The Tantalising Tastes of Tokyo

The question on everyone’s lips about Japan has been, “What is the food like?” I’ve decided to dedicate a whole blog to it, so the short answer is absolutely fantastic.

I had read a few food blogs before arriving, and have had very basic imitations of Japanese food at home, but nothing prepared me for the culinary delights that presented themselves upon our arrival into bustling Tokyo. In this blog I’ll take you through what we ate and where.. And show you a few mouth watering pictures along the way.

Katsu Curry

Everyone’s heard of this. Made popular by a certain chain restaurant in the UK and often copied in other sushi/bento places around towns, katsu curry is a firm favourite among many. Most popular in the UK is chicken, but in Japan pork cutlet is often used too. Our first meal in Japan was in a small curry restaurant that our noses led us to. There were various options and customisations you could make (spiciness of sauce, amount of rice etc) but we stuck to the standard version and eagerly watched the chefs at work from our bar stools that were directly facing the kitchen separated only by a pane of glass.

Bar seating is very popular as most restaurants are very small – most places we ate in had a maximum of 10 seats at any one time, meaning queues at popular spots were common. Things move along at a fast pace though, and food is wolfed down quickly so you’re never left waiting long.

Our steaming plates of curry arrived. A deep bowl full of rice and curry sauce poured over a light and crispy deep fried chicken cutlet. It was delicious, and brought shame to the imitations back home. I would say though, that whilst delicious, it is a very heavy dish and we felt almost uncomfortably full afterwards. This is probably down to the volume of rice – maybe next time we will downsize! Note: it does not photograph terribly well! Rest assured, it was lip-smackingly delicious.

Yakitori

Yakitori literally translates as ‘chicken on stick’. There are lots of small yakitori bars dotted around Tokyo, normally clustered together, where you can crowd in around small tables and up at the bar, order a handful of meat and vegetables on sticks and drink a couple of draft beers. Perhaps the most famous location for this in Tokyo is ‘Piss Alley’ – so called because of the gentlemen who used to relieve themselves in the street after a night on the sake – but luckily this tradition no longer exists!

A bunch of these little places are all lined up next to each other. We picked one at random and had a couple of beers, and moved on to another for some food. Turns out we should have stayed in our original place, as every other place seemed to charge a cover charge and have a minimum food/drink order! Doh! We finally settled on one place that had a somewhat English menu available, and were presented with ‘’otooshi” as a starter that was “included in the cover charge”. Whatever it was, I was not a huge fan. Leaves of seaweed wrapped around some sort of pork pate in a weird sauce. It definitely wasn’t pate, and it definitely gave me the heebie jeebies.

The chef had muttered in broken English ‘pork special restaurant’ as we had faltered at the door, so we decided to order some pork sticks along with some yaki soba noodles. We had to choose between salt and ‘tare’ sauce, and we decided that we would try the ‘tare’ even though we had no idea what it was. When in Rome... Or Tokyo..! The sticks soon arrived and Harry took the first bite, exclaiming how delicious it was. I took a bite of a skewer and somewhat sceptically continued for a few more bites before asking him if my pork should be bleeding. Turns out I had picked some sort of offal stick that was disguising itself as pork fillet. I tried a crispy piece, and it seemed this too was something other than the lean meat I am used to back home. Finally I got a stick that didn’t totally freak me out (it was a texture thing, rather than a taste thing) and I can confirm that it was tasty. I’d have liked to try more things but we were full up at this point from our curry earlier in the day and our noodles, so we finished our beers and called the yakitori-lottery quits.

Tempura

Ah, tempura. Deep fried, golden goodness. I read a review of a place called Tenmatsu Tempura and knew that we had to go there, so I dragged Harry there for lunch on our second day.

You order your ‘set’ at the door (Tokyo tip - lunch sets are cheaper than dinner)  - luckily there was an English menu and we chose a regular tempura set which had 5 pieces of tempura, and a tuna sashimi set which had 4 pieces, plus a big bowl of rice with slices of tuna on top.

You pay at the front and then go through the sliding door into a peaceful, very quaint little room with about 8 seats all facing the chef. He stands behind his fryer and bowls of broth, and a friendly lady brings you out a tray from behind the scenes with some complimentary green tea, miso soup and various garnishes.

It was so quiet in there, and we had no idea what we were doing so we copied a Japanese lady sitting next to us. In one of the bowls she poured soy sauce and mixed in the diced radish with it. You have a little tray on the level above you where the chef places your tempura, piece by piece as it is ready so that you always get it hot and it doesn’t get soggy.

We had 2 shrimp, a piece of broccoli, a piece of squid, some unidentifiable crunchy vegetable and finally a piece of fish that was melt in the mouth. All of them were light, crunchy and so fresh – not at all greasy. The chef was not flustered in the slightest, moving around with a sense of calm that to me is the epitome of Japanese culture. We dipped the tempura in the soy sauce and enjoyed some pickled ginger and cabbage alongside to cleanse the palate. Highly recommended, and a fun experience all round.

Sushi

I didn’t comment on the tuna sashimi. That’s because sushi needs it’s own section. My God, the sushi. Now, I like sushi back home, sure. I hardly ever have it though, because I don’t really know what to order, and find myself spending way too much money on a few pieces of fish wrapped in rice. Maybe I’m doing it wrong. But in Tokyo, I certainly felt I was doing it right.

