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 Today I went to try it, and found that it's already been replaced by a different noodle shop.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

Mikuni Marunouchi, Marunouchi

Health food is something I've always been suspicious of (sorry Mom). I associate 'healthy' with a lack of flavor, which is unfair except that it often seems to mean limiting salt to a stultifying degree and reducing cooking techniques to steaming (you may disagree on this one, but I think steamed things are boring). Mikuni, in the recently opened Brick Square (a block south of Maru Biru), is a nice idea - healthy food, based on local Tokyo vegetables (I think this is locavorism coming to Japan), in a space jointly created with a flower designer. Unfortunately I think the desire to appeal to the sensibilities of female diners has in this case triumphed over flavor (though, of course, not over expense).

Volleyball and I resolved on a longer lunch, which gave us the freedom to walk all the way down to Brick Square - at 15+ minutes from the office even for two tall guys, this will be out of range for most people. It was the first time I'd been inside, and it's very impressive. The inner courtyard is especially nice - grass, water features, sculpture, many benches, and dazed-looking Tokyo people wondering how they were suddenly transported out of downtown Tokyo to a resort setting. Mikuni is in the Annex building along with the Robuchon Cafe outlet and a nice looking 'counter kappou'.

Inside is certainly attractive - muted colors, flower accents, a nice bar where we sat, suited staff...We had the chef's recommendation, 4 small courses (rather than the one huge plate topped by two large plates topped by a small plate and a cup that form the cheaper 'one plate lunch'). Possibly the best of this was the first course, a turnip soup cappucino-style. For me, as a confirmed turnip eater (who prefers them raw, actually), this was a cool dish - tasting very fresh and barely-cooked, it incorporated both the root and greens of Tokyo turnips into a smooth puree that hid one chunk of peeled root at the bottom. Nice color, great flavor (butter was certainly complicit in that).

After that was a salmon salad, announced as being sourced from Hokkaido. Excellent salmon, with thick slices preserving the fresh and chewy texture of the actual fish. The very healthy salad included various Japanese greens as well as leaves of seaweed, but the dressing was dull. Likewise, the main of seared sea bream (ogodai, from Hachijojima) was nice, but left something to be desired in its cooking - not that it was bad, just that it left me wanting more flavor. It was accompanied by cooked spinach that was quite straightforward, and a combo of steamed/roasted punpkin and pumpkin puree that was the highlight of the dish for me due to the good preparation and contrasting textures.

Finally, the 3 small items forming the dessert plate were all good - a mysterious square of pudding on mille feuille pastry that turned out to be ruccola, good slices of baked persimmon on wheat cracker and topped with creamy sauce, and a lovely milk sherbet with crystallized ginger slivers on top. Coffees were automatic but good; macaroons (green for wasabi, red for seaweed) were less so - not well executed and a bit iffy on flavor.

Including 10% for the very good service, the price left us feeling a bit wanting. It's all very lovely, but...but...I couldn't get excited about any of it. If you went, I would try the one-plate option, which includes 6 different items and 'plenty of Tokyo vegetables'.

Sad but true.
03-5220-3921

Green Phad Thai, Jinbocho

Recent comments have implied that I rarely venture out of the Otemachi Metro Area (or Mon-Naka, I suppose). Nothing could be further from the truth, but I do understand that interesting posts get lost in the daily crush of lunch options. Fortunately it will only be a few more weeks until the end of the 1-year Difference Engine experiment, and then there are lots of places to revisit. If the preceding didn't make sense to you, don't worry. It confused me too.

You know the sporting goods neighborhood? This is essentially the blocks between Jinbocho and Ogawamachi along Yasukuni Dori, and you'd certainly remember if you had been there. Perhaps shopping for snowboards? It seems to be big on that. Oddly enough, the area north of Yasukuni Dori (which kinda bleeds into Ochanomizu and the music store area, which is why I was there) has a few streets that are pretty interesting from a food point of view. Last night I struggled briefly with myself, but managed to avoid the high-end fish specialist (面、おもて; really pretty) and stopped for a quick bite at this cheerful Thai street-food specialist. They have all the right elements for this genre, to wit: metal tables, red-checked tablecloths, stools (though wood and metal, not plastic...so classy!), posters for Phuket Beer, vapid and assinine but incredibly cute Thai pop on the TV (I swear there was a song dedicated to hula hoops. The chorus was "Hoop...Hoop...Hoop-Hoop".). And they also have a menu full of the things you want to eat - several kinds of salads, noodles, soups, curries.

