Our friend Trish from New York came to visit for two weeks in February.  Her first weekend in Tokyo we went to this restaurant for lunch.  It is located up in the mountains, about a hour from Tokyo by train.  The day we went it was snowing and looked incredibly quaint and magical.  Here is a photo of Trish and I at the entrance to the restaurant:    

Ukai-Toriyama is set in 5 acres of garden and is made up of lots of different buildings, each an example of traditional Japanese architecture.  Most of them have been transported there from other parts of Japan and then re-erected carefully.  Glen took some photos of the gardens as we walked through to the traditional tea house where we had lunch:

The room where we had our lunch was beautifully appointed in traditional Japanese style, but luckily with a sunken area under the table for us to put our legs!  There was an exquisite view from the window of the garden and some of the other buildings.  Here is a photo of the view and of us settling in for lunch:

The lunch was very interesting, most of the food was very delicious, but some tasted a bit strange to us.  Probably the weirdest thing was the sake.  Glen sensibly ordered beer, but Trish and Roberta thought they would try the restaurant's speciality sake.  It duly turned up, complete with fish.  Here is the proof:   

It was definitely one of the most wonderful experiences of our trip though and we will be heading back there a least once before we leave.