanese Monaka, served with American cherry and foie gras mousse and the sauce. The sauce contains strawberry jam and cherry Liqueur. The intense buttery flavor and texture from foie gras felt to be retaining the dish leaning too much to the sweet side. One of the constants in the place. (There is always a Monaka with foie gras mousse, but the other ingredients are subjected to change.)

10.Finally, their famous pie supplement, this time with the uni from Kita Kyushu. Uni’s bitterness got intensified from being baked, but the scallop and nori put inside with it refrained it being too bitter. Balance wise, it was marvelous. And raw uni served on top of the pie adds sweetness and lastly, Shiso leaf on top gave enough refreshment. Pastry had nothing to complain either. Might have been mushy festival, but the texture of the pastry gave necessary chewy feel to it. Additionally, the sauce/soup made out of the celery root and buffer paired up really well. Definitely worth paying extra, in my honest opinion. The last of the top 3 for me.

10-2.Palette cleanser, water melon juice with lime sorbet inside.

11.Today’s main, Matsuzaka beef steak, served with garlic tempura. It is what it is. This is not the best steak I have ever had, but it has been placed high on the list. What surprised me was the tempura. No spiciness whatsoever, just pleasant aroma all over. Apparently, that was intended.

12.The first rice portion, A risotto dish, with the broth and fritter made out of Sakura-ebi shrimp. A lot of uma-mi and the intense flavor of the shrimp leaves a deep impression. 시원함 flavor in Korean, I lack the vocabulary to describe how it feels, unfortunately.

13.The second rice portion, another constant on the menu, the ‘no butter’ curry rice. It was supposed to not shadow over anything we had already flavor-wise. From chef Ooishi’s own words, ‘light version’ of the curry, but pretty flavorful, if you ask me, in a good way.

14-0.Main dessert to be served, Basque cheese cake with cherry blossoms.

14.The first dessert, pieces of loquat served with white wine jello and Grappa sorbet. There was a slight hint of alcohol left with the sorbet. Nothing to complain about. Refreshing, sweet and having many layers of different flavors, just like everything I had that day.

15.The main dessert, Sakura Basque cheesecake served with Fukuoka’s ‘Yame Matcha’ ice cream and raspberry sauce. Reach and creamy, well executed, but nothing out of the ordinary cheesecake to finish the evening.

16.Lastly, take-out menu I ordered, Matsuzaka beef sandwiches. I had them as the next day’s breakfast. Surprisingly, the bread actually left the bigger impression than the beef. It fell quite fresh and crunch even if I had it next morning.

The dinner at Yamazaki on Tuesday was fantastic in terms of foods, their deliciousness and simple yet elegant presentation but unfortunately the service felt quite distant and unwelcoming to say at the least. I felt like I was presented with the dreaded gaijin counter experience we all hate to have and dreaded ‘not a member’ treatment sprinkled on top. Nobody was checking up on me during the meal regarding how everything was going, how I felt about each dish and etc, despite the fact that chef Yamazaki was doing all of them to literally everyone but me in the room during the evening. It was not due to the language barriers since nobody including me used language other than Japanese as if I am not a Gaijin (outsider/foreigner) from the moment I entered the room. There are standards and expectations that should be met by the restaurant of this caliber. Yamazaki flunked out of that department. Quite bad, I might add.

To reiterate, the food was fantastic. There are several ingredients that I have never tried and yet, everything was intuitively and simply tasty. TMI, It was quite interesting they share some of the ingredients and how to produce them with Ginza Ooishi that I had a day before despite the genre difference. But again, if this level of poor hospitality is the price to pay for seating at this notoriously exclusive establishment, well, I would rather not having it next time.

Without further ado, the course contents were following. 10 courses including the 2 rice courses and the dessert. Usually, I would comment how I felt about each courses and everything, but since the experience was such a letdown, I am just going to state what is what and move on.

1. Seared heart clam, prepared as a vinegary dish.

2. Tempura made of Japanese whiting on top of salted sea cucumber row and rice served with nori seaweed, not grilled or torched.

3. crab, bonito broth soup and junsai (waterlife vegetable of sort)

4. Kinmedai (Golden eye snapper), cauliflower mousse underneath, sakura shrimp furikake sprinkled on top

5. chawanmushi (steamed egg custard), beans and various vegetables on top and madai shirako hidden underneath.

6. fried cutlass fish and an eggplant

7. Megumi-gamo duck breast, duck broth sauce, sea cucumber intestines and lotus roots stir-fried with duckfat.

8. Ainame (fat greenling) tempura mixed with the rice, firstly served as tamago-kake gohan, the yolk was simmered in soy bean sauce.

9.Ochazuke, the same

10.dessert, milk ice cream, blood orange and vanilla sauce, meringue underneath. A small amount of gin got poured after serving

I have been so frustrated for the last 2 days of not able to catch the shiny Q, the last piece of puzzle for completing the Unown dex for me. But it’s finally done!

It is unfortunate it hasn’t come out yesterday, but better late than never…So good to come to Tokyo. The dopamine rush is insane. 😂

Apology in advance if it is an old news, but currently, especially for Barbs, there has been an interesting trend showing how to transfigure your two handed items. It is quite interesting in a way that basically all the barb users there are on it, so, I decided to introduce it here.

This is the original article in the Korean community called 인벤 by the user called 회베

(www.inven.co.kr/board/diablo4/6023/10892?my=chu)

it is called '선 변성 후 가공' which is roughly translated to 'Transfiguration first, and then the rest (tempering, masterwork, Horadrim cubing and etc.) Is is based on the hypothesis below.

1. In most cases, gem power Transfiguration out performs any other greater affixes. Especially, when it is 'master worked.'
2. In order to masterwork the Gem power transfigured affix, you gotta have a gem power transfiguration -obviously-, but at the same time, the transfigured item should get another chance of transfiguration/tempering/masterwork and etc as we all know it sometimes happens.

3, People usually transfigure their items at the end of the upgrading cycle. On top of that, people usually do it on their best items. It takes up a lot of resources of course, but it also has the risk to brick your one perfect weapon too. Again on top of that, it minimizes the number of items you transfigure.

4. So, proposal is simple. By hoarding the bunch of 900 power 2-handed weapons and then make them legendaries and transfigure them no matter what the current affixes are. If it gets Gem power 'and' another chance of transfiguration? Congratulations, you won. If the gem power transfiguration takes up the affix that has been already there, since your item gets a pass with what-ever adjustment you want, you just add another one, just not with the greater affix.

(Basically, you can have what-ever options on your items with the Horadrim Cube. So, choosing the weapons with the right affix is un-necessary.)

This guy claimed that having gem power transfiguration only on the item that already has several greater affixes gets outperformed by gem power transfiguration option that is masterworked. This article has been uploaded on the Thursday afternoon, got blew up ever since and again basically all the barbs there are currently doing it. The barbarian message board is riddled with the posts with the titles 'I've done it.' and so on.

Current consensus over here is

1. Do it with your off-hand weapon first. Since in case of the main-hand weapons, having greater affix on weapon damage would out-perform it in a lot of cases.
2. Nobody actually calculated the damage numbers, but anecdotally, if you equip the highest level gem -I don't know what it is called in English-, the boost seems to be significant.