Sat 17_01_09 – Ikebukuro, Asakusa

Today we went to a sushi restaurant in Asakusa named Nihon Kai.  We had breakfast and ordered the lunch sushi special which was a combination of nigiri zushi and maki-zushi (tuna rolls, in this instance).  

After lunch we caught a train to Ikebukuro and checked out the depachika in the basement of Tobu and Seibu – both huge department stores: and I thought the department stores in Kuala Lumpur were big!  From here, we went east towards Sunshine Dori and the Sunshine60 Building – named for the 60 storeys.  

Inside the Sunshine Building we had a late lunch at a well known tonkatsu restaurant named “Wako Tonkatsu”.  The pork cutlet ,which is crumbed with Japanese breadcrumbs called panko, is deep fried and served with piles of cabbage.  You get a selection of sauces to serve with the pork and a bowl of miso soup with rice on the side.

The Sunshine Building houses a huge kids’ amusement area called NamjaTown.  I played some MarioKart arcade edition and Kiri tried to win all of the chocolates on offer on the “skill cranes”.

    

After playing a few video games and watching people just generally go wild in this huge kidtown, we visited a place called “Ice Cream City” which apparently has squid and eggplant flavoured icecream.  We couldn’t find any because it was all written in Japanese.  On the way to the exit we came across an old man who was doing Japanese-style portraits of people.  This is what we turned out like…

We went to a small Hokkaido-themed bar, which was totally in Japanese.  It was on the 8th floor of a narrow building and was designed to reflect a style of snow house in the north islands.

    

This was the entrance to the elevator.

 

土間 土間 – Doma-Doma

やきとり  -  yakitori

Kiri’s favourite dish is yakitori, which literally means grilled bird – or more simply grilled skewers of chicken.  This place we have been going to is called Doma-Doma and gives you a choice of having your chicken grilled with sauce or served with rock salt and lemon.  We obviously chose the rock salt option, and they are delicious.  They also serve grilled fish, which I think are sardines.

After some light snacks like sashimi and yakitori, we got onto a korean do-it-yourself hotpot.  We had the pork version that included enoki mushrooms and tofu, along with heaps of vegetables.  And it was spicy.

 

Fri 16_01_09 – Karaoke

日 本 酒  -  sake

The other night, at an izakaya named Kassen Ichiba, an old man introduced me to a drink called Hoppy.  He also wrote something – which to me was illegible, but with the help of my reception staff, translatable – recommending an izakaya in a district a little bit south of where we were staying.  

The place was called tawa raya.  Initially we couldn’t find it, because it’s located in a backstreet, so we asked a lady who was emptying her used bottles and she ran us down and around the corner to the place.

      

We hesitated but held our confidence and entered the local akachochin – red lantern drinking place or izakaya.  When we entered, we were welcomed with the ubiquitous greeting “Irasshaimase” (which means welcome or come in).  They handed us a menu which was completely written in Japanese and appeared to be printed on a piece of bark.  Luckily, there was the day’s selection presented on top of the bar and it was easy to point.

I ordered a sake and Kiri had a large beer.  The items on the bar that we chose were clam soup, grilled stuffed shiitake mushrooms, ham wrapped enoki mushrooms filled with a small amount of cheese and grilled, a very aromatic bean wrap called konkon yaki and grilled sardines.  I ordered some more sake and Kiri poured it for me in the traditional way.

     

焼  酎  -  shōchū

Paying our bill and saying goodbye, we stopped in for a quick hoppy in one of the bars along “Hoppy Alley”.  Kiri tried one of the house speciality shochu drinks and I had mine with a black beer and a pale beer.

カラオケ  -  karaoke

Finally, we made it to a karaoke box.  I found out on wikipedia that kara means empty and oke is a short version of the western word orchestra or okesutora in Nihongo.  The karaoke box we chose was “Big Echo” – a huge chain in Tokyo, that usually takes up a whole building solely for the use of karaoke.  I constantly annoy Kiri by referring to them as “Big Gecko”.

I ordered 30min to begin with but soon realised that would be way too short and extended to a few hours.  We ordered a few beers and some sake and belted out some songs from Frank Sinatra, Coldplay, Meatloaf and Bob Marley.

