Tokyo Wishlist

As Tokyo has the most Michelin stars in the world (227, compared to 50 for the entire Bay Area which includes Napa and South, East and North Bays), my goal this year is to eat through at least 20 stars worth of restaurants. So far, I have 2 - one for a kaiseki-style lunch with El Hombre at Hinokizaka and another for a very good but very expensive tempura dinner at Yotaro last night.

The top restaurants on my wishlist, in order of desire:
- Tapas Molecular Bar (*): Spain meets Japan, need I say more? (http://www.mandarinoriental.com/tokyo/dining/molecular/)
- Quintessence (***): French-Japanese, I am told the creme de la creme of restaurants in Tokyo (http://www.quintessence.jp/english/concept.html)
- Any of the Joel Robuchons (Joel Robuchon - ***, La Table de Joel Robuchon - **, L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon - **) (http://www.joel-robuchon.com/)
- Saint Pau (**): Catalan cuisine (http://www.santpau.jp/english/index.html)
- Ristorante Aso (**): Italian (http://www.hiramatsu.co.jp/eng/restaurants/aso/index.html)
- La Cave Hiramatsu (*): Japanese in my favorite neighborhood, Hiroo (http://www.hiramatsu.co.jp/restaurants/hiramatsu-cave/index.html)
- Hamadaya (***): Japanese food in traditional setting with geishas (http://www.hamadaya.info/pc/english/index.html)
- Les Creations de Narisawa (*): Japanese French in modern setting in trendy Aoyama (http://www.narisawa-yoshihiro.com/)

Despite my above-described desire, I recognize that Michelin stars (and Michelin starred restaurants) are often highly overrated, or sometimes underrated. Cases in point:

Coi - deux etoiles for this? Sure, it's avant-garde. Yes, they make you sniff perfume to enhance your tasting experience. But would I ever want to eat this stuff again? No way, EVEN if someone else paid. I would pick my $8 Vietnamese bun at hole-in-the-wall joint over Coi any day. Seriously, why isn't Michelin handing out stars to Vietnamese and Thai restaurants?!

Range - one star. The single cocktail that remains in my memory to this day is the pamplemousse cocktail at Range. It was utterly delicious, but I tend to like all things grapefruit. However, the food was salty and otherwise unmemorable and the tables were squished too close together.

La Folie - ONLY one star?? To this day one of the best dining experiences I've ever had and I cannot believe it only received one star while a crap place like Coi received two. Goes to show that the handing out of Michelin stars is really rather arbitrary.