two. ate.

My friend Ajiki-san and I went out to dinner this evening to a new place I just happened to find by chance on the web. We read the reviews, they seemed to be getting good ones and so we decided to roll the dice.

Ajiki-san and I are extremely food-compatible so an evening of yakitori and oden would do just fine. And although not the ultimate for that kind of thing, Toriyaki Kurumaya was well worth visiting...

...if you only had to pick one item here, you should pick grilled chicken. Fortunately, we were able to have more than just one thing but for grilled chicken, we chose tebasaki (chicken wing yakitori). Stripped down to the larger bone of the wing (not the drumette), the meat was gathered so that maximum grilling area could be achieved. Lightly salted, crispy-skinned, juicy beyond expectations, Kurumaya knows what they are doing with chicken. Boosted with a bit of sansho (powdered hydrangea seasoning), it was the kick off of what was to come.

Among the yakitori selections, the next best thing was the tsukune (grilled ground chicken). Formed into little cigar-shapes, the tsukune were basted in a not-too-sweet soy based sauce and grilled so they held their shape. They came to us on a small, oblong plate accompanied by a deep yellow-orange raw egg yolk. I wanted to taste just the preparation (sans yolk) at first...the meat was slightly pink inside which gave the tender morsel a slightly earthy taste which blended well with the caramelisation from the grill. But the tsukune mixed with the egg yolk pushed it over the edge. The richness of the yolk added another dimension to the dish...yes, I desperately wanted to lick the plate.

We ate our way through several dishes of yakitori including liver, chicken/negi and the odd but delicious enoki mushroom and cheese yakitori. The oden was good as well but pretty standard in preparation and presentation.

Overall, I'd rate Toriyaki Kurumaya a 3.5 (on a scale of 5). It is worth visiting if only for the grilled chicken. The seating is built around a large square cooking area so there's action galore.

Tokriyaki Kurumaya is located on the second basement floor (B2F) of the Ebisu Garden Place which is connected to the Ebisu JR Train station on the Yamanote line. For reviews, Google "kurumaya ebisu" or "とりやきくるまや"

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Well, even in Tokyo you can get bagels. This is a good thing especially when you feel like having a slice of home. But as the way food goes here, you're in for a few surprises.

Wandering through Jinbochou looking for books, brought me across a Bagel & Bagel shop. Since it was nearly time for lunch (but lunch was still a few stops away), I felt the need to nosh. So in I went...

...the very first thing I saw was a very dark disk of dough - a pumpernickel on color steroids. It was actually a cocoa and white chocolate bagel. I got a bit of that "eeeuuuwww" vibe but was intrigued.

Looking around at the other neatly wrapped bagels, I discovered the "monthly bagel" which was called "matcha (green tea) and white chocolate harmony". Yes, it was green, and studded with pieces of white chocolate. Joining this one were espresso and cocoa, soymilk and edamame, pumpkin seed (yum!), and fig bagels. (And before you think that it's all loopy, there were the usual assortment of "standard" bagels: onion, plain, sesame, all-in-one and so on...)

I sprung for the cocoa and white chocolate bagel just on the "eating-should-be-an-adventure" principle. I also picked up a "volcano" bagel which looks a lot like an asiago cheese bagel. The bagels are a lot softer than usual but have a nice texture overall. The cocoa bagel was decent plain and not as sweet as I had anticipated. I threw half of it into the fridge just to keep it from going bad and found (the next day) that it tasted really good cold.

The volcano bagel gets eaten next but I haven't yet popped it into the toaster. Further research will commence soon...

Bagel & Bagel has a few shops in Tokyo, the one I went to is in Jinbochou near the A4 exit of the subway station. You can go here for a list of shops (with maps).

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Dear diary:

Sometimes you just need to revisit the past. Excitement aside, the past brings out the memories and memories bring out the satisfaction and so on...

Tuesday and Wednesday were the days to relive a bit of food treking. Hankering for the familiar, I went out to Nebari-ya for a nice natto-kimchee-tori soboro donburi lunch on Tuesday. Then onto Kazuki Ramen for late dinner on Wednesday.

Oh Two. Ate. Diary, the only other eye-opening things I discovered in the past 24 hours were the rather unique flavors applied to bagels (!), plus an interesting French restaurant nestled on a small backstreet (aren't they all?) in Hiroo but more on those later....

Posted by wjc at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Chazuke (or ochazuke) is one of my favorite things to eat. It's just bits of vegetable or fish, some seasoning (usually something like furekake - dried seaweed, sesame seeds, preserved fish...) on top of rice on which green tea is poured. It's a do-it-yourself bowl of porridge.

Yes, tonkatsu please... (photo courtesy of www.toncya-suzuya.co.jp)

But I never in a million years would associate tonkatsu (deep fried pork cutlet) as a chazuke topping. But Suzuya manages to pull it off....

...Suzuya is a small chain of tonkatsu restaurants in Japan. Their usual fare is the 3-4 varieties of fried cutlet, ebi-fry (prawn) and mixed flat fish katsu. However, their tonkatsu chazuke is what sets them apart from others.