Few things make me happier than Thai food done well and cheaply. Here, the 'well' dimension is decent. The larb had plenty of lime and mint, but the toasted ground rice was a little chunky for comfort and there was something just slightly off in the overall taste. The somtam was certainly fresh and spicy enough and had dried shrimps for authenticity, but again was missing the last bit of something critical. The sticky rice was a little over-steamed and was uncomfortably soft and sticky to pick up. On the other hand, everything was a third less than the food at the weekend Hoang Ngan, and much tastier, and the service was pleasant and fast.

I can't tell you to make a trip here, but I will without doubt put it on my Jinbocho apres-guitar snacking rotation along with Tinun, over which it has the advantage of being open on Sundays.

Pen-paaaak!
03-5282-8205

Ree Rose Cafe, Kanda

Self described 'Curry Izakaya' looks like a converted ramen shop in the bowels of the east-side Kanda entertainment streets (if I haven't made it clear enough, this is a weird neighborhood. Today we spotted a sword shop (definitely) and a soapland (maybe).), staffed by two sub-Continental folks speaking very dodgy Japanese. Their naan was as hot and fresh as you could ask for, but the daily special 'seafood curry' was weak - a standard orange-ish curry with a few tired shrimp thrown in and swimming listlessly. No specific deduction of points for charging more for naan than rice, but I don't approve of such practices. Meh.

A new trend - keep the boring posts short?
03-3255-7255

Bistro Lyon, Otemachi

You're not going to believe this one - I hadn't been to the casual bistro place in the basement of the building across the street? Well, no. It's generally kinda crowded, but it's more my contrariness menifesting in a desire to avoid buildings that more people frequent. With a late lunch promising limited crowding, I thought it was time to notch this one off.

I have this concept regarding foreign restaurants in Japan, the old vs. new thing. 'Old' implies that the chef learned his cheffing years ago, and also that he hasn't upgraded since then. Tools that are used but not sharpened rust over time, and 'old' cooking is that which feels tired and lacks clarity or sharpness. If I may potificate in this fashion. One of the cookbooks on the wall is by Alain Chapel (I think it was called "Cooking is much more than recipes"), who received his third star in 1970, and that's approximately the time period of the food. Fortunately bistro food is classic, and Bistro Lyon has a cool menu that includes confit chicken, roast duck breast, and other bistro favorites, at lunch time and for lunch prices. I had the steak hache, also known as a burger with brown sauce. No fries, unfortunately.

I will say this, it wasn't bad. But as brown sauces go, advertising this one as 'house-made demiglace' leads one to expect a bit more, especially when the last house-made demiglace one had was the really exceptional version at Bistro Bonnes Mares in Kanda (good lord, that was July?!). This is a good deal more in the direction of canned demiglace, which is a little sad and not at all something that M. Chapel would have approved (especially given his share in the invention of Cuisine Nouvelle, with fewer heavy sauces). But I would have no problem seeing what this place was like at night...after I tried the night offerings at four or five bistros just north of the river.

Special points for the waitress, who looked and sounded Japanese but was actually French and only arrived recently. Authentic in such an interesting way (as well as a nice person)!

This is linked to the Town Cryers and also What the Dickens. And the web site promises "Fine Wine, Happy Food, Woody Interior", so you really can't go wrong!
03-5204-8066

Cafe Mobo Moga, Shibuya

What the heck is a Mobo Moga? All African tribal jokes aside, this is a pleasant place to drink and dine. It was just late-afternoon snacks for us, which is not its best use. This dark stairway is also not its best side...but at least it gets you prepared for the dark, rustic woodiness that permeates the whole place, along with smoke.

Again, dark and woody. With picnic tables. And Christmas lights (fairy lights, if you like). But very pleasant, in a relaxed, Shibuya-slacker sort of way. It could help you feel young.

It's a sign of Tokyo life that even a window view like this is somewhat coveted. I was very happy to get one of the three window tables (albeit the one where I was wedged into the narrow triangular corner of the room) even though this was all the view it afforded. I suppose the interest could be said to come from passersby, since it certainly doesn't come from scenic beauty.

