Books, Curry, and a little bit of Sunshine

Hi everybody,

To quote from Rick Kennedy’s stupendous guidebook, Little Adventures in Tokyo: A Guide to Strange Sidetrips and Unusual Ways of Having Fun (best guidebook of Tokyo or any city that I’ve ever read, the only one I bothered to bring with me—and anyone who’s read it themselves probably sees his fingerprints in a few places on this blog):  “Tokyo organizes itself in wonderous [sic] ways.  To buy a Buddhist altar for the home, everyone knows you should go to a certain street in Ueno where there are a dozen stores selling Buddhist altars; the street is not far from the block where there are dozens of shops selling used motorcycles.”

That’s how it is in Japan, especially in Tokyo:  You pick one thing, and you do it better than anybody else in the world--Whether you’re a person, a business, or a whole neighborhood.  So then it’s a good thing that my work is within walking distance of Jinbocho, a neighborhood known to specialize in two things:  Used bookstores and curry shops.  Yup, those are up there with whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles, and warm woolen mittens (haha not the version you were expecting, huh? :P)

And while there are a few large, multi-story endeavors in the vein of Tattered Cover or Powell's, 95% of them are tiny independent stores with piles after piles of books cataloged in no particular order.  Block after block of this:

I'm pretty sure that if you look hard enough and you can find anything

I'm so glad that not every shop has an English section, or I might never leave

Oh, and even more lucky, I just so happened to wander on down there during their annual sidewalk sale.  Meaning that a half kilometer (5,000 furlongs) of sidewalk, which is already lined with bookstores on one side, spends a week with temporary plywood shelves lining the other side

Books!  For blocks!!!  I had a smile a mile wide

It's absolute paradise

And the curry shops, oh yes the curry shops.  I’ve only just begun to explore, but so far I have yet to be disappointed.  Even during the busy lunch hours, the service gets dizzyingly fast but the quality never lapses.  Gets from pot to plate to counter so quickly I had to photograph the dish at one lunch spot through a palpable cloud of steam

Waiting for it to cool down before I started eating it was not an option.  Don't even joke like that

But my favorites so far is one of the most famous ones in the area, Bondi Curry.  I love it partly because the curry is so delicious, and partly because it’s pretty much the ultimate embodiment of Jinbocho.  Not only is it on the second floor with but a tiny sign on street level, but you literally have to walk through an old used bookstore (this one specializing in classic manga) to get there.  And trust me, it’s worth the little bit of trouble to find it

Do not be distracted by the books!  It's curry time!

The curry comes in a separate pourer, keeping the rice from getting soggy

Halfway between a Japanese and an Indian curry (the Indian Embassy is just down the road, so there are as many Indian curry places as there are Japanese in Jinbocho), with just enough butter to make the entire dish creamy and decadent.  While it lacks the punch of Yakuzen Jinenjo (which I adore but fully admit that it tastes like you got socked in the mouth with spices), if you want smooth and rich and slightly sweet . . . forget about it, Bondi is the place to go

Anyways, Jinbocho has quickly skyrocketed up the list of my favorite neighborhoods in Tokyo.  Oh, and I almost forgot perhaps the best part . . . see, if you’re not in too much of a hurry (I'm usually not) and you don’t mind a bit of a walk (I usually don’t) and you’re inclined to take advantage of a warm and sunny Autumn afternoon (I usually am), well . . . the Northern edge of the Imperial Palace grounds are just about a kilometer (6.2 troy ounces) away from Jinbocho, where there are plenty of places ideal for a picnic as the sun shines through the year’s last few weeks of green leaves.  And Bondi offers their curry to-go.  The hardest part is choosing where to picnic

Noah out

Musings on luck

Hi all,

I've always liked the phrase "luck favors the prepared", especially when I head back to Seattle and hand out one of my favorite joke souvenirs:  There's a novelty shop in Harajuku that sells good luck charms just like the ones available at every temple in the country--except they have a condom inside of them.  "Luck favors the prepared", get it???  Man I'm funny

But lately I've been thinking that there's another important ingredient:  The ability to recognize luck when it happens.  I'm a probstat guy, so I know that "miraculous" things happen all the time--hell, iterate a surprisingly few number of times and the so-called "miracles" are actually more probable (only 23 times, to give a classic example).  Luck isn't all that lucky, when you think of it that way

