Saryo Tsujiri — Restaurant in Tokyo

Hidden away in a corner on the 10th floor of Daimaru above Tokyo Station, Saryo Tsujiri is one of the most hyped cafes to get your kick of matcha for the day. At an odd afternoon period of 4pm, I arrived to find a 1.5 hour queue time. Waiting in line were many local Japanese people, with some foreigners mixed in. I noticed the couple in front were visitors from Hong Kong who followed a foodie magazine here, hyping up the experience even more. After a gruelling amount of wait-time, I was permitted into the cafe which was surprisingly spacious once you're pass the traditional Japanese curtains at the entrance. Again, the interior design is mostly wooden, but this time with much brighter lighting to lighten up the mood. There's a great view by the window too! First I ordered their signature parfait (tokusen tsujiri pafe 特選都路里パフェ), the most expensive option. The accompanying photo for this post, at the top, shows the layout of my table at this point. Pretty minimalistic but beautiful. The parfait glass was also notably large. Maybe not as large as I made it out to be though, haha! The parfait started with some matcha mousse at the top, then transitioned to some blocks of matcha castella cake, matcha ice cream, matcha jelly, red bean paste, shiratama dango, other dango balls made from red bean, some sweet potato, and finally agar jelly at the bottom. The presentation was beautiful, and the sweets were very flavoursome. I couldn't believe how many things were made of matcha! Probably the best matcha dessert I've ever had, but it was at a steep price of around 1,750 yen. Since I took the liberty of coming all the way to Saryo Tsujiri, I also ordered their Gion Shigure 祇園しぐれ matcha iced tea, priced at around 900 yen. It was not too sweet, and had a good emphasis on the green tea. It also came with a small Japanese manju sweet. I would probably say Saryo Tsujiri is a must-try shop for matcha parfait lovers, but the wait can be quite long. It's also on the expensive side, so maybe just drop by here if you have spare...

The uniqueness of the parfait here lies in the complexity of the layered ingredients creating some fascinating textures and flavours. 1️⃣ To start the dessert, a light matcha cream kickstarted with denser matcha icecream below it, to be served with chiffon cake, matcha agar jelly, azuki red bean paste and sweetened chestnuts. 2️⃣ Following the icecream is matcha slush to be enjoyed with shiratama to lower the greasiness of the first layer. 3️⃣ 3rd layer is the matcha agar jelly with hint of matcha syrup with azuki red beans, with a purer tea astringent coming out. 4️⃣ finally the dessert ends with vanilla icecream with more solid agar jelly, leading to the exit of matcha flavour. Unlike regular parfait, usually a mix of cream, soft serve, some fruit & even cereal to fill the stomach, the way this parfait presents is well thought so tasters can have a wonderful good journeys without...

There was a short wait when we got here, about 15mins. Not too bad as I’ve had to wait longer in other places. English menu is available. This is inside the mall, 10f I think, and we had to ask to find where it is exactly. The place is not too cramped. We got seated facing the window which didn’t really have much of a view so don’t get too excited for that area.

As for the parfait, I got the Tsujiri matcha and my friend got the Hojicha parfait. Both were good ). I wasn’t sure if I’d like mine at first since I typically go for chocolate fudgey sundaes but the matcha ice cream actually had a rich matcha flavor (but not intense), and the mochi was a good complement. I did not finish it though, thought an entire parfait was a lot, but it was good to try at least. I don’t think we have this...