Umi, Kayabacho (海)

Three things right off:
1. The delights of Kayabacho seem dubious and limited, but I keep finding places that I think are quite good.
2. This is one of them.
3. Kayabacho is under-served by Tabelog; even the good places have relatively few respondents, and the scores are unnaturally low. Ignore them.

Right, so after visiting Denshou to relax after work on Wednesday (still a recommended izakaya - chicken + interesting other bits), I received a surprise call from a grievously unemployed friend who has come into employment. In theory he wanted a neutral evaluation of the offer, but in practice he wanted to drink a lot of beer and shout "Woo hoo, I got a job!" I sympathize, though of course I can't empathize. And so it was that I found myself in Kayabacho for a second night.

Fortunately, on Wednesday night I saw several places that seemed worth visiting. I'm a big fan of the 'spot a tiny sign down an alley' approach to restaurant searching, and it paid off at Umi, which has a sign not more than 18 inches across simply advertising "海" - to me that said "We've got a lot of fish," and I was enticed. Even better, Umi is bucking the shochu trend of the past couple years by making their drink of choice sake, with a healthy 30 selections.

Inside is small, a little dark, and modern, with walls made of grass screens (like the kind you might use as curtains). As I got used to it, I found it a little bare and cold, but this is a very minor quibble. I'll get it out of the way - the only other quibble I had is that the server seemed to think we were idiots. This was mainly because the menu is handwritten and was, for me, completely unreadable. But whatever he thought, it didn't get in the way of his service, which was unfailingly polite and helpful. With he and the chef both being 30-ish, stylish guys, I get the feeling that they may own the place. These are my only quibbles.

What I liked was the food and drinks! The daily menu (it really is daily - handwritten and dated at the top, and different from the one I saw the previous night) features 15 or more types of sashimi, listed according to origin (e.g., Mie Buri), and healthy selections for grilled, fried, boiled, and snacks. All this is very much in line with any good izakaya. The sake menu is a single page listing what's in the fridge - 30 types, mainly Y600 for a smallish glass, but higher-quality sakes from unusual places. For example, you'd expect to see a lot of Niigata on an extensive sake list, right? Here the most common origin was Hiroshima, then some Osaka and Kyoto. Add in Yamaguchi and Fukui, and I strongly suspect that someone was born in Kansai...

We certainly ate well - as my dining companion said "I couldn't stop eating!" To help indecisive people, they have mixed sashimi plates with 5 or 8 types (5 types, two slices each, Y1800). While you couldn't pick the 5 types, you shouldn't complain when the kitchen gives you sea urchin, exotic shellfish and two excellent types of mackerel, and even the cheap variety (octopus) is full fresh and delicious. Not without a hint of chewiness, however... The other fish item we ordered was grilled tuna - one bite of this was enough to make both of us stop talking and look amazed. I'm actually unsure what bit of the fish it was - I think it was half of the hindquarters of a small bluefin, not the jaw of a big fish as you usually see.

In other news, the okara (a tofu byproduct) was extraordinary - some combination of the high concentration of vegetables and the excellent stock they had used to make it. A salad of lightly pickled cabbage was similarly delicious despite the fact that it sounds boring. We got a few of their oden - daikon, which was a single cylinder for each of us, in its own bowl, and also a boiled egg, again in its own bowl with some wakame and a tobiko topping (the little orange eggs that go on California rolls). These were actually uninspiring, but when we finished with a slab of grilled chicken, all was forgiven.

This, then, is not the hidden, old-fashioned izakaya of your dreams. But it sure is a small place with fresh fish and great food, and in my personal rating system, flavor trumps ambience any day.

Not the size of the wave - the mocean of the ocean.
03-5640-8178

Tatsutano, Otemachi (立田野)

Man, I've been thinking of going to this place for weeks now and it turned out to be lame. Actually that's not true - the food was every bit as lame as expected, while the retro atmosphere was about as cool as expected (marginally). That leaves us right around expectations, and strangely unfulfilled.

