Meshi-FUU!!!
It always surprises me how even though I eat more in Japan than I do normally, I always come back thinner (I blame the walking). Some of the tastier things included:
Bakudan Yaki
Most of you have probably tried or at least heard of takoyaki - basically little balls of dough with various things inside, including a tiny bit of octopus. They usually serve them in groups of 6. Take on takoyaki, make it the size of baseball, and you have a Bakudan yaki (literally, explosion). Because it's bigger, they can stick more stuff into the dough - the one I had included a miniature hot dog, a tiny hardboiled egg, cabbage, corn, pork, and yes, a tiny piece of octopus.
While the bakudan itself always has the same ingredients, you can have various toppings to make it a different style. I think of the nine days I was in Japan, I had a bakudan for six of them. CONVENIENTLY, Ikebukuro had a stand from this chain. I had one with Curry sauce, and another "Tanuki" style (sauce, bonito flakes, and rice crispies for texture). You eat it with chopsticks in a Chinese take-out styled box, and it can get pretty messy - while the outside is solid, inside is very much still like cooked batter, so it's chewy, and you never know what you'll bite into. It's also very hot, so if you're not careful you'll burn the roof of your mouth. Unfortunately, I ate them so fast I never bothered to take a picture (all images from flickr), but it definitely makes for a great snack. Always have something ready to drink though, these things suck the moisture from your mouth like a desert!
Ootoro
The fattiest of fatty tuna, I had three pieces at a well known sushi place in Shibuya. Tuna comes in different grades, each one being more expensive the fattier it is. I had three pieces at around $6 a piece, but oh man, it was so worth it - it melts in your mouth like butter, and I refused to eat anything else afterward so I could let the taste linger in my mouth as long as possible. The cruel part is that it's not like you have to have a special type of tuna - EVERY tuna fish has ootoro in its body. It's like, what kind of crap have I been eating in my sandwiches and fillets for all these years!? I am basically spoiled for sushi thanks to this.
Taiyaki
You really can't go wrong with red bean paste - stick it in dough and you got sweet goodness. I wasn't particularly looking for Taiyaki, but while we were visiting one of the shrines in Tokyo they had it at a seller's mart, so I picked up a couple. At this particular stand, you could have them dipped in chocolate for an outer shell, but that was too hardcore for me.
Hamburger Omlette Rice - A seasoned ground beef patty on top of an omlette filled with rice, and smothered in curry sauce. I could eat this for breakfast for an entire week, after which I'd probably die of heart failure.
Custom Made Okonomiyaki - for those who've never tried it, the bonito flakes you put on top wiggle and wave due to the heat, so it looks like it's coming to life as you eat it! My friend tried smothering it in mayonnaise, but that's a crime against nature, so I prevented her from doing so.
Kushi Age
On my last night, a friend of mine took me to a Kushi place. The premise is ridiculously simple - for about $30, you can eat as many skewers of meat, vegetables, or various other things within the time limit of 90 minutes. The key difference is preparing the skewers!
1. At your table is a vat of oil. There are many different vegetables and meats, although only one piece per skewer:
-Chicken
-Pork
-Beef
-Salmon
-Vegetables (Mushroom, eggplant, broccolli, okra, onion, avocado)
-Weiners
-Smoked Cheese
-Takoyaki
-Mochi(!)
2. Dip your skewer in some batter
3. Cover it in some crumbs
4. Dip into the oil and let it sit there while it fries - I started pretending I was an emperor, and the skewers were being punished for crimes against the empire of my stomach:
"YOU! Broccoli! Your crime is for stealing from the townspeople!"
"YOU! Chicken! Your crime is for choking a bystander to death!"
"YOU! Smiley Potato Face! ...You just look funny so I'm going to kill you anyway."
5. After a minute or so, take out and enjoy!
There are also a variety of different sauces to dip them in afterwards - cheese, ponzu, katsu, etc. There is also a salad bar with actual veggies (seriously, it is notoriously difficult to eat veggies in Japan if you're not preparing them yourself), and for an extra $10 you can include unlimited drinks. I think it was about 40 minutes in that I couldn't even remember what I was eating, just that it was fried and therefor tasty. My friend actually ate more and told me to switch the skewer piles around so she wouldn't be embarrassed My friend wussed out early, and they will actually charge you extra for any skewers you leave behind, so I had to clean up after her.
At the end, I demolished exactly 50 skewers and felt like the fattiest of fat fatties.
Other noteworthy food related pictures:
1. Bad Ass Coffee
2. I was not brave enough to try this sandwich, which is served with the coffee above.
Tomorrow I'll be making my last Tokyo Post on ACP, since it's probably more relevant there - TGS and Japanese Cosplay...
