Gen Restaurant – Seikai 晴海 – Breakfast Review

There is an odd quirk that I tend to do on Chinese New Year Day – which is to be a vegetarian on that day, this mainly started when I was still working part time at a cafe and the owner said that she normally does the same, I thought it was a great idea and since then has follow suit. This has been almost ten years ago, and being someone who adores meat, Ms Buddha has had her fair share of my frustration when I don’t plan ahead and end up having to starve myself on every Chinese New Year.

This year was a little different in that I knew that I was going to be in a Ryokan on Chinese New Year Day with the intention that I pre planned. Because of the Amex Platinum Card, I a concierge (similar to the Citi Prestige) but what I find is that with the Amex Concierge, they tend have a bit more reach, so the good folks at Amex contacted Seikai and asked whether they could accommodate my vegetarian quirk. The initial response was that they weren’t going to be able to, but I could eat by own food in my room (which I was fine with because the facilities were fantastic at the Seikai, but when it was about 2 weeks before we were about to check in, the host contacted us again and said that they will be able to do a meal for me – music to my ears! They said that it was nothing special, which I was fine with, and frankly was not disappointed.

Our breakfast was in the same Gen Restaurant as the dinner, and we were offered the choice of juices, I went for the grapefruit.

Not soon after, Ms Buddha got a choice of porridge or rice, and she went for the rice, note that Ms Buddha does was not a vegetarian, so our meal was slightly different.

The set came and I was delighted to see that they took the vegetarian notion seriously in that my set didn’t even have eggs.

As I mentioned in Gen’s dinner post, I love a good rice and I was very pleased with the set given that I was able to enjoy more of the nice pickles and the tofu (in the net) was fantastic!

Along with the rice set was a very nice soup, they even took to the details of giving us separate soups.

By the time we finished the soup, I had actually thought that was it, but then came the host again with the “main” for the breakfast!

At Ryokans, the breakfast sets normally comes with a fish course, and Ms Buddha got to enjoy the the grilled fish which was presented in a grand way again! And I got something quite incredibly which was a box of steamed vegetables with were in fact delicious!

As the finale of the meal, we were presented with some very fresh fruits again. The shape was a little difficult to eat, but the fruit was incredibly sweet and fresh!