The maze of Yurakucho Station, compounded by the underground labyrinth of a Marunouchi skyscraper, was a journey that ended not with a horned beast but the cooling whites and beiges of Asli, a geometrically sensible space that rewards seekers with purifying fare. 

Finally seated and a bit disoriented from our journey, we decided upon a bottle of Cloudy Bay Chardonnay (¥6,800) to unwind-but only after giving serious consideration to the Veuve Clicquot-heavy list on the previous page.

At ¥3,800, we jumped at the chance to sample all Asli had to offer with their prix fixe course. Interestingly, of the 25 choices on the course menu, 16 featured "Date chicken" while the rest were vegetarian fare. Much to our relief, the assistant manager explained that Date (pronounced daa-te) referred to an organically raised brand of chicken from Miyagi Prefecture and not the dried fruit.

This combination of chicken and vegetables is the mainstay of Asli-no beef or seafood dishes here. Our Warm Plate, therefore, arrived as a handful of cooked yet still crunchy vegetables drizzled with a sauce made of parmesan, béchamel and anchovy. For the Cold Plate, we chose the chicken shabu-shabu and eggplant with ginger sauce, a pleasant balance of tastes and textures despite the temperature. 

Chicken grilled over youganseki (volcanic rocks) was our Main Dish, featuring gorgeously crisped and sliced breasts of chicken served with pinches of Dijon mustard, yuzu, hot sauce and a Japanese plum and wasabi mixture, allowing us to choose the condiment for each and every juicy morsel. Before dessert, we made the unfortunate decision to try a salad with barbecued chicken and camembert (¥1,200) off the a la carte menu and were met with camembert too weak to withstand the punch of the barbecue sauce. 

The deep-fried natural vegetables and mushrooms (¥1,400) were a wiser choice with vegetables that were firm yet crisped to our arteries' liking. The crowning indulgence was a green tea tiramisu (included in the prix fixe). The heavenly fluffy consistency of the coffee version was successfully recreated in Asli's version, which was even topped with powdered green tea.