Toyokichi, Kameido (亀戸 豊吉)

Recently the exploring bug hits every few days, leading to bouts of random bike-riding in medium-close neighborhoods. Last week was Kinshicho (weird, uncomfortable, some good places), tonight was Kameido (quiet, dull, not recommended. And I’m not just saying that to hide the good places.).

Eric Clapton’s followup to the awesome 461 Ocean Boulevard (This is great, and I don’t even like Clapton. I Shot the Sherrif was a hit, but songs like Mainline Florida and Motherless Children have a weird spaced-out boogie groove…almost like a bunch of world-class players were camped out at a Florida beach house drinking, doing heroin, and jamming once in a while) was There’s One In Every Crowd. I read one time that he wanted to call it “The Greatest Guitar Player In the World – There’s One In Every Crowd”, but thought fans wouldn’t understand the self-effacing joke (That tit-bit isn’t mentioned on Wiki or AllMusic. Can it really be true?!). I mention this only as support for my theory that there’s a pretty good sake bar in every decent-sized neighborhood. In Kameido, I think there might only be one, and it took me a while to find. Here you go.

There’s just a little counter and three or four tables, and the decoration isn’t particularly warm. There were a surprising number of customers though, for a fairly late Tuesday

The menu has two sides. One is interesting selections at good prices. The other side is the scary one – should you want a glass of Juyondai Ryusen (the funny-shaped bottle one) or vintage Isojiman, your Y5k will purchase said item. Go on, blow this up and have a good look. The normal side is good though – glass or 1-go sizes, about 15 things.

And plenty of opportunity to pick from the fridge. Sure a lot of these are normal, but with Juyondai, Jikon, Kudokijozu and Hiroki on display, you can’t go too far wrong. I enjoyed the Fudo, which is from Chiba and could be worth a quick weekend trip.

This is Garyubai (poetic English translations are sorta fun, and I’m going to go ahead and call this “Dragon Sleeping in Plum Orchard”) from Shizuoka. I mostly ordered it so I could see if it tasted like Shizuoka sake, and it did. Unfortunately I didn’t realize it was an ‘extra dry’ variety, so that was less pleasant. They vaccuum-seal the bottles every time the open them, and also leave the bottle on the counter for inspection as a matter of policy. The master is young and must be pretty into it.

You know though, I think he’s into the food too. I had already had a light dinner, so just got something to go with the sake. The starter was this deep-fried eggplant and shishito and grated radish, and it was so good I had to get another dish.

It’s been awhile since you were forced to read that standard line about how horsemeat on the menu means horsemeat on my plate. There it was again. It’s also been awhile since a paragraph included as many fun mispellings as this won does.

Horst, get my muffler! A-vay ve go!
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