Japan, Food and Drink, Part 1

The ferry arrived at Shimonoseki around 7 AM on Monday morning, and Immigration opened exactly at 8:00. Shimonoseki is a historically significant port city on Japan's Inland Sea near the south tip of Honshu; that didn't matter to me, I was there for the blowfish. Shimonoseki claims to be the home of fugu, the famous deadly blowfish that is responsible for a minute but actual number of deaths each year. Clipped from Wikipedia:

Statistics from the Tokyo Bureau of Social Welfare and Public Health indicate 20 to 44 incidents of fugu poisoning per year between 1996 and 2006 in Japan (a single incident may involve multiple diners). Each year, these incidents led to between 34 and 64 victims being hospitalized and zero to six deaths, an average fatality rate of 6.8%.[11] Of the 23 incidents reported in Tokyo from 1993 through 2006, only one took place in a restaurant. All others involved fishermen eating their catch.

To obtain the fish, take the bus to the Kamon Wharf area. The recognised symbol for a certified fugu chef's establishment is the blue-and-white puffer fish image: The town takes its fugu connection seriously, with losts of souvenirs available: I had a train to catch, so I ate at the first place that opened (around 11 AM), figuring they would all be about the same. The sashimi dish cost Y1080 at virtually all the restaurants in the complex: The fish flesh itself was mainly quite bland, but about three of the eight slices had a strong flavor. The poison, tetrodotoxin, is found mainly in the fish's liver, ovaries and skin, and the fugu chef's skill is in trimming almost but not all of the skin off the slices, the idea being to leave just enough toxin to make the lips and tongue tingle. Mine did.

Kobe Beef in Kobe
Since I was staying in Kyoto, I thought a day-trip to Kobe to sample one of Japan's most famous culinary products was in order. That turned out to be a very smart, if expensive, decision. I took a train (round trip Y2100) to Kobe, about one hour distant, on the last night of my stay. Don't take the train all the way to Kobe proper, but get off at Sannomiya station instead. Come out the central gate, turn left, cross the street and make your way to the restaurant row. I ate at a place called "Steakland" and can highly recommend it. I ordered the number 2 item on the menu, "Special Sirloin Steak Dinner Set" which includes appetizer, salad, soup, seafood plate, 160 grams of A4 or A5 Kobe wagyu, bread or rice, and ice cream and coffee. With a beer, that came to Y7900. One begins with a simple salad with vinaigrette and smoked salmon as the chef prepares the seafood course with mushrooms, zucchini and some brown slab thing thing that tasted a bit crunchy. Just as the seafood is finished, the soup arrives, a wonderful beefy broth. The teppan is cleaned, and the chef melts some butter, and infuses it with garlic from garlic flakes. He asked how I wanted it, and delivered it just that way--medium rare. The chef's job is to cut the beef into bit-size chunks, twisting it, looking at it from angles, making a decisive slice through, and another morsel comes free: He fried up some sprouts and bokchoi in the remaining grease, plated it up and moved on to the next diner. The result was amazing--it was so delicious, flavorful, tender, perfectly marbled, seasoned and grilled, I almost laughed out loud. It was definitely the most expensive meal I've ever eaten, and almost certainly the tastiest.

Sashimi and More, in the Ginza
I arrived in Tokyo on Saturday afternoon, found a clean, well-located hotelthanks to the TIC, Tourist Information Center (which is located a confusing block north of Tokyo Station, but worth finding if you don't already have a booking), and went out for a night on the town. Ginza is Tokyo's top shopping destination, and it is also a famous dining and nightlife spot. I hadn't eaten lunch, so I was hungry. Ginza is famous for sushi, so I gave it a shot, and found (well, hard to miss actually) a restaurant a few steps from the Higashi-Ginza subway stop called Bikkuri Sushi Ginza. I selected the number 2 item on the menu, called Tsukuri-Moriawasi sashimi, the "Black Currant mixed platter", for Y2980. It was impeccably fresh--so much so that the fish on the left side was still twitching while I ate its flesh.

I began wandering the neighborhood, vaguely keeping an eye out for a few of the places listed in the Rough Guide and/or the Lonely Planet Tokyo app for my iPhone. Luck was with me all night, for I stumbled upon Ginza Lion, though it looked like a big, old-fashioned restaurant. I explained to the maitre d' that I was looking for just drinking a beer, and was shown to this amazing beer hall downstairs. What a place--almost a Bavarian beer-hall, Ginza Lion was built in 1934 with colored-tile walls and pillars, as well as 10 murals. I fell into conversation with a nice Japanese couple, pictured, when music started playing and costumed members of the waitstaff burst into song. The Japanese people told me they visited regularly but had never been treated to the floor show before. The house beer was only Y577 (300 cc) and an order of pretzels, warm, soft, lightly salty and good, was Y2980, not bad by Tokyo standards. Again out and wandering--the weather was fine--I stumbled upon another place mentioned in the guides, "300", a stand-up bar named not for the Greeks at Thermopylae but for the cost of a drink coupon. You buy coupons at the door, which you exchange for drinks at the bar counter, only inflation has rasied the price to Y315, though the name remains the same.
This place caters to a younger crowd, and with my Japanese of course non-existent, and the average Japanese person's English not much better, I began to feel the wangtta, until a young fellow with decent English took the place of two girls I had more or less chased away I'm sure totally because of the language issues. Well, soon his friends joined him, another guy and two girls, and we talked. Somehow or other, the topic of Karaoke came up, and I suggested we could go--I would pay for the room, we would pay for our own drinks. Off we went for a fun hour together, they were so kind and funny and really made my Saturday night in the Ginza a truly memorable night! On top of everything else, they wouldn't let me pay anything at the end. We exchanged email addys, so I'll be sending them along this photo: Thanks, guys!