Yeah, when we were out at the CSA, this jackal that we met said that Neena’s in Sewell was surprisingly good. Naturally that weighed on my mind, and when Dad and I found ourselves looking at each other like it was lunch time (me because I was hungry, him because it was after noon and […]
cheap
- izakaya
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Kaburaya, Asagaya (かぶら屋)
Kaburaya is a medium-sized chain of cheerful and very, very cheap izakayas centered on Ikebukuro and south on the Shinjuku axis. They have a few farther-out branches like this one that Peacock and I stopped in to after being rejected by some other places. God blesses the meek and the early openers – these guys […]
- izakaya
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Tsuruya, Kachidoki (つるや)
There’s this great little place near the crossing in Kachidoki called Kanemasu. It’s just a standing bar, but they have some good food, especially these rolls of raw beef tenderly wrapped around the freshest briny sea urchin. This post is not about Kanemasu, it’s about the place around the corner that wasn’t full. Looks good […]
Daruma, Monzen Nakacho (だるま)
After getting hijacked into eating guts and drinking fake…not even beer, I guess I proved my street cred enough. Jerry sent a bottle of sake for me, and Hikuzo was nice enough to bring it up (from Tsukishima, which isn’t all that far really – perhaps 20 minutes on foot, or one stop). Being a […]
- Other treats
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Kujiraken ramen, Yaesu (くじら軒)
You’ve heard of this place Rokurinsha? Yeah, me too. I broke my promise to myself, shame shame, and tried to go again today. Sort of on a dare from You (who has actually been there once). At 3 PM, there were 27 people outside in line, and of course the inside was full. I went […]
- Other treats
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Kaeru ramen, Nakano
Setting out for a day of adventuring in the hinterlands, I decided to stop off in Nakano for a rousing spot of…well, lunch. Nakano seems like a place that would be famous for ramen, but I don’t think it is. Certainly there were not that many places looking likely – a couple in the covered […]
- Other treats
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Murata, Iwamotocho (むらた)
Another of those ‘fill in the map’ days. However, it seems the map has stopped working now that there are over 1,000 points on it…that could take some work. That kind of work is much less fun than actually going to restaurants… Anyhoo, here’s the shady doorway or Murata, offering respite from scorching sun (one […]
- Ginza
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Dedesuke, Ginza (でですけ)
Typhoon? Nuts to that. Lunch time. I was so keen to do something different that I took the train to Ginza. Where it was raining. Hard. Dedesuke is not necessarily a promising place – if you look over the door, you’ll see the first word is hormone…and you should know that that word means nothing […]
- Kanda
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Hamayoshi, Kanda (浜よし)
I have to say this at the beginning, just because I think it’s so funny – Hama-yoooooooosh! I know it’s not funny to anyone else, but I’ve gotten really into saying “yosh” in all manner of Japanese situations (long ‘o’ sound). It’s a sort of casual exhortation like “Here we go!” or “Let’s do this […]
- Other treats
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Shoryu gyoza / ramen, Ueno (昇龍)
This place is stuck in my mind as being famous. Is it? Anyone else ever heard of it? I would guess I visited right after I came to live in Japan, or maybe even during one of the trips that preceded that. It was probably in a magazine that month, and that’s how we got […]