Saturday, November 26, 2011

Tokyo -- Daigo's Elegant Temple Food


Joan and I were recently taken to Daigo, one of our favorite restaurants in Tokyo. This elegant restaurant serves amazingly refined shojin (i.e. vegetarian) kaiseki meals in an exquisite setting. One eats in a tatami room with a view of a private garden, served by kimono-clad women who silently glide in and out of the room through shoji doors.



Daigo was formerly on the premises of the nearby Daigo-ji temple, but was relocated into a modern multi-use complex as part of a deal by which the developer obtained some temple property on which to build the complex. The new version is just lovely, and the arriving visitor immediately feels that he or she has entered into a world far removed from the surrounding bustling neighborhood in central Tokyo.




As mentioned above, the food is vegetarian kaiseki, and has is roots in Buddhist temple food. This is not the spare cuisine that one associates with abstemious monks but rather an exuberant celebration of the seasonal variety of Japan's food bounty.





A feast for all the senses, Daigo is a must for the first-time visitor to Tokyo.

Bobby Jay

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Il me semble que le Japon est un des rares pays où la forme est aussi respectée que le fond, mëme en cuisine!

Bobby Jay said...

C'est vrai!