After that was up, we ordered another hour…

          

          

Thur 15_01_09 – Shibuya, Harajuku, Shinjuku

First stop today was Shibuya station on the Ginza Metro line.  As we got off the platform and headed downstairs we realised how big this area was – there were people everywhere.  We headed down stairs into one of the largest underground department store food markets and saw an astounding amount of fresh food.  I had to get out of there because there was heaps of sashimi-to-go platters and we had already planned lunch.

Surfacing for air from the subway tunnels, we ran into our lunch destination which is named Tenya Tempura.

There was a line-up of businessmen waiting to get in, so we waited patiently and were eventually seated at a counter in front of the tempura chefs.  Kiri ordered the “excellent” ten-don and I ordered the ebi (prawn) ten-don.  The tempura was excellent, Kiri’s favourite, by far, was the pumpkin tempura.  After lunch Kiri found a crepe stand on the outskirts of Harajuku and took Vanilla, Strawberry and Chocolate Crepe.

We headed on towards the centre of Harajuku and came across some shrines adjacent to Meiji Jingu.  Kiri snapped some photos of me hanging around this one and one near Shinjuku.

      

After a short walk (along Meiji Dori) we were in Shinjuku proper.  This place is huge and there are heaps of people everywhere (well, more than normal, in Tokyo).  In Shinjuku there is a red-light district area called Kabukichō.  We went on the Lonely Planet’s recommended dusk walking tour to see the sights, and I stopped in for a beer at one of the “standing bars”.

    

We walked past a busy restaurant selling the infamous pufferfish, known in Japan as fugu.

The JR Yamanote line was our quickest way back to Shibuya and we caught the next train with our Pasmo cards.  Little did we realise it was peak-hour, so we got to witness (and participate in) a Tokyo rush-hour train journey.

When we arrived in Shibuya we disembarked to view the famous Shibuya Crossing, which was most notably made famous in “Lost in Translation”, with the big screens.  There were literally thousands of people in this one small area – all going somewhere…

Wed 14_01_09 – Tsukiji, Ginza, Roppongi

Written by Kiri 

We left the hotel mid-morning and headed straight to Inaricho Subway Station and bought a Pasmo card from a vending machine. Pasmo cards are a convenient way to use the subway system with the fares being automatically deducted from your card at the end of each journey. Cards can be topped up as required.

Using our Pasmo for the first time, we got on the subway (Ginza Line) bound for the Ginza District.

Although the main reason we ventured over to Ginza was to have a meal at Sushi Shintaro, Ginza has lots to see and do for all. There is no shortage of huge labels in this area, with brands such as Louis Vuitton, Dolce & Gabbana and Tiffany & Co sure to satisfy those with a pocket full of money. As tempting as it was to have a look inside some of the up-market shops and boutiques, I somehow figured they were a little out of my price range and settled for window shopping instead. For those who are more interested in the latest gadgets, the Sony Building located on Sukiyabashi Crossing is just the fix for you. 

After strolling the streets of Ginza we followed our noses to the nearby area of Tsukiji. Here we took a walk through the world’s largest fish market – Tsukiji Central Fish Market, where you can pretty much find anything that lives in the sea. Unfortunately for us the auction area was ‘strictly off limits’ for a month, so we didn’t get to see as much action as usual.

Roppongi was the next stop on our itinerary for the day and after a short trip on the subway we arrived in the town home to Roppongi Hills. This 54 storey tower is home to the Mori Art Museum and Tokyo City View. For 1500 Yen you can catch the elevator to the 52nd storey and admire an aerial view of Tokyo City.

The view is amazing and really puts the size and height of the city into perspective. You can virtually see all of the major landmarks and districts with the naked eye, along with the help of the complimentary Tokyo City View Guide. Mount Fuji is also vaguely visible in the distance to the west, and I’m told the view of Mount Fuji is even more pronounced on a clear day.

I’ve got to go because Greg’s eating another whole dried squid again, tentacles and all, and it stinks.

新 太 郎 – Sushi Shintaro

SUSHI SHINTARO

Mori Building, Basement 1

Namiki Dori, 7-5-4, Ginza

Chuo-ku, Tokyo

Sushi Shintaro was recommended to me by my friend from Japan, Shinichi Maeda.  Shinichi runs the highly successful Sunshine Beach restaurant Wasabi  www.wasabisb.com

I simply asked Shin-san the other day, “what’s the best sushi in Tokyo” and he replied Shintaro in Shinbashi.  With no instructions, or address I found it on the net and located it via GoogleMaps.  After arriving in Ginza, we used the Sony Building as a reference point and eventually found the building.  I took a guess at the kanji and headed down into the basement.  