Almond au Lait was like a big warm almond-flavored milk, maybe with some coffee drowning at the bottom. It was sticky sweet and comforting, but no match for...

...the behemoth American Sunday [sic]. Precariously but charmingly balanced in a Pyrex measuring cup (and not a small one), featuring layers of ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate cream, creamed cream, granola, caramel and cream, and a cherry on top, it was...well, you can see the picture. Oog.
Other stuff on the menu seemed to be basically pasta or Japanese-Mexican food. Prices on things like this are always higher in Tokyo than I expect them to be. This may be compensation for the fact that people tend to order one and then sit for hours, studying for college or whatnot.

Never on Sunday's
03-3464-6090

Hoang Ngan, Shibuya

In this unassuming Shibuya basement (near the back side / high side of Tokyu Hands - I didn't know this was called 'Spain Slope' until now) lurks...an unassuming Vietnamese restaurant with decent food, mediocre service, and weak cost performance! Sorry.

Fresh spring rolls, which did pretty much what it said on the tin - fresh rice noodles, shrimp and lettuce, wrapped up in rice paper. The dipping sauce was different in a way I couldn't quite put my finger on; possibly just that it wasn't spicy.

Another thing that wasn't spicy at all was this salad of green papaya - something I dearly love. I've been criticized in the past for calling Vietnamese food a weak version of Thai, but I can't forget getting somtam from street vendors and watching them pound little blue crabs into it, or mix in so much chili that I cried after a bite. Fond memories, pallidly imitated.

Beef stir-fy with lemon grass. With a sticky-sweet sauce, this was nice although it did provoke a comment from the peanut gallery about 'Yoshinoya gyudon'.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the restaurant was this poster, which advertises the 'Passion for You' of these two ladies in Party-line red aodai (which were, ironically, condemmed by the Party in the past for being decadent). I'm afraid that passion wasn't shared by the staff, who were distinctly sullen to us. The food could make up for that pretty easily, and we thought the cost performance was very good until we realized the price was 30% higher than expected.

Still, any day with green papaya is a good day.
03-3464-4060

Cafe Vignoble, Takadanobaba

A few days around the house and I was mildly bored. Since there are a nearly-endless series of neighborhoods to explore, and no time like the present to get started, I did a quick search on the Interwebs and then went to Takadanobaba. I don't know how the name came about, but the 'high field' aspects were striking since it was several degrees colder than home, with biting wind and rain to match.

Vignoble Cafe is fortunately dry, warm and welcoming. It seems like a local place that you could come to call your own, especially with prices this low. Plastic table covers like these are generally a turnoff, but there are other touches that make it nicer. The menu is your basic standards from the Japanese-French bistro set, but they purport to focus on Provence food and thus has a selection of pissaladiere (call it 'French pizza', I dare you). The wine list is varied and cheap, with a healthy selection under Y4000 (which is cheap for French wine in a restaurant in Japan). They seem carefully selected, which probably reflects the fact that the restaurant is owned by the sommelier, not the chef.

In a mode I always like to call "comin' atcha'", these are the house-made lamb sausages. They were extremely rich due to the addition of both pork fat and liver (I asked the waiter, who was proud to note that 'house made' was his house in this case - and he may have been the owner, for all I know), with exactly the rough-ish texture that I like in a sausage and a natural sort of snap to the casing due to the use of actual sheep intestine, not plastic tube. Cooked just to done-ness, the tiniest bit of pink left at the core, they restored my faith in the ability of Japan to produce sausage.

This foie gras pissaladiere ('Most popular item!') was a contradiction. The dough base was mediocre - unfortunately reminding me of a microwave pizza - and the olives were the pimento stuffed, canned variety. The foie, on the other hand, was of admirable quality and cooked very well. One can't win them all, but it's weird to do such a good job on part of a dish while settling for less on the rest.

Keeping things short, I got up close and personal with a slice of chocolate cake. I liked how the waiter pointed out that it would go better with the red wine I was drinking than the tea-flavored creme brulee. It was as dense and rich as advertised, with a bit of needed help from the cream. The vanilla ice cream seemed to be made in-house as well since they were scraping it out of a metal bin in the kitchen, but it was a touch icy.


As a local place, this is is pretty good - nice attention to detail, although inconsistent, and good simple flavors. Other things that I didn't eat also looked worthwhile - the 'composed bagna cauda' was indeed a composed salad of dip-worthy vegetables, while the daily special of lamb with couscous looked suitably rich and wintry.

