Name: 香り家 / Kaorika
Style: Soba
Neighborhood: 恵比寿 / Ebisu
Website: None, but see http://r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1303/A130302/13001653/
My friends Naoco and Nick introduced to this awesome soba restaurant, which is surprising considering it's right near my house and not near theirs! I have nothing but props for this place. They have a whole variety of interesting drinks (an awesome nihonshu whose name begins with kiku, nigori umeshuu, and sobayu+sobashochu among others) and a lot of good food to warm up with (the dashimaki was really good, as was the chicken tataki). But of course it's a soba restaurant so the highlight was the soba at the end. As advised by our guides we order the gomadare (sesame sauce) soba, which is thicker than typical soba but oh-so-good. And of course drinking the leftover sauce with sobayuu afterward is equally awesome.
After this win-win experience I can't wait for the next place they've promised to introduce me to, Spoon in Shinjuku 3chome.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
The Pie that Mama Makes
Restaurant: Mama Tarte Daikanyama / ママタルト代官山
Neighborhood: Daikanyama (duh) / 代官山
Style:Pie Shop
Website: http://daikanyama.st/mamatarte/ but http://www.coocle.jp/sh/21499/ has more info
Oops, I realized I never posted about this place. When you have a hankerin' for full-on American-style pie, this is the place. There are a sprinkling of pie shops all over Tokyo, but to be honest, most of them aren't all that good. This place, despite being busy, has a pretty relaxed feel and a great selection of pies. It was awhile ago when I went, so I don't remember the exact items we got, but every piece of pie was great.
They do have non-pie "real food" items as well, which were tasty but very limited in selection, so go here because you want some dessert!
Neighborhood: Daikanyama (duh) / 代官山
Style:Pie Shop
Website: http://daikanyama.st/mamatarte/ but http://www.coocle.jp/sh/21499/ has more info
Oops, I realized I never posted about this place. When you have a hankerin' for full-on American-style pie, this is the place. There are a sprinkling of pie shops all over Tokyo, but to be honest, most of them aren't all that good. This place, despite being busy, has a pretty relaxed feel and a great selection of pies. It was awhile ago when I went, so I don't remember the exact items we got, but every piece of pie was great.
They do have non-pie "real food" items as well, which were tasty but very limited in selection, so go here because you want some dessert!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
American Brunch Problem -> Solved
Restaurant: 57
Neighborhood: Roppongi
Style: American Brunch (on weekend mornings)
Website: http://www.fiftyseven.co.jp/
One of the few kinds of food (besides deep-dish pizza, sigh) that I actually miss in Japan is good American-style brunch: eggs, omelettes, pancakes, waffles, etc. I used to be addicted to Hobee's in the Bay Area and although Japan is full of good food there's nothing quite like that.
Fortunately, my friend Jin organized a meetup (via www.meetup.com) for brunch this morning, and although I'm always leery of going to Roppongi 57 turns out to be exactly the brunch place I've been looking for!
First of all, this restaurant is one of the most American-feeling places I've been in Japan. The ceilings are tall, the tables are widely spaced (definitely something that sets it apart from most Tokyo eateries) and there's actual open space on the floor. The staff, although mostly Japanese, reflects the Roppongi setting by being English-friendly. In another clear indication of the western-ness of the place, the chef came out after awhile and worked the room, introducing himself to everyone and inquiring after their meals.
Next up: the coffee. This place serves one of the best cups of coffee I've ever drank, period. Not particularly bitter, not particularly strong and yet not weak like so many Japanese restaurants; simply one of the best-balanced cups of coffee I've ever had the pleasure to pour down my throat. There's only one minor downside to 57's coffee: unlike a typical American brunch spot, it is not bottomless. That's probably just as well, I might have ended up overcaffeinated!