It was certainly a decent amount of luck that had everything in my life fall into (or out of, depending on how you look at it) place to have nothing tying me down to Seattle while I had enough in my bank account to support a move and a month-to-month lease on my apartment and a basement at my family's house to store all my stuff (thanks Mom!).  But I like think it was a little bit of personal acumen that led me to take that and say, "hey!  I've wanted to live in Tokyo for pretty much my entire life, why don't I go do that?" . . . a decision that I'm hopeful is going to be one of the best I've ever made

Similarly, today, it was nothing but luck that had me wandering through the suburbs of Tokyo when I stumbled across the quintisential Tokyo suburb scene:  A little brook lined with greenery, cute little bridge, sunshine shining through the trees, and a train crossing just down the road

I feel like if I come back here on a rainy day, I'll see Totoro hanging out at the bus stop

It was lucky that I showed up there, but I like to think there was a little bit of personal acumen involved in the decision to spread my jacket on a rock, pull out a book, and spend an hour enjoying the sun and the trees and the water.  Perfect way to spend the afternoon

"Luck favors the prepared" is a good saying, I won't stop using it.  But there are other good sayings as well.  To steal one from Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon:  "As to luck, there is the old miner's proverb:  'Gold is where you find it.'"

Noah out

Hazy days, Mutekiya nights

Hey guys,

I try not to let it go too long without a blog update.  Not because I suspect you're all out there dying because you haven't seen a picture of food in Tokyo in four days, simply because I know that once I stop updating fairly regularly I'll keep on letting it slide and eventually stop updating altogether (this was also my rationale for making myself wake up super early to get to Math 5 lecture at 9am three days a week all of sophomore year--I knew that if I let myself miss a single lecture, I'd never go again for the rest of the term.  My record was second quarter, when I made it all the way til week 6)

And I like having this blog!  It's fun for me to write it, it's fun for me to look back and read it, and most importantly I think it really helps me never to forget how awesome of an adventure this is (ok that last clause is a bitch and a half.  I think the grammar is correct, but it'll take me like 5 minutes to parse it so I think I'll just leave it be.  And before you start, yes I know that's a double negative, there's nothing grammatically incorrect about them--plus I think that double negatives carry nuances of meaning different from a simple positive declaration.  I spent like two and a half years working Doctor Coffey to agree on that point, no way I'm backing off of it now)

But, sadly, this week has been very busy and it's gotten away from me.  I've been having to wake up at ridiculous, ungodless hours (if my Math 5 anecdote above didn't tip you off, I'm just not a morning person.  3 out of the last 4 days having to be somewhere at 9am is rough).  The bone-wearying exhaustion that comes from having to get out of bed before noon takes its toll on me, you know?  Plus add in my other important obligations, like having to keep up with four, count 'em, four different DC Comics TV shows airing (oh my god Arrow Season 3 is looking great so far) . . . plus there are always Jonathon Young Disney Covers to watch (if you don't find those awesome, there is no music in your soul) . . . well, I run out of time to write up blog updates.  Or reply to emails or anything else, yeah sorry about that everyone =/

I still love Felicity Smoak

But I digress.  And I do have something to share with you all, something important.  Let's back up for a second





I eat a lot of ramen these days.  Like, a lot.  More days than I don't.  I make no apologies.  It's reasonably priced (unless you're going crazy with the addons, it's hard to go North of $10), varied and exciting, and above all usually delicious.  I'm not saying the constant easy access to delicious ramen is my favorite thing about Tokyo, but it's gotta be in the top 10

So why then, has ramen not been mentioned yet on this blog?  Well, I try to keep this blog exciting for you guys.  Or at least I try to keep from being repetitive.  Which means that I've personally set the bar pretty high for a ramen post--or else, like I said above, "oh man I found this amazing ramen place" posts every other day.  But I do have a story to share with you, a story about a little ramen shop called Mutekiya

Mutekiya is a special place.  In addition to being absolutely delicious (more on that later), it's notable because it's open every day until 4am.  And if you want to get a glimpse of a very special aspect of Tokyo life in all its grandeur, popping into Mutekiya late at night is a great way to do it

