After our blowout sushi dinner at Hashiguchi, I figured it was only fitting and proper that I should do some tour-guiding for Victorious. I thought he might like to buy a Japanese knife, and maybe see Asakusa, and Akihabara, and that’s what we did. He allowed as how he wouldn’t mind eating sushi again, and after a bunch of abortive attempts at restaurants (one place, I walked in and the master crossed his arms and said ‘NO!!!’ I know he was just scared of foreigners, but I can’t help thinking “Bite me.”) we ended up at Mimatsu. Astute readers will note that the picture above is not Mimatsu. I forgot to take a picture. This is one of the abortive attempts; despite having their noren out, they said they were closed – and a good thing too, because it smelled distressingly fishy when I stuck my head in.
Mimatsu was not fishy, but it did seem like another place where the chef has been cheffing for a good 50 years. After going nuts on sushi the night before, we found their top-level lunch set to be positively reasonable in price. Done.
You know what I think of places with TVs, right? Right, I think they’re working, neighborhoody restaurants. More power to them. What else are you going to do all afternoon while you’re prepping dinner or whatnot? The blue things along the wall were ceramics of the zodiac signs, I think, but there were too many of them. They all blended together and I couldn’t tell which ones were duplicates, or not zodiac animals.
It was a fun twist for Victorious to get served in the real old-fashioned style – directly on the counter. This is only some bits of the course; the master just made them and put them down as they were ready, no particular waiting or ceremony or anything. In all, this seemed a bit pale and cost-neutral, but we had just come from one of Tokyo’s best the night before. I dunno. If you go to a place like this, just get the normal set.
Considering that that wasn’t the most exciting post, I want to leave you with a funny shirt that I snapped a photo of while walking…
And also a can of, no lie, ‘hotcake flavor’ milk beverage. Now that I think of it, it’s extra funny to see this because the hotcake mix I used to buy was also from Morinaga (until someone told me, correctly, that Hotel New Otani’s mix is the best – illogical but true). This was disgustingly sweet, I regretted getting it, and I threw it out. Funny though!
How many pines does it take to screw in a light bulb?