And, I wouldn't the posting about this place if it wasn't for the food. Because we were a large group, we were ordering off of a limited menu and it was still awesome. I got the French toast, which was definitely heavy and yet showed no trace of actual egg bits: the egg was fully absorbed into the bread before heating. The serving was what I would expect in Japan in terms of size (two triangles), but it more than made up for that by coming with two awesome condiments. One, as you would expect here, was real maple syrup. But actually the big winner of the whole meal was the second condiment, house-made applesauce with small chunks of apple and brimming with spices. My fellow diners reported that just being able to sit in the vicinity of the applesauce was a pleasure.
I didn't get to sample 57's brunch menu widely although the fruit smoothies were certainly tasty, so I need to go back. And, I gather they're actually primarily a dinner restaurant. But the french toast brunch was certainly a great way to start!
Neighborhood: Roppongi
Style: American Brunch (on weekend mornings)
Website: http://www.fiftyseven.co.jp/
One of the few kinds of food (besides deep-dish pizza, sigh) that I actually miss in Japan is good American-style brunch: eggs, omelettes, pancakes, waffles, etc. I used to be addicted to Hobee's in the Bay Area and although Japan is full of good food there's nothing quite like that.
Fortunately, my friend Jin organized a meetup (via www.meetup.com) for brunch this morning, and although I'm always leery of going to Roppongi 57 turns out to be exactly the brunch place I've been looking for!
First of all, this restaurant is one of the most American-feeling places I've been in Japan. The ceilings are tall, the tables are widely spaced (definitely something that sets it apart from most Tokyo eateries) and there's actual open space on the floor. The staff, although mostly Japanese, reflects the Roppongi setting by being English-friendly. In another clear indication of the western-ness of the place, the chef came out after awhile and worked the room, introducing himself to everyone and inquiring after their meals.
Next up: the coffee. This place serves one of the best cups of coffee I've ever drank, period. Not particularly bitter, not particularly strong and yet not weak like so many Japanese restaurants; simply one of the best-balanced cups of coffee I've ever had the pleasure to pour down my throat. There's only one minor downside to 57's coffee: unlike a typical American brunch spot, it is not bottomless. That's probably just as well, I might have ended up overcaffeinated!
And, I wouldn't the posting about this place if it wasn't for the food. Because we were a large group, we were ordering off of a limited menu and it was still awesome. I got the French toast, which was definitely heavy and yet showed no trace of actual egg bits: the egg was fully absorbed into the bread before heating. The serving was what I would expect in Japan in terms of size (two triangles), but it more than made up for that by coming with two awesome condiments. One, as you would expect here, was real maple syrup. But actually the big winner of the whole meal was the second condiment, house-made applesauce with small chunks of apple and brimming with spices. My fellow diners reported that just being able to sit in the vicinity of the applesauce was a pleasure.
I didn't get to sample 57's brunch menu widely although the fruit smoothies were certainly tasty, so I need to go back. And, I gather they're actually primarily a dinner restaurant. But the french toast brunch was certainly a great way to start!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Heavenly Neighborhood Yakitori
Restaurant: Kushi-waka-maru / 串若丸
Neighborhood: Nakameguro / 中目黒
Style: Yakitori-ya / 焼鳥屋
Website: None that I know of, but google 串若丸 or kushiwakamaru for lots of reviews
This is one of those places that makes living in Japan special. I was hanging out at another restuarant, the extremely sociable Pampa in Meguro, when another customer recommended Kushi-waka-maru to me. This fellow customer also explained the origin of the name to me: it's a complicated wordplay on a Edo-era historical figure combined with 串 / kushi, the character for the skewer in yakitori cuisine.
My friend Atsushi was up visiting from Kansai the first night we went, and so we met the most infamous part of Kushiwakamaru, the long wait for a table. We waited almost an hour, which is almost unheard of in Japan (rather than waiting, you just go somewhere else). The wait was inconsequential after we got to taste the food, though. Everything was absolutely top-of-the-charts among yakitori-style restaurants and we spent the evening chatting with the couple sitting next to us.
