Good Eats

This is another post that you’ll want to keep looking back on. Below and pictures and brief descriptions (and occasionally a good story) of what I’ve been eating. As it turns out, the Japanese have a newfound love of Italian and American-style food. At the same time, I’m “trying to experience the culture” (which basically means I’m willing to try anything once, even if it ends up being cow tongue, eyeballs, horse, squid, and any other number of delicacies)…Bon Appetit!

At Erawan, the #1-rated Thai restaurant in Tokyo. Notice the standing (and flaming) chicken at center stage...

Patthai at Erawan...

Sushi bento box for lunch from Sushi Coast. I'm not exactly sure what the round jelly things are...but I'm saying they're eyeballs so I sound badass...

Tempura. Here we have shrimp, eggplant and pumpkin on rice, with a side of miso soup.

The wide selection of local brews at Family Mart (one stop shopping when you don't want to spend Y1,000 per drink at a bar. Sapporo on the right and various styles of Kirin on the left.

At this liquor store, Red Stripe runs over $3 a bottle. But that's still better than the $56 they were charging for a case of Budweiser...

Some of the "finer" selections of nihonshu at Family Mart...

The sushi stand down the street from school...

More Thai food. Vermicelli and shrimp...Thai style.

Most of the gang at Paddy Foley's in Roppongi. Turns out, the Japanese are obsessed with Irish pubs...

Yes friends, your eyes don't deceive you, that is ketchup and mustard in a single package...

Roadside Yakitoriya (grilled "stuff" on a stick) near the Sensoji Shrine...

There is a great story behind this dive restaurant on a backstreet in Shibuya. I'll begin by telling you that it doesn't taylor itself towards the foreign eater...

They presented us with a menu, in Kanji (the system of Chinese/Japanese characters) made out of cardboard...

We couldn't figure out what anything was, and no one spoke English, so we just stared blankly, and decided to suck it up and pick something. We couldn't figure out why there was such a big price difference on the size portions we were ordering until the waiter asked us if we wanted a "gawass". Turns out that ordering the "medium" was actually a caraffe of wine (large was a bottle and small was a glass) for our meal. That was our "Lost in Translation" moment for the day. We turned the page and ordered what we thought was food...

Our appetizer came out (pork dumplings), and we were surprised...mostly because we didn't realize we bought an appetizer...

Our main course (which was also really really good) is what we've termed "Mystery Meal #1". We have absolutely no idea what it was, and were actually concerned that they were screwing with us and just served us whatever was burnt on the edge of the grill until we saw some other patrons get the same thing...

So far my most frequent (and one of my favorite) meals: Chashumen ("pork ramen") from a small ramen shop near school. It's pretty basic - just sliced pork and ramen. But it's a lot of food, it's hot on these cold winter days, and it's cheap. I'm not hard to please...