Bakudan Yaki
Most of you have probably tried or at least heard of takoyaki - basically little balls of dough with various things inside, including a tiny bit of octopus. They usually serve them in groups of 6. Take on takoyaki, make it the size of baseball, and you have a Bakudan yaki (literally, explosion). Because it's bigger, they can stick more stuff into the dough - the one I had included a miniature hot dog, a tiny hardboiled egg, cabbage, corn, pork, and yes, a tiny piece of octopus.
While the bakudan itself always has the same ingredients, you can have various toppings to make it a different style. I think of the nine days I was in Japan, I had a bakudan for six of them. CONVENIENTLY, Ikebukuro had a stand from this chain. I had one with Curry sauce, and another "Tanuki" style (sauce, bonito flakes, and rice crispies for texture). You eat it with chopsticks in a Chinese take-out styled box, and it can get pretty messy - while the outside is solid, inside is very much still like cooked batter, so it's chewy, and you never know what you'll bite into. It's also very hot, so if you're not careful you'll burn the roof of your mouth. Unfortunately, I ate them so fast I never bothered to take a picture (all images from flickr), but it definitely makes for a great snack. Always have something ready to drink though, these things suck the moisture from your mouth like a desert!
Ootoro
The fattiest of fatty tuna, I had three pieces at a well known sushi place in Shibuya. Tuna comes in different grades, each one being more expensive the fattier it is. I had three pieces at around $6 a piece, but oh man, it was so worth it - it melts in your mouth like butter, and I refused to eat anything else afterward so I could let the taste linger in my mouth as long as possible. The cruel part is that it's not like you have to have a special type of tuna - EVERY tuna fish has ootoro in its body. It's like, what kind of crap have I been eating in my sandwiches and fillets for all these years!? I am basically spoiled for sushi thanks to this.
Taiyaki
You really can't go wrong with red bean paste - stick it in dough and you got sweet goodness. I wasn't particularly looking for Taiyaki, but while we were visiting one of the shrines in Tokyo they had it at a seller's mart, so I picked up a couple. At this particular stand, you could have them dipped in chocolate for an outer shell, but that was too hardcore for me.
Hamburger Omlette Rice - A seasoned ground beef patty on top of an omlette filled with rice, and smothered in curry sauce. I could eat this for breakfast for an entire week, after which I'd probably die of heart failure.
Custom Made Okonomiyaki - for those who've never tried it, the bonito flakes you put on top wiggle and wave due to the heat, so it looks like it's coming to life as you eat it! My friend tried smothering it in mayonnaise, but that's a crime against nature, so I prevented her from doing so.
Kushi Age
On my last night, a friend of mine took me to a Kushi place. The premise is ridiculously simple - for about $30, you can eat as many skewers of meat, vegetables, or various other things within the time limit of 90 minutes. The key difference is preparing the skewers!
1. At your table is a vat of oil. There are many different vegetables and meats, although only one piece per skewer:
-Chicken
-Pork
-Beef
-Salmon
-Vegetables (Mushroom, eggplant, broccolli, okra, onion, avocado)
-Weiners
-Smoked Cheese
-Takoyaki
-Mochi(!)
2. Dip your skewer in some batter
3. Cover it in some crumbs
4. Dip into the oil and let it sit there while it fries - I started pretending I was an emperor, and the skewers were being punished for crimes against the empire of my stomach:
"YOU! Broccoli! Your crime is for stealing from the townspeople!"
"YOU! Chicken! Your crime is for choking a bystander to death!"
"YOU! Smiley Potato Face! ...You just look funny so I'm going to kill you anyway."
5. After a minute or so, take out and enjoy!
There are also a variety of different sauces to dip them in afterwards - cheese, ponzu, katsu, etc. There is also a salad bar with actual veggies (seriously, it is notoriously difficult to eat veggies in Japan if you're not preparing them yourself), and for an extra $10 you can include unlimited drinks. I think it was about 40 minutes in that I couldn't even remember what I was eating, just that it was fried and therefor tasty. My friend actually ate more and told me to switch the skewer piles around so she wouldn't be embarrassed My friend wussed out early, and they will actually charge you extra for any skewers you leave behind, so I had to clean up after her.
At the end, I demolished exactly 50 skewers and felt like the fattiest of fat fatties.
Other noteworthy food related pictures:
1. Bad Ass Coffee
2. I was not brave enough to try this sandwich, which is served with the coffee above.
Tomorrow I'll be making my last Tokyo Post on ACP, since it's probably more relevant there - TGS and Japanese Cosplay...