Perfectly meeting the requirements of today – a place that’s a decent walk from the office, but all underground (if desirable), offering spicy noodles and fried dumplings. Yesterday’s spicy noodles got me thinking about having ‘spicy noodle week’ but I don’t think I have enough stamina to do that every day. And I missed Monday, so I can’t achieve purity of conception, which we all know is a fundamental factor in the spiritual success of any diet.
Incidentally, this is in the basement of the “Otemachi Center Building”, which is loosely attached to Oazo and features half a dozen restaurants – none of which I had been to before today. Wonders never cease.
You’d swear that this place (‘Red Tiger Gyoza Workshop (and Beer Hall)’) was run by Kiwa Corporation, but you’d be wrong. In fact, the Red Tiger is a one-off from the company that brings you Salvatore Cuomo Pizza and a few other one-off Chinese places. Weird. I would say on balance that the tantanmen and gyoza are a little less good than Kiwa’s outlets, per the attached (ooh, too much formal correspondence this week):
– Noodles are too thin; it’s like angel hair tantanmen.
– Soup isn’t spicy enough, and the chili oil comes with a tiny tiny spoon that makes it preferrable to pour from the jug rather than use the utensil.
– I would swear that the ground meat was beef. That’s just weird.
– It’s cool that you can add gyoza to make a set for just Y120, but that includes just one gyoza and one shumai. The shumai was old and cold, while the gyoza was fresh but had a funny taste to the dough. Not the same impact as having them delivered to the table sizzling in an iron pan, for sure.
– Another good thing was the pickles – sweet and sour Chinese style radish, cucumber and carrot in a dish on every table, and not skimpy like most Chinese place are with the pickles.
In short, a mixed result, but please factor in a little compensation for the heavy rain and generally sour disposition of the author.
Grrrrrrrr.
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