Can't say I'll be back, but if you need a place in Baba that's not ramen...
03-5287-5991

Rocky Top, Ginza

Japan is a strange and wonderful place. Hidden subcultures about - usually these only peek out for a moment when some intrepid foreign journalist comes to town and writes a story about a colorful character in one of them. You read it, you think it's interesting, and you forget about it.

I started playing music when I was about 10, and my first instrument was the banjo. As a result, the first couple years were spent largely on bluegrass, at least when I wasn't in my friend's attic bashing out crude electric guitar-and-drums recordings of homemade songs to a Radio Shack cassette recorder. My family used to go to bluegrass festivals for vacations sometimes. And since I moved to Japan, my Dad has consistently said I should try to find the hidden Japanese bluegrass scene. Recently he talked to someone who said bluegrass is 'big in Japan'. Aside from the laugh-out-loud cliche of something being BIJ, it got me thinking. And thinking got me wondering, and wondering got me to Rocky Top on Saturday night. They do have food, so I'm at least partly justified in writing this.

For a 25+ nights each month, this one-room Western-style bar around the corner from Ferragamo in Ginza hosts various bands, most of them bluegrass. If you don't know what bluegrass is, perhaps I can best explain it by saying "music that makes you want to say Yee Haw! in an ironic way" and leave it at that. Banjos are featured. Like most types of music, it sounds monotonous unless you understand the genre and can differentiate what's good, bad and different.

On this particular night, I walked in just in time to see a completely typical bluegrass band hard at work on the bandstand - guitar, banjo, mandolin, dobro and bass (if you don't know these instruments, how about doing a little research, OK?), three-part harmonies, the works. The only things that were different were from the necks up, because of course they were all Japanese. I like to think I'm immune to quirkiness in Japan and have moved on to simple appreciation, but I have to tell you the first few minutes were fully quirky for me.

There being less than a dozen customers, it was pretty easy to get acquainted with the band between sets (and indeed while the other band played - which was a Dawg-style 6-piece with gypsy overtones and an old guy playing bongos like a banshee. Seriously, a strange and wonderful place.). The most striking things were that after 2 minutes of conversation, when I allowed as I liked playing dobro but didn't have on in Japan, the dobro player immediately said "Come back on the 13th, I'll bring one to lend you", and that the banjo player, hearing that that was my main instrument, unceremoniously dropped his 1934 Gibson into my lap and left it there for the better part of 20 minutes. Friendly people, fun times. I look forward to hanging out there more and hopefully doing a little pickin' with them.

The food's not much, but at least you can eat. Here's nama ham with a bunch of softened raw onions; it was oddly refreshing and decent.

And for further sustenance, some croquettes. If you don't know Japanese croquettes, they're basically deep-fried mashed potatoes. There's usually a bit of ground meat mixed into the potatoes, or sometimes it's mainly meat and called a 'mince katsu'. Including a maraschino cherry is a strange and beautiful touch. And I didn't eat it.

Yee Haw, unironically.

 03-3571-1955

Pivoine, Monzennakacho

Friday I took the day off from work to get legalized again - as they say, it's no fun being an illegal alien, and I'm not interested in deportation.  But getting legal doesn't take very long, and the weather and my spirits were both so good that I wanted to do something nice. There are several French places between the city hall and home, some quite highly rated, and I thought I'd try one of them.  This being Japan, they were both fully booked for lunch on a Friday. Then I thought of the two well-regarded Italian places in the neighborhood. And they're both closed at lunch. Emergent pattern? Thus I'm embarrassed to say that I ended up at Pivoine - embarrassed because I liked it a lot, even better than I remembered, and I think it would be worth your while to schlep over here and try it sometime.

The basic gimmick, as far as I'm concerned, is that the chef and waitress used to work at Merveille and struck out on their own (with some intervening spells, but never mind that). This means you get the same service, almost the same food, and a lot of the same atmosphere, but even cosier and a bit cheaper. In the past I wrote that the food wasn't quite up to the level of Merveille's Matsumoto. On this visit, within the confines of the simpler ingredients and techniques I chose (no stuffed quail en croute for lunch, y'know?), I thought it was really good.

