Back in the saddle, a day in Shinjuku

Sorry for the unscheduled break. Things happen. Life goes on.

I went to Tokyo last weekend, and beyond the drinking and wandering through Shinjuku, I actually had some good food. We ate lunch at a little indian restaurant. I use the term indian loosely. It had curry and naan(indian flat bread), but the menu was clearly geared towards Japanese tastes. Beyond that, it was pretty good. My chicken curry was not as spicy as I like, but I know from experience that different regions have different recipes. Not all curry has to be spicy. The naan was also delicious. The plain one is similar to greek-styled american flat bread, but the garlic one was fantastic. Bread covered in roasted garlic, how can you go wrong? They also brought it out with a massive plate of saffron-looking rice. I say "looking" because there wasn't much taste, though I could tell what they were trying to achieve.

For dinner we went to an izakaya(essentially a place to get beer and food for groups of people). This one charged $40 per person, but it was all you can drink for 2 hours, in addition to the multi-course meal(that is still a little high, but everything else that could hold our 15 person group was booked). We started with a "salad," which turned out to be just pieces of cabbage. That is not salad where I come from. They did eventually bring out a real salad, though it was random shredded vegetables that looked more like the left over garbage than a meal course. I chose not to partake. Next we received fried shrimp. Everyone knows by aversion to seafood, and again, I left my helping to someone else.

Then came the main courses. Some pan fried pork slices were served, and similar to every piece of meat in Japan, were about half fat. This is really annoying to this American man who enjoyed his meats lean and skinless. I still have a hard time with it. Right after the pork, they brought out some barbecued chicken. This is a fairly common thing in Japan, and it is a little sweeter and less spicy than what most people would think of bbq'd chicken in the US.

A large metal bowl filled with various vegetables and raw meat was placed on top of the gas stoves on the tables(I knew they had those there for a reason). Underneath all the fixings there must have been some spices and liquid, because almost immediately a yellow liquid began bubbling up. It was in fact, curry soup, with cabbage, onions and pork. It was very good, a little spicy without being too hot. For some reason after all of us had eaten most of the soup, they brought out noodles for it. They were soba noodles, and went well with the rest of the soup, even if most of it was gone.

They of course, had drinks. Sadly, at these types of restaurants, they only give you the cheap sake/beer/whiskey. Andrea can usually get various sours, but they don't have a wide range of drinks. With that, I'll end this story. You don't want to hear about the horrors of cheap izakaya alcohol.