The attraction here, frankly, was the chairs. They're lime green pleather and steel tubing. That's kind cool, isn't it? The food is split into two classes, and after a big night of chicken-ing last night, I followed my better judgement and went with the food class (rather than the extensive Japanese Sweets class - lots of shiratama, anmitsu, azuki and the like). This meant that I got to choose from the limited menu of tanuki don (fried tofu on rice), sansai gohan (mountain vegetables on rice), sekigohan (the rice with red beans) and a few others. Curry was absent, and again I tamed my wild heart by not having fried pork yet again this week...

The food came distressingly fast, which meant that the side dishes were pre-prepped and the mountain vegetables were just spooned onto the rice. Which wasn't even hot. Oh well. The soup was OK, the pickled cabbage was decent, and the boiled vegetables were actually quite good - a sweet piece of carrot that I liked so much it must have had lots of sugar in it, a tender potato, and a green pea pod.

I could see going back here to while away an afternoon eating Japanese-style sweets in retro chairs on linoleum-esque floors. There are worse things (like work).

But Ricky...
03-3216-5003

Essenza, Marunouchi

This has been on the target list for a long, long time - must have been July or August that I tried to go but had it rejected by my dining companion on grounds of cost. I grant you, Y1900 is not a normal lunch, but this is a good place.

As we were leaving I picked up a card and noticed that Essenza is 'by Aromafresca'. If you're not familiar with that, it's the highest-scoring Italian restaurant in Tokyo among Japanese people (i.e., Tabelog) whle largely ignored by Michelin and others (1 star, I think). This doesn't stop them from charging well over $100 for what looks like quite normal food, nor from having the kind of ridiculous 2-months-out booking policies that restaurants dream about, despite a frankly inconvenient location south of Azabu Juban. So this is potentially an opportunity to eat their food in an accessible lunch setting.

It comes off pretty well. The lunch includes a mixed starter, a pasta of your choice, and either coffee or tiny dessert. The mixed starter was a bit standard but nice - a single meatball on lettuce; a single fried fish with onions, vinegar and pink pepper; and a neat soup of chickpeas pureed, thinned with stock and cream, topped with olive oil. The pastas have 6 or so options, but for two of them you'll be paying up an extra Y6-800. And for yet a further one of them, you'll be eating tripe. However the normal tomato-and-oil sauce my companion got looked pleasantly oily, while my salmon in cream sauce was really excellent. The pasta was fresh and textured very well, the salmon had been crisped on the outside without drying, then flaked, and the cream sauce was flavorful and light. Exemplary salmon cream sauce, really. Bread comes from huge focaccia that they seem to make there, and a sous chef was kneading pasta when we left.

This is in keeping with Aromafresca as I understand it - simple, casual, expensive Italian - but is worth a trip, especially on a nice day when it's enjoyable to walk to Maru Biru.

Most of the reviews say how popular it is with ladies...
03-3240-0103

Burian, Otemachi

In a weird way, I can actually recommend this place. The plates of food are positively American-sized, and based on today's experience they don't taste bad either. So for volume and variety, this isn't a bad choice. Of course there are many things you might prioritize above those factors, which is why I can only recommend it in a weird way.

So after failing to find a curry place yesterday, I really wanted to have it today. Or pasta. It's still raining and gray here, so something comforting is indicated. Burian is one of the untried places in the basement of the Otemachi Building (next to Sankei, the long thin one) and as such isn't very promising, but it has to be done...only a few more weeks left.

The menu is straight-up yoshoku, so you can get hamburger steak, a little pasta, deep fried croquettes and the like. I had the house special, "Turkish Rice" (seriously, ツルコライス), which has the following Turkish touches: a big pork cutlet, deep fried, on top of an island of rice, smothered with sauteed mushrooms and onions, drenched with a brown sauce derived from beef consomme and tomato soup. The whole thing came on an enormous plate - the actual food was about 14 inches according to my trusty pocket slide rule. It wasn't bad; the sauce, of course, was a bit cloying and unnatural, and the tonkatsu wasn't much to write about. But it sure was big, and inoffensive-tasting.

If you go, you might want to try one of the mixed sets instead. Anyway, you'll leave full (unless you don't eat).　For dinner, you may have guessed this but I didn't until I looked at the web site (hard to find, off of the main New Tokyo group site, which this is part of) - the 'buri' is like 'aburi', so at night it's a grilling specialist.

