There was one restaurant that I really wanted to try during our trip to Japan and that was La Bettola.
Which is weird, I guess, from a foodie’s view. A trattoria instead of Michelin-starred restaurants that star-stud the streets of Tokyo?
Well, I grew up reading the chef’s cook book. La Bettola is the home base of chef-restauranteur Tsutomu Ochiai. He is Japan’s answer to Mario Batali – a celebrity chef who made authentic (think al dente) Italian food popular in a very secluded country. Not only does the chef own three restaurants and a bakery, he also has published a slew of cookbooks. My mom owns the fish cook book and I spent many afternoons looking at pictures of scary looking fishes, which the chef would transform into brightly colored dishes with step by step photos.
Unfortunately our schedule was very, very tight, so once we left Tokyo I gave up on eating at La Bettola. However, when we arrived in Nagoya, we found out that there was an outpost right by the main train station! So we strolled out the station with our luggage and decided to do lunch there. (The staff was very kind about letting us check-in our enormous suitcases too!)
Mosey on over for delicious nommage…
Some prosecco to start the lunch.
And some bread… Because bread is good.
The restaurant opens at 11, and we arrived on the dot. By the time we put in our orders, the whole place was packed with well-off housewives and elderly couples. Unfortunately we missed chef Ochiai by a day – he was supposed to come in the next night for service (but they were fully booked anyway).
At La Bettola Da Ochiai Nagoya, you can only order set menus (except for dessert, which is a la carte). For lunch, you can mix and match a 2-course lunch for 1890 yen or a 3-course for 2940 yen. I thought that the 2-course alone was a bit much for lunch!
I started mine with the bruschetta and house-cured ham. Summer tomatoes in Japan are the sweetest, brightest things one can indulge in, and the bruschetta was flavored delicately to showcase the key ingredient.
Don started with a plate of the house cured ham. It’s looks like a big, ordinary slab of meat, but it was pleasantly light in flavor. The pesto sauce made it extra fan-cay.
Don’s second course was spaghetti Bolongese. Delicious, but we just couldn’t get over the fact that the noodles looked like udon.
Spaghetti, shrimp and rocket. This is the best bowl of pasta I’ve ever eaten. EVAR. Very light, simple, but perfect in every way. In fact, this was so good that we went to the book store after our meal and scoured through all of his books so that I could get the recipe. I think that the simpler the dish is, the easier it is to eff up in execution, but they managed to pull this one beautifully.
Herb-grilled pork belly. Again… So simple. Yet so delicious. But maybe a little too chewy for my taste.
No meal is complete without dessert. Here, a plate of chilly panna cotta with burnt caramel sauce (800 yen). So good and refreshing, especially with a cup of espresso. AND I got the recipe in the same book I purchased for the shrimp pasta!
Don had the flan (800 yen). It was good but not too exciting.
La Bettola da Ochiai Nagoya was everything that I hoped it would be – simple, delicious, colorful food that requires your undivided attention. I would LOVE to come back during my next trip!
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La Bettola Da Ochiai Nagoya
〒464-0073 名古屋市千種区高見2-9-17
website
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Next up: final post! other things we ate in Japan.
SinoSoul December 28, 2010 at 8:47 am
That is lovely! I thoroughly enjoy when brilliantly meals serendipitously arrive (near a train station no less). You were meant to dine there, on that day! Reminds me of our final meal in Bangkok; we were enroute to the airport & had to carry our luggage to this dinky restaurant jam packed with people during lunch time.
In the area of Western food, it seems Japan is leaps & bounds ahead of rest of Asia. Try to find a slice of edible pizza in Shanghai is harder than building the Great Wall.
Good times!
weezermonkey December 28, 2010 at 4:18 pm
So beautiful and so unexpected!
ila December 29, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Tony, must be! We found out about the Nagoya location on the morning news that very morning too.
And about pizza in Shanghai, that’s weird… Isn’t Shanghai suppose to be a big city with everything in it?
Weezermonkey, thank you! We were SO happy when we found it too!
ai January 5, 2011 at 10:36 pm
I enjoyed their service as well as the food when I dined there. I have to go back to try that herb-grilled pork belly.