Sausage! I love Italian sausage, and frequently bemoan the inability to source same in Tokyo. I’ve had a few good examples, but they seemed to be more made-by-the-restaurant rather than purchased, and even in Italian specialty locations, I’ve struck out on buying authentic lil’ wieners.
Today featured a solitary and meditative bike ride, my friends, followed by a bit of fresh pasta with abundant fresh tomato and garlic, and some Japanese-style sausages. In otherwise good-quality food, I have to wonder – do they know what they’re missing?!
Occhiali is a very small place that looks like it used to be a ramen shop except for the under-utilized cold-case that gives it away as somewhat down-market sushi. The chef was a woman and the waitress was a man and the sushi case was full of little dishes demonstrating the various shapes of fresh pasta on offer. There was pasta with sour plum and seaweed. Everything was topsy-turvy and higgledy-piggledy.
For lunch you have the choice of 3 pastas – the Japanese-style spaghetti mentioned above, a tuna-cream sauce tagliatelle, or fusili (still fresh, I think) with fresh tomatoes, garlic and those darn sausages. The amount and brightness of the garlic worked well for me. Add Y200 to the base Y850 for large size, add Y100 for a drink. That’s it – a common formule in Japan, but one that’s working pretty well here.
Ahhh, the Big East.
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