Tonight I grabbed late dinner there which only reinforced what an awesome place this is. The highlight of tonight's meal was the toriwasa, which is raw chicken with wasabi and shoyu. I've had chicken tataki at a number of places, but was little rolls of tataki chicken with very little in the way of added flavoring. Oh my goodness, so delicious. As a bonus, while I'm pretty sanguine about eating things in Japan even if it's raw chicken, but I don't think I'd try this in rural China, so it's a definite Japan treat.
Besides that, I had a salad (the battle in Japan is to try and get your greens), some scrumptious tsukune, anogo shiroyaki, and of course some dashimaki tamago. It's an "I feel lucky to live here" feeling. Kushiwakamaru isn't particularly expensive, even if you eat a lot your food bill will be 3000-4000円 and you can easily dial that down if you're on a budget. Beers are a normal 600円 or so.
Seriously, you can wait a long time here; come early or be ready for a good time hanging out in line.
Neighborhood: Nakameguro / 中目黒
Style: Yakitori-ya / 焼鳥屋
Website: None that I know of, but google 串若丸 or kushiwakamaru for lots of reviews
This is one of those places that makes living in Japan special. I was hanging out at another restuarant, the extremely sociable Pampa in Meguro, when another customer recommended Kushi-waka-maru to me. This fellow customer also explained the origin of the name to me: it's a complicated wordplay on a Edo-era historical figure combined with 串 / kushi, the character for the skewer in yakitori cuisine.
My friend Atsushi was up visiting from Kansai the first night we went, and so we met the most infamous part of Kushiwakamaru, the long wait for a table. We waited almost an hour, which is almost unheard of in Japan (rather than waiting, you just go somewhere else). The wait was inconsequential after we got to taste the food, though. Everything was absolutely top-of-the-charts among yakitori-style restaurants and we spent the evening chatting with the couple sitting next to us.
Tonight I grabbed late dinner there which only reinforced what an awesome place this is. The highlight of tonight's meal was the toriwasa, which is raw chicken with wasabi and shoyu. I've had chicken tataki at a number of places, but was little rolls of tataki chicken with very little in the way of added flavoring. Oh my goodness, so delicious. As a bonus, while I'm pretty sanguine about eating things in Japan even if it's raw chicken, but I don't think I'd try this in rural China, so it's a definite Japan treat.
Besides that, I had a salad (the battle in Japan is to try and get your greens), some scrumptious tsukune, anogo shiroyaki, and of course some dashimaki tamago. It's an "I feel lucky to live here" feeling. Kushiwakamaru isn't particularly expensive, even if you eat a lot your food bill will be 3000-4000円 and you can easily dial that down if you're on a budget. Beers are a normal 600円 or so.
Seriously, you can wait a long time here; come early or be ready for a good time hanging out in line.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Let's see, Cheap... Great Tempura... oh, did I mention crowded?
Restaurant: Tempura Imoya / 天ぷら いもや
Neighborhood: Jimbocho / 神保町
Style: Tempura
Website: None, but see this tabelog page
I was meeting my friends Suzuki-san and Namikoshi-san from DCAJ for lunch, and I thought about getting tempura. If you've only ever eaten tempura as it's made in America, you can't have any appreciation for the form. And, even in Japan, the tempura you get at most general-purpose restaurants is just OK. The only way to have truly great tempura is to go to a tempura-ya, a shop where they serve just tempura. I was lucky enough to have my friend Scott Frazier take me to such a place on a long-ago trip to Japan, and it totally changed my idea of what tempura is!
A little searching in Japanese found a lot of recommendations for Tempura Imoya, which is in Jimbocho not too far from my friend's work. I asked Suzuki-san about it, and he said it's famous and in fact he had tried to go there before. But, he had only gotten to the restaurant at 11:45am and so they couldn't get in for lunch! He suggested meeting there at 11:15.
