Tokyo Day 3: You’ve never had fresh until you’ve tasted fresh (pg 2)
Written by silver on April 21st, 2008
By now, it was around 9, and we were hungry. Since the place was so big, we had to stop to ask a security guy how to get to the restaurant section among all those warehouses. When we reached the restaurant that our Frommers guide recommended, there was already a line. Many foreigners, many carrying a Frommer in their backpack I’d suspect. I must first note that when I say restaurant, I really meant place where food is served to be eaten vs the food that was being sold in the market area, because these places aren’t really restaurants, but a narrow hole in the wall consisting of a cooking area behind a bar and a half dozen stools set up on the other side. One literally has to walk in sideways, back sliding along the wall to get to a seat.
With such limited seats, and us a group of 6, we were in no mood to wait. Sure the book recommended this place, but there are a dozen other ones around, and they all get their fish from the exact same place… the fish market in the next warehouse, so how different could it be? Diem and Jae went to a place that was advertising eel bowls; for sure that was cooked. The rest of us went to a place two doors down for some fresh fish in the raw.
Ordering was very easy; there were a dozen pictures of the types of meals one could get posted right outside the door. Walking in we just tell them the number we want. I even practiced saying my number in Japanese and they understood!
The meal came with tea, miso, pickles, sweet yams and about 10 pieces of fresh sashimi layered on a bowl of rice, all for under 1700 yen!. Everything was yummy, the fish especially fresh. Di got some crab which she shared and the meat was so sweet! We had to eat fast as there were so few seats and people were already waiting outside. Eat, pay, leave. I wish I could’ve taken a picture of the food, but the place wouldn’t allow pictures.
When we were done we found Jae and Diem having a lively conversation with the owner, JJ, of the eel bowl place. The guy knew English and was busy teaching Japanese to them. Soon we were piled in the small nook repeating phrases after the guy. He even gave us handouts of common phrases to use in restaurants. Like, “What do you recommend?” “Osusumewa nan desuka?” Binh especially took a liking to the word sugeh which I believe means amazing.