Farm to table

When planning to meet a friend for lunch today, I was open to suggestions of where to go.  My friend knows me well, and suggested the restaurant.  She offered an Italian farm to table restaurant.  I was a bit surprised because there are not a ton of Italian restaurants in Japan - or I should say GOOD Italian restaurants.  However, my friend is a foodie and always tells me about great places, so I'm confident in going with her suggestions.  Farm to table is right up my alley, so we decided to meet there.

My friend made reservations at La Mouri, as it is a popular restaurant and often doesn't have any available seats.  I'm always so grateful when people know these details, because I would hate to go all the way over there to find out there weren't any seats.  "All the way" is actually only 20 minutes on my bicycle, but that is more than I want to go for nothing.

As soon as I arrived and met up with my friend, I was intrigued by the restaurant.  It was a lovely place.  Without the signs out front, one might think they were going into someone's home. The dining room featured huge windows on the back wall overlooking the farm next door - where lots of the produce used in the restaurant is grown.

We were seated and looked over the menu.  Everything sounded delightful.  We picked our meals and chatted as we munched on delicious bread baked in-house.  It was the best focaccia I've had in a very long time.  I was so grateful because it is a bread I miss very much here and it is rarely seen.

My beet potage soup arrived looking amazing.  The color was a beautiful shade of pink that I was ready to just dive right into.  My friend's salad featured ham made in-house.  The server kindly brought us extra plates, because we wanted to share our lovely appetizers.  They were so delicious, our conversation stopped short and we could only gush over the food.

When our main dishes arrived, we once again couldn't talk about anything else.  My pasta with 7 vegetables was simply incredible.  We excitedly counted the vegetables because they were all big and bright.  Carrots, green peppers (known as piman, they are more bitter than American peppers), eggplant, sweet peppers, onion, zucchini, and mountain potato all delighted my palate.  My friend's pasta featured zucchini, sea snails, and a small bit of dill fronds.  Both dishes were perfectly cooked.  The flavors were fresh and so well balanced.

Although they offered us a dessert menu,  there was no way either of us could eat another bite.  But I did buy some of that delicious bread on the way out!

Everything was amazing.  I can't wait to bring my family back here sometime.