After a week in Fiji to attend a nutrition conference, I’m again taking advantage of the route back to the Philippines via Korea to spend the weekend at home.

With a heavy heart, I regret to report that this may have been our final visit to Aoyama (see most recently 5.266 Gold).  The course meal was complete crap all the way through, in every way, including quality of ingredients, preparation, and presentation.  This continued to be the case after we had complained a few times, and even after the owner had come into our room to apologize and discovered that my parents — who had been regular customers for years — were present.  Adding insult to injury, I noticed on the way out that the spread of a high-roller customer sitting at the sushi bar was quite proper, replete with the kind of high-end dishes that the place is known for, confirming that we’d deliberately been served bullshit, probably because we’d ordered the cheaper sets — in the past, the food was always excellent, no matter the price.  The experience was so bad that — despite our 25-year history with the restaurant, the restaurant that had first taught me to appreciate fine Japanese cuisine when I was in college — I don’t think that I’ll ever want to go back.

I hate it when this happens.