Vincent: And you know what they call a… a… a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
Jules: They don’t call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?
Vincent: No man, they got the metric system. They wouldn’t know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.
Jules: Then what do they call it?
Vincent: They call it a Royale with cheese.
Jules: A Royale with cheese. What do they call a Big Mac?
Vincent: Well, a Big Mac’s a Big Mac, but they call it le Big-Mac.
Jules: Le Big-Mac. Ha ha ha ha. What do they call a Whopper?
Vincent: I dunno, I didn’t go into Burger King.
“Let’s eat!”
It’s been a while since the last blog post, and that’s mainly because I’ve been so busy moving into my new apartment in Tokyo. I bought a fully furnished apartment (rare for Japan), but I’ve decided that I don’t actually want to cook for myself while I’m here, so I’ve taken a fairly extravagant approach to eating out for every meal (most meals cost under £10 if you converted it to sterling).
Even in London, I really enjoyed eating out and most of my disposable income was spent in restaurants. It’s actually a lot cheaper to eat out in Tokyo than in London, and in the last 3 weeks I’ve been to a range of restaurants. I’m no food critic, so here’s a layman’s perspective of a range of food that you could consume in Tokyo.
My first meal in Japan was sashimi. That’s raw fish. It was fishy. (This meal will always be memorable for me because one of the Daiwa Scholars doesn’t like fish and started gagging in front of the Deputy Director).
Keeping up with the fish theme, I’ve had sushi here a couple of times. I’ve eaten them from the supermarkets (not awful, but not great), from sushi restaurants (ok), but for me, the most enjoyable meal was in Shibuya eating at a ‘sushi-train’ restaurant. Here, you order what you want from a computer screen, and in a few minutes, it arrives at your counter on a little train. Fun fun fun!
Japanese eat a lot more fried food than I had originally thought. I’d had tempura before, but at one particular restaurant in the station of Aoyama-Itchome, the ebi (prawn) tempura with soba was delicious!
The Japanese also love their fried chicken. It’s called kara-age, and it’s probably one of the things that I’ve eaten the most of since I’ve been in Japan. I tend to get it as a snack or a side-dish, but you can probably make a meal out of it. In the picture below is a meal from my dearest Nakau. Nakau is a restaurant-chain known for having cheap meals and being open late at night. In my first week here where my jet-lag was savage, Nakau provided me with comfort and protection!
Last week I met a group of young, cool people who work in advertising. I regaled them with tales of my love for Nakau, and they were keen for me to broaden my horizons. They took me to Afuri, which is a similar restaurant but more up-market. While the food was delicious, I couldn’t help feeling like I had just cheated on my beloved. I haven’t been back there since, the guilt is too much…
Noodles are delicious here, and in particular, soba is great. You can get soba either hot or cold, and both are good. I haven’t picked a side yet, it often depends on my mood.
If I was going to have Japanese food in London, I’d often go to Wagamama’s and get a chicken katsu curry. Never again. I particularly like Nakau’s chicken katsu curry, but another chain is Coco Ichiban, who do curry with more variety. Below is a picture of their cuttlefish-seafood curry, which is actually delicious even though it looks pretty rough!
Another thing that I probably won’t be able to eat when I return to London is gyoza (fried dumplings). My friend Naomi took me to this amazing little place in Harajuku, where the gyoza there absolutely blew my mind. I went back the very next day. (I was in Harajuku again yesterday and there was a massive queue outside the restaurant, so I think it’s really famous now).
The most expensive meal I’ve had since I’ve been here has been shabu-shabu. For 3000 yen (less than £20), it’s all-you-can-eat meat/veg/sides/desserts. It’s like Chinese hot-pot, where you cook the food yourself in a big bowl of boiling broth. It’s delicious though!
Izakayas are great places. They’re drinking establishments, with food on the side. The izakayas I’ve been to have served great food, including one of my favourites, yaki-tori (chicken skewers). These pictures are from two great izakayas in Shimokitazawa near where I live. The funny thing is that you can smoke indoors in Japan, which is something I don’t particularly like, but at least it’s different from London.
Every now and then, I do get a massive craving for western food. There are quite a lot of burger places in Tokyo, with the two burger chains that I’ve eaten at the most being Freshness Burger, and Mos Burger. A double-Mos-burger is an absolute winner! Probably my favourite thing to eat.
Also, they have McDonalds and Burger King here, with little Japanese spins on the burgers. There’s an ebi burger, a teriyaki burger, and for Halloween, both chains have used squid ink to introduce black burger buns. I haven’t had Burger King here yet, but I did have a moment of weakness and I had a Big Mac for lunch… made me think of Pulp Fiction.
My all-time favourite Japanese meal is unagi (eel), but I haven’t got round to eating it on this trip yet. I can’t wait though!
My next blog post will be a retrospective of my first month in Tokyo, where I’ll pick a few highlights of the best bits of things I’ve done. If you have any comments, questions, or any requests for things you’d like me to write about in the future, please submit a comment below.
Gochisousama deshita!
viranjapan 
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