I don't take pictures of bread for the most part. This bread is pretty good in a light and Japanese way, but I really wanted to make a point about the service. Tamura san heats up the bread before every service, which makes a tremendous difference. It's a little example of her attention to detail and attitude in service. With her consistent good spirits and lack of height (150cm would be generous, no?), the only word I can really think of is 'pixie'. In a good way.

After the rough Thursday night I had, something restorative was in order. And nothing is easier to digest and more restorative than cooked blood, right?!  This was Chef's individual interpretation - the usually sausage-shaped item was actually a slice of loaf, and was liberally spiked with curry. The assorted mushrooms on top were very seasonal and also well-prepared. This was a nice way to start, perfect for Fall.

Pumpkin soup is also perfect for fall. I won't pretend to be excited about it, but it was fresh, whipped up prettily, well-executed, and tasty. I just think soup is boring, especially when it's a straight broth or puree.

While simple, I like to think this was a masterpiece (I don't mean to be quite this flowery, but it was quite good). The main item is chicken; I'm unclear on the technique, but I think it's a skin-on boneless breast that's been stuffed somehow with mushroom puree, then fried all golden and brown. And delicious! The other items were sparse but exactly proportioned - a quarter of eggplant, living up to the Japanese proverb about it being too good for daughters-in-law, several other perfectly-roasted root vegetables, somehow charred and juicy at the same time, and just enough firm green leaf (top of one of the roots?) to balance things out. And a drizzle of sticky roasting juice. Geez, was this good? And it was chicken. I never like chicken this much.

Dessert was nothing extraordinary, but came together very well and with seasonal themes. The ice cream is milk flavored, the compote in the back is apple, and the pudding is sweet potato - with grainy bits left in, making it texturally much more interesting than a usual pudding. Again, much better than it had a right to be.




What do you think? The above 3.5 courses were Y3k at lunch; dinners start at Y4k for the basic course (same dish-count, but no choices). There aren't too many options because it's such a small neighborhood place that they must not be able to keep inventory and plan turnover, but if even the regular ingredients are going to get cooked this well, I don't much care. Chef really seems to have lifted his game since my last visit, already going on a year ago. I'll be visiting again, much sooner this time.

You were perhaps expecting a Thursday night post?
 03-5639-1817

Aburaya Seimen, Kanda (油屋製麺)

Pon pon.
Pon and I went for an early/late lunch (horribly late for her, a bit early for me) and found ourselves heading toward Kanda, which we evidently do all the time in various other groups as well. With no clear plan, we were seduced by the lure of noodles, and in particular tsukemen, which excited her but which I still struggle to understand.

This shop is on the new & stylish side (opened in September), which for ramen these days seems to mean they use a lot of black in the decor. I think it's an attempt to seem tough, reserved and cool - very manly ramen.  It's welcome as far as I'm concerned - I'm not really into cramped, sweaty and old (unless the food's good enough to justify it...fair point).

I had tsukemen as promised. The noodles were a bit soft and flavorless, and very much on the 'udon' side of the scale - big, white, chewy, machine-cut. The soup has pretty well faded from my memory even at this early remove from the fact, and I also know that I dumped a lot of chili oil on top at various times to liven it up. The pork was sliced into slivers and mediocre, while the egg was cooked just to the wrong side of done but was still decent. Pon had the aburamen, which are a different thing altogether - more or less like dry ramen that are sexed up with a lot of oil and very thick soup in the bottom of the bowl; you stir until it's all mixed together and the noodles are coated.

My summary would have to be that this was OK, but nothing to turn your head. Actually one further point that might interest you is that you can order noodles in extra size for no charge - I had the more-than-enough 200g size, but 300 is available, or 400g for extra charge. That's too much food. Don't do it, even if it's free.

Over and out. 
03-6206-8699

Yuasa, Mita (湯浅,芝)

This post innaugurates an exciting new chapter in 'places I've never been before but will have to explore' - Mita. If you're like me, you may well have thought of Mita as a boring subway stop consisting mainly of office towers and huge apartment blocks. If you were like me, you would have been wrong, so hopefully you're a little smarter than all that. West of Mita, north of Tamachi, east of the sun, west of the moon, there's a little square of streets that caters to the grayish men who work in those towers (I assume they don't also live there).