We were greeted enthusiastically in a small restaurant with a counter in front of the itamae-san (chef) .  The apprentice could speak english and he thought he recognised me, I asked him if he knew Shin and they did.  We ordered お任せ –  omakase and were on our way...

We started with the following assorted dishes

• Some fish skin and pickles
• Traditional fish sashimi from the olden days (kohada)
• Toro – the best bit of tuna I have ever tasted in my life covered in fresh wasabi and grated radish
• Anago – a large saltwater eel fillet, it seemed like pan-fried and served with japanese lime
• Japanese-tea steamed octopus served with a specialty salt
• A scallop which was quickly fried, wrapped in a sheet of nori and then handed to us

The piece of fatty tuna was the best thing I’ve ever tasted and Kiri really like the sea eel.  The chef told us that the famous Tetsuya from Tetsuya’s in Sydney dines there at least once a month and his favourite is the sea eel.  The chef had been to Australia once to visit his “old friend” Tetsuya and sample his famous ocean trout dish, which is now on Shintaro’s menu (or a version of it).  The chef was so famous he was having a photo shoot for a Japanese gourment magazine in the middle of our lunch…

 

After the starters, it was a full course of nigiri zushi.  This is not an exhaustive list of what we had, just what I can remember

• Kohada
• Aji – horse mackerel
• Shime saba – mackerel
• A white fish
• Ocean trout
• A flat fish that was wrapped in a large sea leaf before being cut
• Uni – sea urchin.  This was served gunkan battleship style
• Ebi – prawn. The prawns were pulled out a tank in front of us and lightly cooked
• Red clam, and finish with;
• Maguro – tuna 

After the serving of nigiri – which is amazingly filling – we were served a fish soup and green tea.  The cold sake we were served and the Asahi Premium beer that we ordered went perfectly with the meal.  The chef was happy to oblige when we asked for a photo, have you seen a guy this cool before?

After we finished, we paid our bill and there was a reporter there waiting to interview him.  Also, they all had a chuckle at Kiri’s bag: after her zip had fallen off the other day I replaced it with a fake piece of tuna sushi.  Another photo, this time with the English-speaking apprentice. Gochiso- sama deshita.

      

The bill?  If you have to ask, you can’t afford it!

Tue 13_01_09 – Asakusa & Akihabara

東京  -  Tokyo

Onigiri (see previous post) with tuna was for breakfast, I had bought it the night before and left it out on our verandah to stay cool as we don’t have a fridge.

Kiri and I were off to the Sensō-ji temple in Asakusa.  We were on foot and went to this huge temple with a massive red balloon at the front gates.

There was, what looked like, a well with smoke coming out of it and all the people were trying to get this smoke on them and rubbing it through their hair and on their clothes.

 

Other people were buying bundles of sticks and lighting them.  Other people were drinking and splashing water out of a pond with silver ladle. And others were praying to statues and having their fortunes told.  Kiri said “they’re going wild”.

We found a department store for some respite and watched this guy make udon noodles.  After watching him, we couldn’t resist trying it so went in and had some, together with some tempura and green tea.  After lunch we went through a shopping alley and ended up at the food samples and models area of Tokyo (the stuff they display in windows at almost every restaurant).  I bought a nigiri maguro keyring.

Akihabara was next stop and we walked there underneath the main road overpass.  Akihabara is the electronics capital of Japan and we looked at huge buildings with Sega, Nintendo and Apple written all over them.  Heaps of slot machine, pachinko and gamezone areas.  Kiri played one of the games.

I couldn’t resist going into a restaurant named CoCo Ichiban Curryhouse.  In this place you could order the amount of heat on a one-to-ten scale. You are not allowed to have anything over five unless you have proven previously that you can eat a whole plate of level five.  I settled on level three and it was really hot, lucky I had a beer to wash it down with..

We had a pretty long walk back to our part of town and had a look at heaps of restaurants, all of which were full.  A guy was throwing chestnuts into paper bags and maids were handing out advertising toilet paper.

After Kiri had a short rest, we were off to another izakaya. This time it was a chain izakaya called Doma Doma.

On the fifth floor of the Pagoda building in Asakusa is Doma Doma.  It was a classy place with friendly staff and a picture menu.  We ordered two nama biru (tap beers) and sashimi mori-awase to start, with a serving of salted boiled soy beans.