Although it's in the middle of a district full of ramen shops, Mutekiya is not hard to find.  Simply take the East or Seibu East Exit from Ikebukuro station, turn right, and keep walking until you see the ramen shop with the line out the door.  "But Noah, what if there's not a line?" . . . there's always a line

This picture was taken at 11pm.  On a Tuesday

While I can't necessarily agree with the common claim that they're the best in Ikebukuro (they would be unquestioned king in many other neighborhoods, but god there are so many amazing places in Ikebukuro I just can't give them that honor), Mutekiya is certainly the most famous.  In fact, it often gets shout outs on "Best Ramen in Tokyo" shortlists.  To get into the technical details, it's a Hakata-style tonkotsu (pork bone based) broth, straight noodles but slightly on the thick side for Hakata (probably to show off their hand-selected wheat from Hokkaido--yes, apparently we're putting Hokkaido wheat in a Kyushu broth?  Blasphemy, I know)

Erm, to put that into layman's terms, really rich, thick and wonderful broth with al dente noodles that are just chewy enough to provide texture but still absorb the flavor of the broth.  Oh and did I mention that they're famous for their chashu (barbecued pork topping)???  Oh yeah

I broke my hand two summers ago and had to learn to use chopsticks lefty . . . 

The mere three people (4, if you count the photographer i.e. me) in line in that photo above is the fewest I've ever seen.  Late night is definitely the time to come to Mutekiya, when the tourists have all gone to bed.  I was the only person in the entire place not wearing a dark suit--the unspoken uniform of the entire male working population of Tokyo.  To be fair, I was close, but while I do indeed look good in a suit (as does, you know, everybody.  There's a reason women's fashion changes twice a year while men's twice a decade--a hundred years ago they came up with something that unarguably and unassailably looks damn good, and why fix what ain't broked?) I like to keep it more on the "smart casual" side if work lets me get away with it.  Of course, there was also one other important difference between me and the rest of Mutekiya's clientele:  I was sober

Tokyo's drinking scene is well-documented--the large groups of company workers going out for pitchers of beer and flagons of sake, chain-smoking and singing karaoke until the early hours.  And that's fantastic, and a ton of fun.  But what isn't documented is one of my favorite parts, which comes after the group has split up--when one or two bold stragglers go off questing for late-night ramen.  Honestly, there's a good chance that they're already full anyways, because you can't get away with being just a drinking establishment in Tokyo without also serving good food.  And yet there is an instinct, like that which draws salmon back to the mouths of the rivers in which they were born, which draws drunk Japanese salarymen to their favorite ramen shops

Mutekiya is one of those places, one of those ancestral homelands towards which I imagine a true Tokyoite can always close his eyes and point, no matter where he is nor how much sake he's drunk.  And just as the looming spectre of 9am Math 5 lecture couldn't keep me from going on late-night runs to Garden Cafe or BCD Tofu House when I was in college (see how I tied my final point back to my opening?  That's a veteran move kids, take notes), the fact that these men are going to have to wake up a 6am to get to their jobs in the morning doesn't have a chance at deterring them from getting their favorite late-night ramen on a cool and crisp Autumn night

It was an honor to be a part of that

Noah out

Harajuku Gyoza Lou: The benefits of specialization

Hi everyone,

One of the things I love about the Tokyo food and beverage scene is it's willingness to specialize. Many restaurants have their signature dish or ingredient, and they will do nothing else.  At Izuei in Ueno, the do grilled eel, and every dish features the eel with the only differences being sides or accompaniment; at Tonki in Meguro, they do tonkatsu (fried breaded pork) and the only choice you get to make is what cut of pork; and at Harajuku Gyoza Lou they serve gyoza (dumplings) and that's pretty much it

As someone that worked at restaurants in America with the general policy of bending over backwards to avoid having to say "no" to a customer ("guest"), it's amazing that so many great restaurants are totally willing to put themselves in a position where they will have to say "no, we don't have that", "no, we don't do that", or "no, and that is a stupid question you should feel bad for even asking"

Yes, of course I like this because being able to deny a stupid customer's stupid request is one of my favorite parts of the job ("Hey Noah, what makes a good bartender" "You have to be good at hiding how much you hate people" "But I don't hate people" "Start bartending, you will").  But there's another reason why I love this practice:  It leads to some amazing food