The tuna sashimi we got at Tenmatsu Tempura was beautiful. Spring onion and seaweed decorating it, the bowl came out like a piece of artwork. The tuna was sliced beautifully and each bite was light  and so, so fresh. I’ve never tasted fish like it (well... I hadn’t at that point anyway!) Lightly dipped in soy sauce, it was refreshing and wholesome. Fatty in the tuna sense, and indulgent.

We also picked up a set of salmon sushi from our local supermarket one night. This was the kind of supermarket that had a posh delicatessen with beautiful ready meals lining the shelves. The sushi was 50% reduced, and looked amazing, so we had to grab it. For about £2.50, we got 6 huge pieces of salmon nigiri (salmon on rice boats), salmon roe and cucumber on rice, and a few tuna maki rolls. They were SO DELICIOUS. We were blown away by the quality and the size of the portions – in the UK I feel you get a slither of fish atop your rice, but here the fish outweighs the rice 3:1. Amazing.

On a sushi fix now, we went to a restaurant that was recommended to me called Genki Sushi. A bizarre little place, where you get seated facing the wall which has 3 train tracks on different levels in front of you. At your station, an iPad and various condiments.

You order your sushi on the iPad and before you know it, a little train thing comes along and delivers your plates! You can order as much as you like, and you pay your bill at the end. A dangerous game if you lose track!

Whilst it was a little gimmicky, we really enjoyed it. We stuffed ourselves with various types of sushi and the quality was very good for the low price. Definitely worth a try if you’re in Tokyo!

Finally, our last dinner in Japan was a sushi restaurant near Mt Fuji that was recommended to us by the guy who ran our hostel. We slid back the door and we were met with raucous laughter from drunk Japanese people who lined the sushi bar. We were welcomed in with huge smiling faces, and then dragged outside again by the chef who told us to look at the ‘menu’ which was a few dishes in a window display! Feeling under pressure, we chose a tuna sashimi bowl that was similar to the one we had had previously, and a selection of other seafood sushi nigiri pieces. He showed us to a table as there was no room at the bar where he prepared the sushi, and we were brought complimentary green tea and miso soup with a clam in it.

Our sushi was brought over soon after and once again, I was blown away by the beauty of our dishes. The tuna sashimi looked absolutely stunning, and we were given another bowl of rice with various bits of seafood on top – this wasn’t what we had ordered but it was similar, and considering we can’t speak a word of Japanese decided to just indulge. I have no idea what some of it was, but every mouthful was incredible.

Pieces of fish, shrimp, squid, octopus, sweet omelette (yes even I liked that one!) and taro... The freshness was awe inspiring and using soy sauce and the wasabi just did not seem necessary. The garnish of pickled ginger was a great palate cleanser and was delicious in it’s own right. The bowl of tuna sashimi too took us to new levels. We thought Tenmatsu Tempura was fantastic, but this just blew it out of the water. There were two types of tuna – fatty and something else – I really wish I knew what it was but I have no idea.

The tuna just fell apart in your mouth and it was a meal we shall remember for a very long time. In awesomely garbled English, the chef told us he would wait for us to return to him again next time we are in Japan – a promise I am quite sure we will keep.

Ramen

I love ramen. Noodles are just a food of the Gods in my opinion, and put them in a delicious meaty broth with various vegetables and I am won over. It may sound weird, but we’ve had various instant ramens from places like 7/11 over here for a cheap breakfast or lunch every now and then because they are in a league of their own compared to pot noodles etc. back home. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it folks.

But the real star of the show is a ramen unlike any other I’ve ever had. Another restaurant I read about online (when there are hundreds of ramen shops all around, a little guidance can never hurt!). We headed there for lunch one day and were met with a queue snaking out of the restaurant – a good sign.

Confusingly, the waitress came out of the restaurant and waved us to the front of the line. What was this about? Were we skipping the queue? Luckily no, we weren’t being shown some sort of weird tourist favouritism – we were just making our order. At a vending machine, that had no English. We had to put money in and press a button to get a little ticket which she then took away to give to the chef. Luckily there were some pictures on there, but the options were fairly limited and we couldn’t see much difference between them at all. There were customisations written in Japanese so we just stuck to the simple choices again and went for one normal, one spicy.

We were only queueing for about ten minutes. People sit down, slurp their noodles, and run off again. Excellent. We were soon ushered in to a very small couple of bar stools and watched the chefs work their magic, dishing up big bowls of broth and moving around in perfectly ordered chaos. The smell of the shop was incredible. Meaty, miso-y goodness.

Two steaming bowls were soon placed in front of us. Again, not the prettiest of pictures, and I am not sure my words can do this dish justice. It was just phenomenal. The yellow noodles were plentiful and were slightly al dente, there was a round of pork balanced on top which was tender and delicious, and the sprinkling of crunchy spring onions and beansprouts on top added great texture and freshness. But the broth... My God, the broth. I have never in my life tasted anything like it.

It was rich, creamy, slightly spicy and had such depth to it that one spoonful just had me hooked. Reading about the restaurant, I believe that they blend up the bones they use to make the stock and it becomes part of the broth which is why it is a lighter colour and a slightly thicker consistency than you would usually associate with ramen. In a league of it’s own, we gorged ourselves on the massive bowls not wanting to leave anything behind and waddled home.