Kaiseki Experience

Alex's birthday happens to fall on a weekday this year.
So we decided to have an early celebration on the weekend instead.
We chose to dine in at the Japanese restaurant as usual (because Japanese cuisine is the best!) but unlike before, this time I had to pre-book one month ahead for this very very very special kaiseki dinner (a traditional Japanese multi-course haute cuisine). This is the most elaborate and unique dining experience in Japanese culture as all courses are specially prepared to highlight seasonal delicacies.
In which case our kaiseki dinner happened to include 14 courses altogether.
Most ingredients are sourced from Japan and skilfully prepared by experienced kaiseki chefs.
We didn't know what will be served on the menu that night.
We were only told to sit back and patiently wait for the surprises to come.

Yea... so we have been waiting very patiently for that one month to come!

So here we were. Finally. We arrived at 6pm and dinner did not start until 45 minutes later.

The restaurant manager brought out two generous size of starters which contain half a lobster, Japanese sweet plum wine, Japanese cherry, grilled cod, edamame beans, sea urchin and tuna sashimi, lotus root and octopus with umeboshi, salmon sashimi with raw salads, mushroom and scallop tempura, tofu etc. All dishes add up to 6 courses (we think?). For a starter, this was enormous!

Of course the night did not just end there. 

Kaori-san (who was assigned to look after our table) continued to serve us our favourite dobin mushi, followed by salmon+tuna+snapper+kingfish sashimi, a grilled fish course with bamboo shoots, Japanese Tarabagani king crab, sizzling wagyu beef, prawn and scallop salads, rice with pickles and miso soup, then finally matcha and black sesame ice cream. 

These add up to the final 8 courses on the menu with each course separated by a sensible 5-10 minutes break in between (in case if we need to visit the loo!). Anyhow, we did not finish until about 3.5 hours later (about 10:15pm). Good job we came earlier!

It was a shocking 14-course dinner indeed.

I think we both have done pretty well for our size.

I surrendered at the 11th course (almost done with my wagyu beef dish) and Alex dropped his cutlery at the 12th course (prawn and scallop salads). We skipped through to the dessert ice cream.

We had a lot of fun enjoying our sumptuous meals while interacting with Kaori-san.

She has such a kind, friendly and approachable personality.

And she always wears a beautiful smile on her face (very pretty both inside and outside).

Here is a picture of us with the cute Kaori-san with a pretty kimono at the background.

Alex and I had picked well - slightly baggy clothes to cover up our distended belly.

A cute pose as requested by Kaori-san v(^_^)v

It was a fun night exploring new dining experience together.

Happy birthday sweetheart ♥♥♥