Izuei literally has its own kiln up in the mountains of Wakayama, which everyone says produces the best charcoal in Japan--that only makes sense if you know you're going to be using that specific charcoal for just about every entree you send out.  Tonki has their assembly line of bread-fry-cut-serve down perfectly, including the frymaster who must be 80 years old and turns the pork in the giant vats of oil with his bare hands occasionally (the smile on his face makes me think he may in fact be the happiest person in the world).  And Harajuku Gyoza Lou has the apparati to turn out hundreds (not an exaggeration in the least) of delicious handmade dumplings every hour

Let me show you the menu, which is painted on the wall:

To translate:  The first six items are drinks; the next one is rice (which comes with a nice broth for free); the next three are vegetable sides (cabbage, cucumber, or bean sprouts, each topped with a dollop of sauce); and the last four items really should only count as one--gyoza, with or without garlic, boiled or panfried.  Aaaaand that's it

What this means is that they can concentrate on making really good gyoza, and their kitchen has the setup to make sure that the gyoza is cooked perfectly every time.  It's an open kitchen, so you get to watch:

Add the gyoza to the "pan"

It has a spout right there to add the water

Cover to steam

And then just lift the entire thing up to drain off the excess water!

A little extra time after the water has been drained to crisp up the bottom, and you have some pretty much perfect gyoza.  Look at those.  They're beautiful

Each of those "pans" can fit two dozen gyoza, he has four of them, and each one takes about five minutes to cycle.  So when I said that this place is capable of putting out hundreds of gyoza per hour, I wasn't exaggerating in the slightest.  If they wanted to, they could do thousands.  And each one would come out looking like that

Two orders of gyoza (one is usually enough, but as we've previously discussed I have poor impulse control), rice, broth, bean sprouts, and a beer.  To save you the trouble of doing the math, that's 1530 yen, which is not at all a bad deal considering how much delicious, delicious food you get

Apologies to Robert Heinlein, but sometimes specialization leads to some very good times

Noah out

AMERICA DAY

Hey everybody,

Now I'm not in any danger of homesickness, not particularly.  There are certainly people, and places and things as well, that I miss, but I'm loving being here in Tokyo.  However, when I came up with a plan to have myself a mini little America Day, how can I pass it up?

(fair disclaimer, this is actually a photo that Alix took in Harajuku from my last trip to Japan.  But I thought it appropriate.  'MURICA)

So, what does one do for America Day?  Duh . . . crash the mall (yes I know she's actually Canadian, deal with it).  See, out here in the suburbs (yes, even though I'm surrounded by skyscrapers Kawaguchi still counts as the suburbs), where land it a little cheaper, they actually have American-style malls.  Big parking garages, chain stores, fluorescent lighting, food court, the works.  Like I said, I'm not especially homesick, but if I were this would cure it

Of all the things they could have adopted from America, they chose malls?  Ahh well

See what I mean?  Hard to even remember I'm in Tokyo and not Tukwila

There's even an L.L. Bean.  Yup.  America

Wait, is that???  Whoa.  Not just going back to America, but going back to America ten-fifteen years ago

OH MY GOD KITTY.  Sorry, what were we talking about?  I got distracted

Even the little things are there, like the banks of candy by bulk (including grapefruit slices, gummi cola bottles, gummi sharks . . .) from which you can take samples when the attendant isn't looking

But I had more planned for America Day than just a trip to the mall.  After all, what self-respecting American mall is complete without a movie theater??  So we come to the cornerstone of America Day, a good ol' fashioned American action movie

A bunch of misfits and losers stumbling their way towards saving the day?  Yup, AMERICA DAY

So yeah, first time to a Japanese movie theater, a fun experience!  Gonna be honest, it's pretty much the same as an American theater (though you do purchase an assigned seat, which is an interesting twist).  The movie selection is a reasonable spread of Japanese gangster or samurai movies with a few dramatic/romantic movies trying to win Academy Prizes, plus usually an American action film or two (next one to hit will be Planet of the Apes, followed by The Expendables 3)

The seats are comfy and recline reasonably, although the armrests don't pull up (but at 1800 yen per ticket it's not like I'm taking a date to the movies any time soon).  Even the concessions are the same!  Which is a good thing, because it's just not the same experience without popcorn and Coke.  Oh god I'm a corporate shill . . .