The main components of this area's dining scene are as follows: grilled meat (Korean abounds; guts specialists are also common), grilled chicken, 'picture' izakayas (so called because they have menus out front with copious pictures - to me this is a bad sign for an izakaya because it means they can't change the menu much), sushi (a Japanese delicacy wherein a slice of raw fish is placed atop warm, vinegared rice) and nice izakayas. We went to one of the nice izakayas.

Yuasa is at the end of one of the intersecting brick-paved alleys that make up the heart of the area. Charmingly, it shares a dead end with another place (Manmaya, I think), and the cobbled paving of that particular segment of alley plus the wooden, aged exteriors of the two places give you an instant sense of entering another world. Inside is strinctly shoes-off, busy, smoky, crowded izakaya. The walls are covered with menu items, with individual sheets of paper for different 'themes' - want deep-fried lotus root? The page there has 4 different ways they'll make it for you. Tubular fish cake? Another 4.

It being a casual weeknight, we didn't order more than...wait, I think we ordered a lot. Naturally there was fish to start - good pickled mackerel, excellent errrr...shima-aji (another kind of mackerel, but totally different). Lightly pickled 'water eggplants' are a favorite of mine - they're wetter and more crisp than regular eggplant, so they're nice to eat with a day of pickling in them. As a grilled course (this sounds very official, but really it was all a jumble), we had cherry tomatoes wrapped in bacon and stuck on bamboo skewers - hard to go wrong with grilled bacon. I could tell that this wasn't the best bacon ever, and I didn't care. Grilled bacon basically ranges in quality from 'great' to 'awesome' - hard to go wrong.

One fried thing was the aforementioned 'tubular fish cake' (you may know it as chikuwa or even 竹輪 if you're weird) stuffed with spicy cod roe before being tempura-battered and fried - a cool idea, very tasty in practice. You could get away with serving this at a much more elegant place. Another fried thing was baby octopus, fried chicken style (don't knock this until you try it - I actually think a well-stewed octopus tastes a bit like chicken, so the taste also really lends itself to frying). Again, you might call this いい蛸の唐揚, if you were trying to remember more useless party-trick kanji.

Service was bustling and friendly, dispensing mugs of icy domestic brew to wash it all down (not really, but I wanted to include at least one food blogger moment here). The total was pleasantly reasonable, and a return visit would be worthwhile. It might also be a good idea, in weather like this, to sit at one of the two picnic tables outside so you could play with the cat between bites. Remember - the pleasure of a good izakaya isn't in being blown away by every bite - it's more about enjoying your relax time with friends and snacks, and occasionally hitting on something that makes you go mmmmm. 

I'ma kick Yuasa, you don' shut up.
03-5445-1351

Taikourou, Yaesu (泰興楼)

I'm starting to feel like a Shitamachi dining insider - this very good recommendation from Ricky is a gyoza specialist (with a broad menu) whose branch is Gyoza Bar Fei, in Kayabacho, tidily reversing my own dining trend between last night and today. I don't really remember the gyoza at Fei, but I'll remember the ones at TKR.

The streets of Yaesu, east of the Tokyo Station Daimaru, are a minor warren of restaurants - in fact the same neighborhood that I was looking down on during lunch Monday. One could probaby go months without repeating there, but Ricky knew where we were going, and go we did. TKR subscribes to the 'food hall' style of Chinese decor, which means black and red, with black low and red high. Aces are wild.

No need to open the menu - the gyoza sets are on the front. I followed Ricardo's lead with the 6-gyoza set and after a pleasantly long wait (good to feel they're doing something) dishes filtered over to us. The first thing was dessert (an interesting sort of thin almond tofu) along with some heavily pickled daikon with slivered yuzu peel (these were very good. Should I make them at home?). After that the rice and soup arrived at the same time as the main event, the center-ring contender plate of gyoza.

Good gyoza, good gyoza. These are of the jumbo variety (perhaps 4 inches, not 2-3), but it seems they've adjusted the thickness of the dough to compensate for the increased length and payload. The filling is curiously mild, but still satisfying. If anything, it allows you to eat more of them...I also think their work on the frying was exemplary - too many times the bottom (that part that cooks directly on the metal while the rest of the dumpling steams in the covered pan) isn't crisp. Here, the bottom was crisp, with a papery brown layer or cooked flour that didn't soften much when dipped in sauce. This is exactly how it should be.

Good lord I'm sleepy after that...
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