Chain food at its finest.
03-3216-4650

Toki Ramen, Kanda (斗樹)

Hey, I'm feeling kinda sick today, so let me keep this to a minimum, OK?

My project to enjoy tsukemen continues (there was the shared snack bowl yesterday that didn't even make it to a post, but should have) with a Kanda location that's right next to Y's Ramen. Judging by the t-shirt of the chef, which said "owner" on the back, I'd say it's a one off, and I'd also say I liked its rustic, Japanese-ski-lodge atmosphere. Almost a mountain soba shop decoration scheme.

The specialty item on the menu is tsukemen (but they have ramen options too). It's really interesting - based on pork bones, but light, somewhat sweet, and very spicy. It really tasted Thai to me, but the chef was amused when I asked if there was coriander in it. The web site says their soup is a blend of two, one that's simmered for 20 hours and another that's done for 7 hours. You have to love dedication like that, no?

The noodles were soft and kinda watery, but the soup made it all happen for me, and that puts this in a higher class of ramen. You might prefer to try the regular ramen if you visit, but the very thin, rolled chashu slices weren't much to my liking either. Good soup!

Sometimes.
03-5294-0061

Comme d'Habitude, Sangenjaya

As the latest in our series of neighborhood explorations, Sangenjaya had a few things against it. I'm unreasonably biased against the Denentoshi line (dunno why), and as far as I could tell, Sancha was a bit too...industrial. Finally, the weather was gloomy all day. but after a late start we persevered and headed there. It turns out that the area around the station is pretty good - varied and homey, with a lot of cheap places to eat. The one thing that was deeply lacking was decent-looking izakaya, which is a grievous flaw in a Tokyo neighborhood. But oddly there are lots of French and Italian places, and one of the most notable is Comme d'Habitude (Chez Taka), which is some distance south of the Mishuku crossing, midway between Sancha and Ikejiri.

When we arrived at 6:30 they said we could squeeze into the last two seats at the bar, but warned that the service would be slow since they were crowded. Then they thought better of it and told us to come back at 7 if we still wanted to eat. After walking further down the street and finding nothing with exceptional appeal, we went back. With all 16 seats full, and 4 people serving, it was certainly as crowded and slow as it's going to get.

Fortunately the menu offers ridiculous value - and I don't say that lightly like some others. This is 4 courses of solid French food for Y4000, and you can pick each course. Amuse, two starters, main, cheese or dessert, drinks and snacks...if there's a better value to be found, I understand your desire to keep it to yourself. Amazingly, they say they've recently reduced the price to stimulate demand...we ordered cold starters, soups, meats and desserts, as pictured below. I've been considering upgrading my camera since I've got an old model that refuses to take pictures when you leave the battery at home, but at least for this occasion there was a mobile phone standing in. Onward:

Have you noticed that I'm a sucker for horse? This was lower on the scale of horse that I've eaten - either a different cut or a different slice of it, the texture was very chewy (in that way where you chew and chew, and it's soft, but you don't seem to make any progress). Good meat though, and the vegetables and leaves on top (including celery leaves) plus the accompanying pesto, were a lovely introduction.

Country terrine was OK; I prefer a rougher grind, but I guess the chef deserves some notice for going with this fine mince mixed with cubes of various types of meat.

Being seasonal, I keep ordering chestnuts this month. A creative touch here, I think - chestnut soup with smoked pork belly. The pork was smoked and caramelized within an inch of its life, an approach that I always think has just a touch of cotton candy to the taste, and of course matched very well with the soup. Actually it was better to eat together, since the soup softened the unctuous fatosity and heavy smokagitude of the meat.

Another creative soup (we just picked 'em; the other stuff is more normal), this is a piece of fried fish submerged in gobo soup with deep-fried gobo shavings on top. Starting out crunchy with fry, then mixing together and staying textured with gobo, and fish flavor...good stuff.

Duck confit (actual Challan duck if the menu is to be believed) was OK but probably a low point since it was a bit dry and salty. Even for confit. Still more than edible, with nice mushrooms.

