カフェ ラ・ボエム 白金／Cafe La Boheme Shirokane — Restaurant in Tokyo

Went to this place for lunch on a Saturday. The building is interesting and unusual for Tokyo, and the interior does evoke reminiscences of a spacious European-style restaurant or food hall. Arriving at around 11:45 without a reservation, we were quickly seated and were given a choice of sparkling or plain water, a bottle of which was brought to our table. So far, so good.

From the "Holiday Lunch" menu, I chose the "A" set consisting of a salad, main dish (I substituted pasta with a Pizza Margherita), drink (my choice: hot tea) and dessert (I went for Tiramisu). The total cost of this came to ¥2,640. The salad was a pretty standard side salad with a vinaigrette-type of dressing. The pizza arrived a bit too cool, had a very bland taste, was too soggy except on the outer borders, and had the minimum amount of toppings to make it look like a Margherita. The Tiramisu was just cream (which tasked okay) without any ladyfingers or other textural ingredients - the way it was presented, it looked like the top layer of a real Tiramisu had slid on a plate, and was then given an overly generous dusting of cocoa powder. The tea tasted like standard supermarket-grade Lptn tea served with a slice of lemon. All in all, this was quite underwhelming and didn't amount to a satisfactory cost performance.

Lastly, there is the topic mentioned by many other commenters: None of the staff are wearing masks. I can understand that in February 2023 - with mask regulations in Japan to be further relaxed later in the year - you would want to give this a try, and on their website, the company states that they are doing this for the benefit of their staff's health. That is a noble idea - however, where it gets slightly problematic is in two areas: (1) The restaurant not being straightforward to customers about what to expect when entering the restaurant (except for said note which is slightly difficult to find on their website, I did not see any information or announcement about this posted anywhere directly at the shop), and (2) the restaurant ignoring any concerned comments made about the matter by other customers in...

Me and my friend went here for the first time.

APPETIZER Shimp & Avocado tartare (¥1,265) IT WAS REALLY GOOD but too overpriced in my opinion. It had rucola underneath which was nice. 7/10 Buttered Grilled Oyster with Herb Breadcrumbs (¥605) It lacked the juiciness and was kind of dry, but the seasoning was okay. 7.5/10

PIZZA [Half&Half] ¥2,035 Whitebait & Seaweed (Cream Sauce) it was a 7/10 from me, but an 8/10 from my friend. It tasted too linear, I would not have ordered a whole pan of it. Half was fine. La Boheme Mix I liked it, the bell pepper made it taste fresh. An 8/10 from me. 7/10 from my friend.

MAIN Grilled Salmon & Mascarpone with Garlic Breadcrumbs (¥2,420) It was disspointing. If it were half the price it would have been less dissapointing. The salmon was too salty, and they had the mascarpone cheese fused with the breadcrumb topping on top of the salmon which added to its saltiness. The basil sauce on the sides were also salty, and the pickles didn't help, it only increased acidic flavor. There was no balance to the dish. 3/10

GARLIC BREAD (¥495) It was super soggy. It reeked of butter and didn't have a good balance of garlic. Just salty butter and bread with a little trinkle of parsley. 3/10

DRINK Grilled Fruits Sangria (¥715) It was good. The alchohol wasn't too strong. Too much ice, so the taste was diluted. We give it a 8.9/10

DESSERT Pistachio Gelato (¥253) They gave us the dessert menu as I was writing this, so around 20 minutes after we finished eating. My friend gave it an 8.5/10. She said the texture wasn't creamy enough for a gelato. It split like a solid the moment we dug our spoons into it.

INTERIOR & ATMOSPHERE It's nice and chill. They have music playing from a speaker, where the DJ would be. 9/10.

OVERALL I would come back to bring someone else here, but I wouldn't come here twice with the...

Lovely atmosphere and service, floor staff are professional and kind, but a piece of advice to the chef: Bolognese NEVER has garlic as ingredient. Want to make a meat sauce pasta? Go ahead, but don’t call it bolognese. Garlic definitely kills the other flavours. I was having an important social event after lunch and I had to go to the convenience store to get one of those breathing pearls (which are bad for health, btw) since I didn’t want to bother others with a pungent breath. Don’t get me wrong, taste was okay, but I chose this plate precisely because I didn’t want to have a strong breath afterwards. I just hope this is not one of those places that use garlic for everything, that’d be a pity. Edit: take the professionalism comment back. I was getting the dessert served while posting this and waitress came with a very dirty knife, noticed, apologised and left; but instead of getting a clean one, decided to go and wipe the grime with a cloth and bring exactly...