Oh, and the prices are better on the food--650 yen gets you a nice-sized drink and popcorn combo

And they give you trays that fit into the armrests to make a mini table!  I admit that that's pretty damn clever

Oh, by the way, American movie theaters pay attention:  Japanese movie theaters have a gift shop.  So you can buy merch from whatever movies are showing at the time.  How have American theaters not though of this yet???

Guardians of the Galaxy bobbleheads.  For sale at the theater.  Genius

Anyways, hanging out at the mall and watching an American action flick accomplished, so what to do for dinner?  On America Day, there are a few options, but for me nothing but a good hamburger will do.  Fortunately, while planning this day I'd already spotted a very good-looking burger cafe across the street from the mall!  And really, when you can get a solid bacon cheeseburger for only 850 yen, why would you not go check that out?

Oh yeah, the fact that all the produce in Japan is amazing doesn't hurt . . .

 And finally, it wouldn't be a proper America Day without dessert.  And since I felt a little bad for not going to an American chain for my burger (ok not that bad, that burger was much better), I thought I'd head back to the food court for my old favorite . . . good ol' Baskin and Robbins

American classics like the Jamoca Almond Fudge . . . next to the less-common flavors like Matcha

I opted on the Pumpkin Pudding, gotta go with the Flavor of The Month--it's like an invitation

There we have it.  Because it's important, evey once in a while, to remember from whence you have come.  Happy America Day, everyone!

Noah out

Life in Shinjuku Station: My thoughts must be relaxed to be able to maintain

Hi all,

Let's talk about Shinjuku Station.  36 platforms, a dozen lines, countless cafes and a few full-on department stores.  A small city unto itself

Photo courtesy of wikimedia, go donate!!

The Guinness Book of World Records (which, by the way, was originally founded in order to be of use in bar bets--this is awesome) gives it the title of busiest transit center in the world, clocking it at 3.64 million people passing through every day.  And really, those were 2007 numbers, so by my adjustment we're looking at more like 3.85 these days

So hey, let's be clear that this is the entire population of the world in the year 1400*.  All of Medieval Europe, plus the Ming Dynasty in China and a still-strong Caliphate in the Middle East--passing through Shinjuku Station seven days a week, three hundred sixty-five days per year.  Enough people to act out every drama from the entire world's ancient mythology put together, joined instead for the simple task of trying to get to work
*(ok that was kind of an unfair date to pick because the Black Death killed like a hundred million people in the 14th century.  Not to mention widespread famine, disease, and Mongols in China for most of that century and the previous one.  And widespread Mongols in the Caliphate.  Or, in summary, widespread famine, widespread disease, and widespread Mongols kind of everywhere for a good 200 years.  Apparently that was just a really bad two centuries for us.  But you get my point)

What does this mean?  It means full trains emptying out onto full platforms, crowding down full staircases and through full hallways:

It looks like this unceasingly for a few hours each morning and night during the rush hours

It means millions of people brushing shoulders, it means billions of fleeting interactions.  What does that mean for these people?

I feel very fortunate to be able to look at this from a slight distance, as a bit of an anthropologist.  Come to think of it, I guess that's a lot of what this entire blog is about (the rest, of course, is food).  Maybe that will change once I begin working full-time, but since there's no way I'm going the full-on salaryman route, I don't think I'll ever truly be a part of the rush hour crush.  I certainly am not bred to it like many of these Tokyoites

(You merely adopted the rush hour.  I was born in it, molded by it.  I didn't get personal space until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but agoraphobia)

Perhaps the most Japanese thing I ever see is this:  A man, pressed as tight as people can press, one of literally a hundred people shoved into a single train car, closes his eyes and relaxes.  He sways back and forth with the movement of the train, no need to brace himself because there is literally not enough room for anyone to stumble.  His physical body doesn't even have clearly defined boundaries, the entire car condensed into a single organic entity.  And so instead he devotes all of his energies to creating psychic personal space by sheer force of will.  That person, who I see in dozens of men and women every time I end up in rush hour in Tokyo, is to me the epitome of what it means to live in Tokyo

And yet, from all that, I still have to believe that there is a part of this that brings people together instead of just training them to put up mental walls.  Teaches people to work together with respect and discipline.  Maybe I'm being idealistic, but I like to think that Shinjuku Station creates the kinds of teamwork that allow a tiny island to accomplish things in great disproportion to its size.  Those billions of tiny interactions with people you'll probably never see again (at least not knowing), they gotta mean something, yeah?