Somehow the chef managed to preserve the integrity of this bit of beef despite cooking it super-soft in red wine. Perhaps because it wasn't the expected cheek meat, it also left the sauce a touch tannic with wine and didn't make it as sticky with collagen as you'd expect. The vegetables have a homey atmosphere, but you can't argue with good, fresh vegetables that are steamed and plated.

I love pears in any form, and I'm very pleased that we've come into autumn pear season when the green 'La France' pears are in stores (Japanese 'water pears', the big brown ones, are very nice, but don't do it for me the same way). Pears in a tart are especially nice, especially when they're cooked well and come with a scoop of deep, bitter caramel ice cream. Decent tart, terrific ice cream.

Wait a few minutes more and you can have the souffle (pronounced soo-full). This was a genuine souffle, airy and a bit spongey on top, with chocolate sauce drizzled into it. I could fault it for being undercooked inside, but it still tasted great, and I'll spare you yet another repetition of my comments on value.

One bad thing about seeing pictures from restaurants on the internetz is that you aren't surprised when the petit fours are served on cute animal-themed plates. I apologize sincerely for spoiling the fun for you too. These were actually slices of fruitcake, believe it or not. They were pretty authentic; I might like a little more date, a bit more batter and some liquor to moisten it up, but it was a real fruitcake all right. And I enjoyed the plate regardless.


I could get used to a place like this.
03-3487-7686

Compound Cafe, Sangenjaya

Some cafes are so hip that you feel better just sitting in them. And some are so far beyond that, they just make you feel old. I felt old here, but in a weird inside-out sort of way since the interior was old too.

In college, I had a house with 3 other guys. It was decorated mainly with furniture that we picked up at yard sales or on the trash over the first couple weeks of school. You can probably imagine what it looked like, except that we didn't have the stereotypical ratty cloth couches - somehow we managed to find a 60's/70's black leather couch with thin wooden legs that became the centerpiece of our furnishings. Compound Cafe, staffed by a pair of people who look to be just out of college (although it's doubly hard for me to tell since I'm getting older and they were Asian), is stuffed with this furniture. Combined with the odd angles of a small space spread over single rooms on three floors with steep, exposed staircases between, a faux fireplace, a bit of fake velvet, and some old English books, this place felt like a college hangout. Which, judging by the customers, it is. Which is why I felt so old.

It's really pleasant though! I could sit around here any time. They have ample drinking options, some snacking and meals, they make their own sangria as well as a decent little cocktail, and there are quirky light bossa versions of hit songs played over a couple speakers hooked to a vintage receiver on the 2nd floor by long wires.

I keep thinking it's 'Concave Cafe', like it's about to collapse on itself from excessive coolness.
03-5779-6870

Mardi Gras, Ginza

Once in a while everyone comes to a point in their life where they visit a famous restaurant. Mardi Gras is a famous restaurant in Tokyo, being as the chef left another famous restaurant, Grape Gumbo, to set out on his own. I've seen it featured in various 'celebrity chef' features in Tokyo Calendar et al, so was surprised when a call the day before yielded a reservation with no problem.

Any complaints you may have hear are spot on - the restaurant does a good job of hiding its entrance under a bushel. The entrance to the basement doorway is cleverly hidden between two other buildings, with the small signs situated such that you need to turn your head to the right angle and walk at a certain speed just to see them. But once you get downstairs, it opens out to a sort of modern, sparse place with a high ceiling, a small counter, 8 or 10 tables, and a large and sort of luxurious-looking kitchen. The chef clearly designed this place for his own comfort, and during my visit spent a lot of time at the end of the island in the center, majestically overseeing the proceedings and frantic poundings and choppings of his two assistants. A far cry from other restaurants of similar size where one guy does all the work, dervish-fashion.

