Kanako Hannosuke, Nihonbashi (金子半の助)

Full disclosure: Our assistant somehow picked up free lunch tickets for this place that opened mid-November. You may have noticed that I like trying new places? I like free things too. A lot. So do other folks. When You and I assayed this place last week, we found a good 20 of them in line, some of them clutching their free meal tickets. Today we went back at 2:30; there were 2 seats free, but people had to move to squeeze us in. And people were waiting outside by the time we left. Know why? It’s that good.

Let me digress briefly to say that they have bowls of pickles on the counter, cuts through the oil, all that. It’s good, and you’ll see why. The green one is savoy cabbage and cucumbers, the pale one is mostly ginger but with some burdock root thrown in. I remember this without even looking at the pictures because we waited until 2:30 and thus kept snacking on pickles while waiting for our food, which is battered and fried only when you order. The ginger pickles were like a soft, natural version of sushi gari, and the gobo was delicious.

Did I mention that it’s that good? Holy cow. This is pretty much a whole eel, 2 shrimp, some squid, some tiny scallops (kobashira), a soft-set egg, and a lonely little pepper, all battered and fried. They’re using either all or at least a high proportion of sesame oil – you can smell it down the street. The koromo is thick and dark and crunchy, if a little greasy. Hell’s bell’s.

We were stunned.

You’ve gotta go here. I know what you’ll say. You’ll say “Mama mia.” The quality is ace, the volume is ludicrous, and you’ve gotta try it for lunch before they go out of business due to lack of profit.

Y880.
03-3243-0707

Dinner is exactly the same menu, btw – tendon or ebidon, soup, beer. No tanpin ordering. This is hardcore recession excellence. Mama mia.