Today, I ended up walking down a stairway next to another guy, who happened to be wearing a Wu-Tang shirt.  I nudged him in the shoulder, and casually threw up the W at about waist-height.  "Wu-Tang?" he offered.  "Forever," I replied.  He turned right to go to his train, I turned left towards mine.  A second later, once we were more than a meter apart, we'd each blended back into the faceless mass.  That's how it is in Shinjuku

Noah out

Pachinko, the game Tokyo deserves

Hi guys,

So, I've never been terribly tempted to gamble* on pachinko.  Don't get me wrong, the idea has attraction.  While it's a touch hyperbolic to say that one can "never truly understand Tokyo" without understanding pachinko, there is a touch of truth to that as well.  The hypnotic fall of the steel balls has mesmerized many, many Tokyoites.  Just the parlors themselves fascinate me, since I genuinely adore things that are loud or neon--I take naps inside the MRI machine, I use overstimulation (tv + video game + music + chat with friends) as a form or relaxation.  So the pachinko parlors, with their near-blinding neon and fluorescent lights coupled with the near-deafening roar of the falling balls are a delight

Pachinko machines are often described as "vertical pinball machines", which is I suppose not a terrible description.  You put a bill or two into a machine at the end of each aisle, and it spits out a tray of small (~2mm, or 8.5 furlongs, diameter) steel balls.  You then go and dump these balls into your carefully selected machine ("An idiot can win on the right machine, but even a master cannot win on the wrong one") and it immediately begins spitting them out rapid-fire towards the top of the row of steel pins, targets, and as many flashing lights as the designers could fit in.  Hit the right targets, stop the slots at the right time, trigger all the events, and you're rewarded with a cascade of more silver balls.  Which, presumably, you just dump right back into the machine

I'm not the only one to find pachinko relaxing.  In fact, I don't think that quality is in any way rare in the city.  Others have waxed philosophically about what this says about the nature of the city and the people in it, but I don't have any philosophy to add--because I agree with them.  I suppose that, when I discovered that the easiest way to stop worrying and de-stress was to confront myself with as many different forms of sensory overload as possible, I was simply re-inventing something Tokyoites have known for years

You don't have to watch the whole vid, although I think it's a great little piece, but I did include it so that you could see a few pachinko machines in action

But, regardless, I have yet to be grasped by those particular neon claws.  Part of it is simply the finances--I learned long ago that you never go to a casino with the presumption you might win.  Casino gambling means being willing to spend some time slowly losing money but having fun doing it.  Money which I don't currently have to spare (plus the only time I tried, a few years ago when I was living here for a month, I lost $20 in as many minutes.  That's not a sustainable rate)

All in all, the temptation was never that great . . . until I started seeing these signs at parlors all over town

Yup, that's right.  Batman-themed pachinko

Oh Tokyo.  You know all of my weaknesses

So here we are.  If this is the beginning of a downward spiral of depravity that ends in sin and misery in the House of the Land of the Rising Sun . . . well, like everything else both good and evil in this world, you can blame Batman

Noah out

*Gambling is technically illegal in Japan.  The trays full of metal balls you get can, however, be exchanged for prizes like candy, toys, cigs, electronics, even household goods (presumably to be able to bring back home to the missus).  Of course, you can always instead ask to be paid in "genkin" in which case they give you a receipt saying how many balls you had . . . which you can then take to a barred window up three flights of stairs behind an unmarked door at the back of an alley two blocks away from the pachinko parlor . . . where you just might find someone willing to trade a few bills for that receipt.  But you didn't hear it from me ;)

Tempura Iseya: Food in the capital

Hey guys,

In general, food in a nation's capital is often more refined (and certainly more elaborate) than food in the countryside.  Beijing cuisine is a good example, as is Parisian.  So if you were to assume that Tokyo cuisine features subtler flavors and a more sophisticated palette, you would be simultaneously very close to completely right and absolutely wrong.  See, the food from Japan's capital city is indeed known for all of those things--just not Tokyo

Kyoto, which was Japan's capital until the late 1800s, is indeed known for subtle refinement to its food.  And don't get me wrong, it's delicious, and one of the best meals I've had in my life was a traditional Japanese meal at an inn in Kyoto with my mother