The wine list is on the aggressive side (this slice of southwest Ginza being dominated by one thing alone - hostess bars - there must be plenty of expense account abuse going on), but the waitress confirmed that the cheapest bottle was actually quite good (true). The food has options at all price points, ranging from small plates at Y1200 and Y1500 up to the steak for 4-6 people at Y15,000. I'd describe it as 'cheerfully confused', as it has some standard bistro elements, uses Spanish phrases to describe Japanese dishes, tosses in a bit of southeast Asia, and then leans heavily on meats. Interesting stuff, wherein one perusal persuaded me that one visit wouldn't be enough to figure it all out. Fortunately it was also enjoyable enough to justify a second visit. Here's the food:

Bread comes in focaccia form, but with two decent slices of tortilla as well (I was pleasantly surprised by this until I saw the Y600 cover charge; now I just feel like it was balanced). Actually the tortilla was very good - with the potatoes sliced thinly, and the whole thing baked very nicely, it felt very refined and adult. Score 1 for the Spanish influence.

Evidently a specialty of the house, Coriander BOMBS!!! get a lot of excitement on the menu. From descriptions I read elsewhere, I expected roasted garlic to play somewhere, but it didn't. As far as I could tell, this was a salad of coriander with a fish sauce-and-peanuts dressing. It looks small, and is not attractively priced for a small salad, but when you consider that all the leaves are coriander, it's actually not bad. And when you eat this much coriander, you probably won't be wanting more (not in a bad way; I just felt done despite loving coriander).

Pintxos are the previously-mentioned Spanish-named but mainly Japanese item. You must get this if you go - it's like a fun and tasty guessing game. With exactly 2 toothpicks each of around 15 varieties of nibble, it took a pleasantly long time to work through these and figure out what they were. The bits included stewed pork belly, confit cherry tomatoes, raw salmon, croquette, fried and vinegared fish (nanban), fried brussels sprouts, and some curious bits between gingko nuts and potatoes. Several of the items included cumin or other curry-oriented spices, another odd Very nice!

The pheasant featured in this salad was sadly dried, while the tempura gobo was a bit chewy and not that well fried. The sauce also included curried elements...this was the weakest thing.

I think you can tell from looking that the deer was really good. Big, meaty, deep red, that touch of mealiness that deer always has, lots of flavor, etc. Expensive, but worthwhile. The carrots accompanying it were excellent as well, a real standout.





While dessert seemed to be indicated, the spare and simply-described options didn't excite me, and in any case there were odder things to be done. We headed out, resolving to visit again. Probably pretty soon!

BOMBS!!!
03-5568-0222

Sabatini di Firenze, Tokyo

Being graced with the company of my good maaaaate Rin-ji, I felt like it was time for something special (besides, it was her turn to pay). Out of the choices I offered (any building with 'Maru' in the name) she chose Daimaru, which is largely unknown to most Otemachi dwellers. This is because it's far away, non-obvious, and anyway a decent lunch there will easily set you back Y2500 and 90 minutes. Oopsie. I'll stay late tonight to make up for it.

Unfortunately we were not able to dine at the first two places that Rin-ji evinced interest in. Because I've been to them. Again, oopsie. We ended up at Sabatini, which is possibly the cheapest of the 4 high-end Italian restaurants in its group - the other end being the positively brutal Antica Osteria del Ponte in Maru Biru (I understand that the original in Italy is 3-star, but after my terrible lunch at Enoteca Pichiorri, I'll never again trust such pronouncements). Sabatini has many nice, elegant trappings, but things are squeezed in a bit, and with the rushing to and fro of the waitstaff it feels like a much more casual restaurant than it is. (Which is too bad at this price point.)

So we were both taken by the Sabatini lunch - mixed starter followed by a bit of grilled Japanese beef in mustard sauce. The mixed starter was as follows - some ham which was decent despite the fact that I'll never eat industrial ham in the same way again, a few little fried fish (the waiter said they were wakase, but he was deeply Italian), some salad. Meh. Distinctly meh.

Here's the beef. The taste was interestingly gamey, I'll say that for it, and it might be because it was halami, the English name of which I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if it was 'skirt steak' or something. The beef was certainly cooked nicely, but seemed mediocre, and the sauce didn't match in my mind (or mouth). The potato gratin was very good, probably the high point for me, the little parmesan crisp was nice, and the confit onions behind the cheese crisp were also good.

The post-meal coffee was conspicuously good, and the service by the aged Italian guy was warm, friendly and quirky. The cost performance was just lacking.

