Red Blossom Restaurant

The Red Blossom Restaurant Haikyo on the Lake Tama ring road rests as a peaceful shrine to the yin and yang of Nature, showing in gentle tones both her power to tear down the old, and raise up the new. The restaurant itself sits on a small hill like a rusted old tank, off-kilter, gap-toothed, and leering to the side. Numerous small wooden dining huts ring its sloping hillside like sleeping tors, marking out the seasons’ passage as they slowly slip from their struts and descend in arrested free-fall to the earth. At their center, a beautifully twisted cherry-tree blossoms, splashing its vibrant red petals over the tumble-down roofs and drab rain-mottled floors of the dying dining huts around it.

I went to the Red Blossom Restaurant (my name for it) a few weeks back, the same time that I went to the Akasaka Love Hotel. The two are adjacent to each other on the Tama Lake ring road. Like I said in that post, I came by bike, and was under pressure to get through both the buildings quickly as I had to race back and go to work.

I ventured up to the restaurant with no expectations of anything more interesting than the building you see in the picture above- a rusted red hulk, gutted, with a concrete block-building beside it. Upon rounding the back corner though, I saw a spread of small wooden huts perched on the hillside in a ring. Each was only one room in size, varying from about 8 square meters up to maybe 15, with tatami mat floors. I guessed they were either private-party dining booths, or perhaps private spots to perform a tea ceremony.