Bistro D’arbre

I will admit that I don’t go out for drinks that much anymore, and when I do, I find myself not really knowing where to go anymore (if I’m tasked with finding a place). With my good friend Luis Mendo in town this week — he’s working with me on some PechaKucha-related stuff — we ended up going out last night for dinner and then a bit of drinking in Shibuya, along with a few other friends.

Dinner was at the Royal Garden Cafe, and it was rather good — the menu focuses on organic offerings. We then met up with the rest of our companions in this wine bar. It was fine, but it’s a standing bar, and I’d much rather sit down and relax when I’m drinking and chatting, and so we then headed to a funky little hole-in-the-wall placed called Bistro D’arbre — there are apparently a few of them (as you can tell from the sign on the photo above), including a decent restaurant in Ebisu. Although tiny, there are 3 floors — we occupied the second floor (we were a cramped eight), and there was a tiny loft space on top of us.

All of this reminded me of the early years of my life in Tokyo, when I would cut out listings for bars and cafes, that I would past in a notebook, consulting it when I wanted to go out. It was a great research tool, and I had as much fun trying out new places as I had drinking at them.