Aaaaa, la testa cauda! Grazie!
03-6895-2890

Hanezushi, Kanda (羽ずし)

Marketing themselves as a 'sushi izakaya', this place may meld the best of several money-making worlds. By limiting counter space (to about 4 seats) and focusing on tables (with about 150 seats), they can streamline production (I think the fish was pre-sliced), accept larger groups, and build a more festive (drunk) atmosphere. Good call, I say.

For lunch, it was pretty OK. I had the 10-piece set, Y800, and while some things like the salmon and toro showed obvious dryness from being sliced earlier, other things like the squid, buri and egg were pretty nice. The soup had clams in it, always a good thing on an overcast day that's threatening to rain and destroy your already precarious mood!

Light as a fezza
03-3251-2778

Hong Fu Gyoza (紅虎餃子房)

Perfectly meeting the requirements of today - a place that's a decent walk from the office, but all underground (if desirable), offering spicy noodles and fried dumplings. Yesterday's spicy noodles got me thinking about having 'spicy noodle week' but I don't think I have enough stamina to do that every day. And I missed Monday, so I can't achieve purity of conception, which we all know is a fundamental factor in the spiritual success of any diet.

Incidentally, this is in the basement of the "Otemachi Center Building", which is loosely attached to Oazo and features half a dozen restaurants - none of which I had been to before today. Wonders never cease.

You'd swear that this place ('Red Tiger Gyoza Workshop (and Beer Hall)') was run by Kiwa Corporation, but you'd be wrong. In fact, the Red Tiger is a one-off from the company that brings you Salvatore Cuomo Pizza and a few other one-off Chinese places. Weird. I would say on balance that the tantanmen and gyoza are a little less good than Kiwa's outlets, per the attached (ooh, too much formal correspondence this week):
- Noodles are too thin; it's like angel hair tantanmen.
- Soup isn't spicy enough, and the chili oil comes with a tiny tiny spoon that makes it preferrable to pour from the jug rather than use the utensil.
- I would swear that the ground meat was beef. That's just weird.
- It's cool that you can add gyoza to make a set for just Y120, but that includes just one gyoza and one shumai. The shumai was old and cold, while the gyoza was fresh but had a funny taste to the dough. Not the same impact as having them delivered to the table sizzling in an iron pan, for sure.
- Another good thing was the pickles - sweet and sour Chinese style radish, cucumber and carrot in a dish on every table, and not skimpy like most Chinese place are with the pickles.

In short, a mixed result, but please factor in a little compensation for the heavy rain and generally sour disposition of the author.

Grrrrrrrr.
03-3212-1772

Shu Rou, Kanda （西安刀削麺 酒楼）

Well, if you can read those kanji you'll know that I had toushoumen for lunch today. I was pretty happy about it too - I thought this place was good.

Toushoumen are a sort of performance-art food, a little like the picci that were on the menu at Il Pacioccone last Friday night. By this I mean they're made fresh - really fresh. In fact, the chef stands in front of a pot and slices the noodles off one by one, sending them flying into the boiling water. (Picci are cut and briefly hand-rolled on a floured board, which gives them an even springier texture, but you get the idea.)

At Shu Rou you can then choose what you want your noodles mixed with; I was confused by the overall Chineesity of the setting and just ordered the Ninki #1!!! which turned out to be a sort of soupy tantanmen. By this I mean - boiled noodles in a thin pork soup, with chunks of cooked ground pork, and half an inch of chili oil on top. I kid, but not by much - it was seriously oiled. Obviously you're not meant to drink this, but it coats the noodles when you drag them through it. Bibs are helpfully provided. The noodles are as fresh as you'd like, being sliced off the loaf of dough half a second before hitting the water; the only criticism I can level is that they get a bit samey tasting by the end of the bowl, and that the spiciness quickly overpowers any flavor that the noodles might have.

Perfectly fresh noodles, spicy soup, pork, and a heaping helping of god's favorite herb, cilantro, and I was more than happy. This goes on the list for places I'd like to visit again, sometime in the blissful future when I'm allowed to revisit lunch restaurants.