Tokyo-style cuisine (which is actually called Edo-style, after the city's name before it became the capital), on the other hand, is the opposite of all that.  Edo was just a small fishing village until the Tokugawa Shogunate moved the country's administrative capital in the late 1500s.  Even then, the Imperial Court remained in Kyoto until 1868, so Edo still had a reputation for being a down-and-dirty city full of no-nonsense people and no-nonsense food.  Edo-style food features strong flavors, bold tastes, and large portions





This is perfectly encapsulated by one of my new favorite places, Tempura Iseya.  Other than obvious changes like glass windowpanes and electric lights, it really doesn't look like the interior or exterior of the shop has changed much in the shop's 126 years of existence.  And I get the sense that the food hasn't either

Other than plastic tubs and that fridge, don't think the kitchen's changed much, that's for sure

Now, I'm sure you all have a mental picture in your mind of tempura, one of Japan's most popular culinary exports.  I assume that you're picturing prawns, fish, and vegetables, fried in a light and airy batter and served with a light sauce for dipping . . .

Yeah . . . that's Kyoto-style tempura.  And proponents of Edo-style tempura think it's for wimps



Edo-style tempura is not a light batter, it is dark and bold.  And the sauce is thick and sweet and poured all over everything.  In fact, you don't even order piece by piece.  I got myself a bowl of kakiage-donburi, the quintessential Edo-style dish:  Take whatever you have on hand (shrimp and scallops and onions and peppers and all kinds of tasty), batter it all, fry it until brown and delicious, dump it on top of rice, and cover everything with sauce.  Eat it quickly and excitedly, because you are a working man here in Edo!

It comes out quickly at Iseya, still blisteringly hot from the fryer. . . but it would be criminal, not to mention near-impossible, to wait for it to cool down

Add in a bowl of hearty miso soup with nameko mushrooms for only 200 yen.  And yes, even the soup is thicker and stronger in Edo-style cuisine 

These guys, who I can only assume are the Asian cousins of Antonio Banderas and Marlon Brando, saw me taking a picture of my food and told me take one of them as well!

Minowa station, head East and just keep walking until you do a double-take of "dude, that place looks awesome"

The kanji on the curtain out front is 天 (ten), the first character in the word for "tempura".  Any Street Fighter fans among my readership, however, know that that character also means "heaven".  Coincidence?  Maybe, maybe not

Noah out

Shibuya Ramen Challenge: The wisdom of age

Hi everybody,

In the previous post, I mentioned that it took me a long time to overcome my trepidation and make my way down to Shibuya.  What was it that finally gave me the push?  Was it because I wanted to experience such an important part of Tokyo culture?  Was it because I resolved to face any trepidation I had head on?  Or was it because my friend Alan told me about a place in Shibuya that has a challenge to eat three bowls of ramen in half an hour?

What do you think?

This challenge is serious, serious business.  Three bowls of ramen (and these are not tiny bowls), thirty minutes.  Beat the challenge, and they just straight up give you $50 in cash.

You have to sign a contract before you can begin

Winners get to sign the wall 

You even get a little flag in front of you so everyone knows you're on the challenge

So, how did the challenge go?  Well, let me just say that I could totally eat three normal bowls of ramen.  Easily.  But these are not normal bowls of ramen

Eight-inch (sixty-four gigawatts) diameter, they are not playing around

The bowls are big, the bowls are deep.  They are piled with so many extra noodles that you have to take more than a dozen bites before you even see broth.  Oh and they are covered with rice porridge, which, although incredibly delicious, adds to the whole carbo-stravaganza that is a mere one of these bowls.  The challenge is to tackle three of them

Good news, bad news.  The bad news is that I failed.  And more than failure--I was forced to accept that this challenge is simply not possible.  It will take a greater man than I to defeat that challenge, I can't hide from that fact

So what's the good news?  The good news is that I can be content with the fact that slightly-more-adult Noah displayed much much better decision-making skills than, for instance, 18-year-old Noah.  The kinds of decision-making skills that got Tamas and him into hilarious situations (although come to think of it, Tamas was 19 years old at the time, so he should have known better.  Tamas, I know you're reading this, why weren't you the mature voice of reason, huh???)