After filling up with a few pieces of deep fried chicken, a second serving of tuna sashimi and some pickled vegetables, we decided to order something more radical and took the Japanese roast beef and sashimi horse fillet with grated ginger and horseradish.

Kiri really was enjoying the yakitori accompanied purely with sea salt and lemon, and I ordered a serving of chilled sake for myself.  The waiter poured it for me from a large bottle and overfilled the glass in traditional style.

We finished off with a grilled one-day-old squid and some pilchards.  The bill was quite expensive, but we haven’t been spending much in the day so our daily budget is still balancing…

Mon 12_01_09 – Ueno

上野 – Ueno

The hotel we are staying in is called the Oak Hotel and is located in Ueno.  It is a really nice little place with a cool entrance.

 

Went looking for breakfast and ended up in a konbini (convenience store) with an onigiri.  Onigiri is a triangle of rice with something inside, maybe tuna or salmon or possibly even cod roe, wrapped in nori (dried seaweed).  The nori is packaged separately from the rice and you roll it yourself so the nori’s still fresh. After it’s wrapped you eat it..

Here’s a good video of how to eat your onigiri http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd8Hq4hvfrs

After cruising around Ueno area for a bit, we were pretty hungry as we hadn’t had dinner the night before so we went into a restaurant for kare raisu (a plate with half rice, half curry sauce).  As we asked the chef to make it he pointed to a vending machine. All in Japanese …

We got some tickets out and handed them to the chef.  We ended up ordering a kare raisu set which included a bowl of soba noodles and soup.  There are no wait staff and you are expected to clean up when you leave and take your plates out the back.

If you’ve never been to Japan, the huge amount of vending machines will stand out in your memory.  They have cold drinks, hot drinks, coffee, beer, smokes, food, credit for pay-per-view movies, and I’m told to believe even used women’s underwear.

Next up was to take a round trip on the JR Yamanote line.  This line uses green trains and costs ¥130 to get off at the same station where you embarked.  This train is above ground and gave us a good view of Tokyo, took about an hour.  Again we bought tickets out of a machine…

Went cruising around the markets near Ueno station and watched people grilling stuff and selling it on the street.  Headed back to the apartment for a while, I bought a dried squid home to chew on in the room, but Kiri couldn’t handle the smell of it.

For dinner we decided to head straight to an izakaya (japanese pub).  There were heaps in this one area but they were all totally full.  We kept walking and couldn’t read a word of the Japanese, but luckily a lady saw us looking at the menu and invited us in.

I ordered two beers and some sashimi without having to worry too much about the menu.  The beer was Asahi and we ended up getting a few plates of sashimi.  Kiri also ordered some yakitori and deep fried squid with lemon and spicy mustard.  The beer was going down pretty well and we ordered a sake off the menu…

We ordered some more sashimi and yakitori, and I asked the waitress to get me the same drink that everyone in the izakaya was drinking (by pointing).  

The drink apparently is called sanrei or “Hoppy”.  A large pint glass comes out half full of shochu (potato based wine) and filled to the brim with large ice cubes.  A non-alcoholic beer called Hoppy comes next and is poured into the pint glass and mixed with the shochu.

Kiri couldn’t handle the sake, so I had to finish it…

           

Sun 11_01_09 – Gold Coast to Narita

Got to the airport with a few hours to spare and then learned the plane was delayed by another hour.  Halfway through the plane flight – the pilot had just informed us to look out the window because we were flying over Guam – I grabbed my mac from its backpack and was setting up to watch Goodfellas.  Or was I?  When I opened my mac up , it wasn’t my mac!  It had been swapped at security when they made me go through the metal detector three times.  Now, a metal detector has never gone off on me that I can remember, let alone being asked to go through it three times, yes shoes and everything.  Kiri grabbed the mac and put it in my backpack – or so she thought.  The shock of opening up the mac and seeing an alien background was terrible.

By the time we landed in Narita I’d calmed down a bit.  But filling in customs and immigration forms, and lining up in really long queues was starting to test me.  We caught the Keisei Skyliner train to the Keisei Ueno station.  We had to walk across to the JR Ueno station (there are multiple train lines stopping in the same place) and then past the Metro Ueno station.  It was quite a shock to see a lot of homeless people living in boxes on the streets, it was about 1 degrees celsius.  

Heading down a street named Asakusa Dori we were at our hotel and checking in at about 11pm.  We crashed in our “semi-double” room after watching some hilarious Japanese TV.