The dish consists of a reasonable sized tonkatsu and a small pile of coarsley cut cabbage (cabbage is a typical pairing with katsu) sitting on top of a heated iron plate. Rather than a Worcestershire-based sauce (also typical for katsu), a soy based, thin sauce is poured over the food and served sizzling to your table.

From this point, you take as much of the sizzling food and pile it on the semi-giant bowl of rice served with it. Once you've arranged all of this in a pleasant pile, you pour green tea over the whole thing and proceed to dive in.

I think that this dish works well because even though tonkatsu is a typically heavy dish, the sauce is light and tangy (I think the hot iron plate contributes to that), and the cabbage is wilted slightly...the tea marries the flavors together and sinks taste the rice. It ends up being a filling, but not heavy, and very satisfying meal.

There are a few options that you can add to your dish, such as egg or kimchee, but the straight-ahead tonkatsu chazuke is the way to go.

There are Suzuya locations all around Tokyo - see their website above for directions...

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Out in the middle of the Kiyosato area, through some twisty, country roads lies Ichi, a soba restaurant with a different kind of twist.

Housed in a building that used to be a Meiji-era hospital (the original sign still is hanging at the entrance), Ichi's charm is it's rustic, old-timey atmosphere. The tatami is sturdy but worn, the tables and chairs a melange of styles from years past and low beamed ceilings remind you to humble your head so you won't end up knocking yourself out. It's a very comfortable, cozy room.

Food-wise, the soba is top-notch. The buckwheat noodles are hand-made (common to soba restaurants in this area) and delicious and served with some unique and less common soba sides....like, gobo and mame tempura, tororo (grated mountain potato) or tender cooked root vegetables.

Ichi itself is a hidden gem worth searching out (sorry, no directions or pictures I was so taken by the location that I neglected to do either) in this area. I'm sure if you ask one of the locals, they'll be able to tell you where. It's some extra work, but worth it in the end.

Posted by wjc at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In Japan for more than just a whirlwind 10 days of eating in Tokyo, I trekked out to my friend Soma-san's vacation home in Kiyosato (3 hours west of Tokyo by car). Rather than visit one of the many restaurants in the area which, by the way, resembles California's wine-country, we hit up the local grocery store, a handmade bread shop, sausage store and local brewery for a cookout feast.

Beer and salt and well-traveled chopsticks... (photo by wjc)

After setting up the grill, we paraded out the grillables and proceeded to get our cookout on...

...beer kicked off the festivities and a local brew at that. The Rock Brewery (actually the Yatsugatake Beer Company) makes four different brews ranging from pilsner to dunkels. We bought two of each so that we could taste all of them. The Dunkels was the clear winner with a creamy, rich, smooth taste. But to be honest, all of them went with the food we were about to consume...

One cannot possibly believe the variety of seafood in Japan. Even more astounding are the prices. Given that there were just three of us, I really wanted to buy one of everything just on price principle alone. But saner heads prevailed and we ended up with some small trout, prawns and cockle shells for the grill.

Small and delicious trout... (photo by wjc)

The trout were the clear winner. Fresh beyond belief, the off-white meat was moist and pulled away from the bones with ease. The minimal salting gave it that extra little boost.

Yes, those cockles were pretty big... (photo by wjc)

The cockles were pretty huge and cooked in their juices with a little sake and soy sauce. Texturally, they take some getting used to but the hot liquid more than made up with the chewy mouth feel.

OK, now just hold on a second...I will eat anything once. When we were in the supermarket, we passed by the meat section. And right along the side they had packages of horse meat (basashi). I had never eaten horse but was assured that it was one of the most delicious meats around. Oh, did I mention that it was horse *sashimi*?? Actually, horse meat is low-cholesterol and low-fat and has a real brilliant red color - it's sometimes referred to as "sakura" for it's cherry-like color.

Basashi (horse meat sashimi)... (photo by wjc)

The dish is served with garlic and ginger puree and soy sauce. As with katsuo no tataki, you dip-dip-dip into the three flavors and devour. I was pleasantly surprised at the taste and texture, No, make that completely blown away by the taste and texture. The meat itself has a creamy-ish texture which resembles butter and the taste is on the mild side along the lines of carpaccio. Mixed with the garlic and ginger, I could not stop eating it.

Kiyosato Ham knows their pork products... (photo by wjc)

Finally on the grill-parade, was sausage from a local smokery. They were a typical Japanese pork sausage - small, nearly one mouthful bite-sized with snappy casings - but the flavor was anything but typical. Having smoked my share of meat, these were fragrant morsels of smoky-porky goodness. They needed nothing but a little grill heat to bring out their juices.

We ate on into the night with other food and drink: beer, a nice ZD 2000 Carneros Cabernet, some cheese, a crab/broccoli/greens salad, marinated tuna over rice and a whole host of other things, that led to a quick soak in the ofuro and some well-earned sleep.

Posted by wjc at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)