Mokushundo is a Showa Era restaurant in the middle of an oasis within Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo property. Mokushundo serves iron-kettle kaiseki cuisine and stone-grilled kaiseki cuisine grilled on huge slabs of lava stones from Mount Fuji.
Mokushundo is only open for lunch and dinner with tables that can seat a total of 66 customers at a time. I feel that we were lucky that our Hato bus tour was able to get seats for around 30 people.
The first thing I noticed upon entering the restaurant, after a short walk through the garden from Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo lobby, was the calmness that reigned over the place on a weekend lunch time. The food servers and cooks were confident and efficeitn in their movements and they all talked in hushed tones.
As soon as we were seated (our group was divided into meat-eaters and vegetarians, with photos of pork and vegetables to identify us), we were served with hot green tea and black tea. It was followed by a bowl of vegetable salad. I thought I would not be able to eat all of it, especially not one but two cherry tomatoes! But I consumed everything except one of the cherry tomatoes. The range of my chopstick-eating skills did not include cherry tomatoes in its limited repertoire.
While we were eating our salad, a woman started preparing our vegetables and meat. She chopped the fresh vegetables in front of us and skillfully cooked them on the lava stones. There were eight of us in the table, and she used two lava stones to grill eggplants, carrots, young corn, red bell pepper, and cucumber. She then dipped the grilled vegetables in soy sauce and placed them on our plates. Then, she grilled three types of meat, beef, pork, and chicken, dipped them in soy sauce and placed them on our plates. We paired the meat and vegetables with a bowl of white rice. She repeated the grilling process at least three times. Or until we said we had enough. She smiled as we thanked her, fixed the remnants of the uncooked meat and vegetables and left the table as quietly as she came.
The meat was juicy and the vegetables retained their crispness. The quality of produce was topnotch, so the minimal grilling and flavoring involved highlighted the flavor of each item on the plate. It was a delightful experience.
To cap our feast of a meal, a bowl with a scoop of the creamiest vanilla ice cream appeared in front of each person. Not magically, of course. Mokushundo is not Hogwarts after all. I do not even like vanilla ice cream, but I polished it off and craved for more.
After our lunch, we walked back to the lobby. We had no time to see the garden beyond the restaurant because we had no time. However, the parts of the garden that I saw was divine. Just like in Happō-en Garden, there were a number of photo shoots in Hotel Chinzanso. The red bridge was occupied and some pockets of the garden were also in use.
Mokushundo Operating Hours:
Lunch
Weekdays: 1130am to 230pm (last order)
Weekends and Holidays: 1130am to 3pm (last order)
Dinner
Daily: 5pm to 10pm (last order 8pm)
*Mokushundo Prices (meals on the menu):
Lunch: from 5,100 yen (US $46.79)
Dinner: from 7,400 yen (US $67.89)
*Prices do not include service fee (10% for table use and 15% for private room use) or consumption tax.