I reached the halfway point of the second bowl, and at that point I paused and thought to myself, "ok now.  This is one and a half, and I am feeling pretty full.  Two bowls would be doable.  Two and a half might be possible, but it would hurt.  And at about two point seven-five bowls I would actually keel over from my stomach exploding" . . . at which point I stopped eating.  18-year-old Noah would have refused to give up, and would have failed spectacularly.  Slightly-more-adult Noah walked out of there, pride slightly damaged but stomach lining intact.  It's a decent tradeoff

Noah out

Shibuya Station, or: Hard to admit it, but I'm a bit intimidated

Hi guys,

Ahh, Shibuya, you guys know Shibuya.  Picture Tokyo in your head, and I'd bet a thousand dollars to a thousand yen you're picturing either Shibuya or Shinjuku.  The two-story tall television screens, the neon, the glitz and glamour, that's all Shibuya.  Not to mention the iconic street crossing, where hundreds of people cross the street every green light, every thirty seconds, for hours on end

And don't forget about Hachiko, the dog who waited at the station for an owner that would never come (his owner had died at work) . . . every day for nine years.  You may know him as Seymour

No trip to Shibuya is complete without saying hi to Hachiko.  I like to scratch him behind the ears and tell him he's a good boy :)

So if it's such a centerpiece of Tokyo, why did it take me a whole month and a half to visit?  Oh, lots of reasons.  It's a little far away from where I'm staying, it's expensive, I like neighborhing Harajuku and Shinjuku better . . . but part of it is simply that Shibuya is a little intimidating.  That's a big deal for me to admit, because I've told everyone that was worried about me that, "nah, Tokyo's not that big of a deal, I totally understand it."  But I'll admit to an exception:  Shibuya is daunting

Most of the other major neighborhoods in Tokyo, I get.  It took about a day wandering through Ikebukuro to feel like I understand the layout, the same for Ueno.  Even the bigger or crazier ones like Shinjuku and Akihabara and the Tokyo-Yuurakucho-Ginza area make sense to me.  Any of those stations, if you gave me a blank streetmap I could label what kind of stuff is in each area and probably pick out a dozen specific restaurants or stores.  Sure there would be a few sections of "Here Be Dragons", but that would mostly be shorthand for "Here Be Office Buildings and Other Boring Stuff I Don't Care About".  And some neighborhoods, like Yanaka or the Harajuku-Omotesando corridor, I could probably sketch a reasonably accurate map on a blank piece of paper

But give me a streetmap of Shibuya, and large swaths would simply be labelled "Shibuya Stuff".  Except for a few definite landmarks, like Nonbei Yokocho (Drunkard's Alley, oh don't worry that post is coming) or the skatepark, the entire northern half of the station is a mystery to me.  And I can't put my finger on why.  Is it busier than Shinjuku?  Not really.  Is it louder and brighter than Akihabara?  Less, actually.  Is it bigger than Ikebukuro?  Honestly, I have no idea, because I still can't get a mental picture of how big it is anyways

Seemingly endless blocks of this

And this was on a not-busy-at-all Sunday night

The streets are a little more windy, the terrain is a little more hilly, and everything about that district of Shibuya is just more.  I got lost the other night!  Me, lost!  That doesn't happen; you can take me up and down and round and round and I can still turn and point to the station.  But in Shibuya, there are just too many things to look at, too many things to do, too many things demanding you pay attention to them, even I have to resort to the "pick a direction and stumble that way hoping to see something you recognize" strategy every once in a while

I found a really cool mini alley filled with record stores . . . could I find it again?  Eventually, but man it would take a while

And it's worth heading back there, they call a spade a spade

So, here I am, presented with an entire neighborhood that is uncomfortably enigmatic.  I'm left with two choices:

1. Hack into some defense satellite to level the entire district to rubble, thus avoiding the awkwardness of ever having to go back there (this might seem out of left field, but it's actually just a re-purposing of my old plan for dealing with the entire stretch of NE 45th St between I-5 and 25th Ave.  God I hate that street, I hate it so much)
2. Keep on going back to Shibuya as often as possible until I know that place so well I could walk around the entire neighborhood blindfolded

Guess which one I'm gonna pick ;)

If nothing else I gotta visit this yakitori bar:  1) It apparently houses the essences of the Golden Goddesses that created Hyrule, and 2) Beer is only 300 yen

Noah out