Coincidentally, another outlet of the chain is on my cycling route home from work, and dinners don't violate the no-repeats rule...
03-3253-5993

Farm, Tokyo

Saturday, I bought a ramen magazine that focused on recently-opened stores. Surprisingly, it had quite a few places in my general neighborhood. Disappointingly, I had been to most of them! One that I remembered looking good was in the basement of the Asahi/Nihon Building - I had been perhaps unfairly biased against it because of its shabby surroundings. Today I went to try it, and found that it's already been replaced by a different noodle shop. Confused, I walked around the hallways to make sure I had the right place. By the time I had verified that my target shop wasn't hiding anywhere else, I came back to find 10 people in line. Disgruntled, I went across the street to Tokyo Station to try the tiny, oddly-placed curry specialist I've been looking at for a while.

This is one of those odd places where you have to wonder about their business. It's shoehorned into the hallway on the Yaesu side across from the construction, just north of the souvenir stores - that is, in an area with no other restaurants. It's truly small, with mainly a central island counter for seating. And it only serves curry.

With choices ranging from vegetable curry (two kinds) to keema to katsu and chicken, I picked the upper-class veg curry. This means the slightly thin sauce is topped with a selection of separately-cooked vegetables - eggplant, broccoli, potatoes, carrots. It was actually better than expected; the curry was less artificially-meaty than a lot of Japanese chain places, and the vegetables, while obviously pre-cooked, weren't done to death. And they were still vegetables, so almost by definition were better than scarfing another deep-fried porkchop. Not sure if the curry was macrobiotic. Perhaps you could check that on a followup visit? As curry shops go, this one is pretty good.

In a continuation of the Farm theme, and a weird tie-in with other aspects of my recent history, the music on the overheads was bluegrass! The first song was a version of They Don't Play George Jones on MTV (an odd choice for a bluegrass version, George Jones being pretty far from bluegrass) and after that I recognized Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver singing Julie Ann Come On Home, a song I always found affecting as a kid despite its overblown emotionality. Tokyo never ceases to surprise.

The coincidences continue - this place is a one-off, but is in the same group as Perola Atlantica (next to Le Pre Verre, where I ate Saturday lunch) and Akasaka Portugese Vilamoura, which I walked by on Saturday.
03-3213-8339

Ichiryu, Akasaka (一龍)

Open 24 hours, 7 days a week, this Korean place seems to serve its limited menu mainly to Koreans working in the Akasaka area (of which there are many, especially at night. That's why there were various tables of women with big hair and fur coats even late at night.). It's tasty and soothing, a healthier alternative to other things you might eat late at night.

The house specialty is this soup called Sol Ron Tan (雪濃湯, "heavy snow soup" or words to that effect), which I think gets its delicate flavor and milky-white color from boiled beef bones. For something made from bits 'n' bobs, it really is mild. Into the soup go a few green onions, some clear bean noodles, and a few slices of braised beef. You can order more meat if you want to toughen things up a bit. This being Korean food, you get a good assortment of snacks (perhaps 10 in this case) based on vegetables and chili. I don't mean to imply that everything is kimchee; it's not by any stretch, as there are are fried bean sprouts, lightly crunchy and sweet black beans, and other healthy nibbles.

The rest of the menu is only 3 items - more of the beef, or the classic Korean pancake, or more of the clear bean noodles, this time pan-fried with some vegetables and soy sauce to make a heavy and sticky but still mild and soothing bowl. Prices are a little high for late-night comfort food, but this is because the side dishes are so varied and nice. Good any time of day.

Soul baby.
03-3582-7008

l'Edge d'Or, Gaienmae

This will certainly merit a return visit - on the evening in question all we could manage was a plate of ham and a few grapefruit juices since the kitchen was already closed. Still, the ham (and chorizo) was excellent, as was the dark, stylish, green-heavy bistro interior. With birdcages and brass. I recommend that you check it out, ideally at a time when it's possible to order from the full menu of bistro favorites. I'd like to say that including sunagimo in several dishes marks it as Japanese-inflected, but of course the French like gesiers, or gizzards, about as much as the Japanese. Maybe a little less.

Wasn't that a Bond movie, Golden Edge?
03-5775-5911