If you go there, the tabelog page map will send you to the shop on Hakusan-dori, which is the Ten-don (Tempura Donburi) shop. The actual tempura shop is on the side street just south of the Ten-don shop. The two places have exactly the same name and sign, only the menu differs!
At the tempura shop, like a lot of good specialty tempura places, there's not a lot of choice in the ordering. You can either get the Tempura Teishoku (set meal) which has one each of 6 kinds of Tempura, rice (a generous amount), miso soup, and tea; or the Tempura Teishoku Ebikei, which is the same meal but all of the Tempura is ebi (shrimp). You can also ask for rice oomori (free), which means they'll heap your bowl extra-high with rice (unless you're unbelievably hungry there's no need).
And, as you'd expect from this kind of place, the tempura was awesome! The tempura you get at a specialty place like this is completely different from the greasy, heavy food that goes by that name in America. Japanese specialty tempura is very light and almost completely grease-free (they'll often put the tempura on a piece of paper, and there will only be a few small grease spots on the paper afterwards). They control the batter, the oil, and the temperature to make for a very different experience. On the day I was there, the tempura teishoku included one each of ebi (shrimp), fish, kabocha (pumpkin), a leafy green, a root vegetable, and something else that I think was seafood of some kind.
Besides the tempura, I really have to call out the miso soup. It was a red miso made with a lot of small clams, and had plenty of taste to stand up to being drank along with the tempura.
Finally, like a lot of tempura houses, Tempura Imoya is cheap! The Tempura Teishoku is 650 yen (I don't know how much extra for ebikei, none of us got it). The only downside is that, as you'd expect given the above, this place is crowded. We had no problem getting seats since Suzuki-san and I got there at 11:15, but the place was full when Namikoshi-san showed up a bit late at 11:25. By 11:35, we had finished and people were waiting, so we gave up our seats. To actually do the catching up and talking we wanted to do, we had to migrate to a Doutour around the corner. Nevertheless, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Tempura Imoya for your light, crunchy food fix!
Neighborhood: Jimbocho / 神保町
Style: Tempura
Website: None, but see this tabelog page
I was meeting my friends Suzuki-san and Namikoshi-san from DCAJ for lunch, and I thought about getting tempura. If you've only ever eaten tempura as it's made in America, you can't have any appreciation for the form. And, even in Japan, the tempura you get at most general-purpose restaurants is just OK. The only way to have truly great tempura is to go to a tempura-ya, a shop where they serve just tempura. I was lucky enough to have my friend Scott Frazier take me to such a place on a long-ago trip to Japan, and it totally changed my idea of what tempura is!
A little searching in Japanese found a lot of recommendations for Tempura Imoya, which is in Jimbocho not too far from my friend's work. I asked Suzuki-san about it, and he said it's famous and in fact he had tried to go there before. But, he had only gotten to the restaurant at 11:45am and so they couldn't get in for lunch! He suggested meeting there at 11:15.
If you go there, the tabelog page map will send you to the shop on Hakusan-dori, which is the Ten-don (Tempura Donburi) shop. The actual tempura shop is on the side street just south of the Ten-don shop. The two places have exactly the same name and sign, only the menu differs!
At the tempura shop, like a lot of good specialty tempura places, there's not a lot of choice in the ordering. You can either get the Tempura Teishoku (set meal) which has one each of 6 kinds of Tempura, rice (a generous amount), miso soup, and tea; or the Tempura Teishoku Ebikei, which is the same meal but all of the Tempura is ebi (shrimp). You can also ask for rice oomori (free), which means they'll heap your bowl extra-high with rice (unless you're unbelievably hungry there's no need).
And, as you'd expect from this kind of place, the tempura was awesome! The tempura you get at a specialty place like this is completely different from the greasy, heavy food that goes by that name in America. Japanese specialty tempura is very light and almost completely grease-free (they'll often put the tempura on a piece of paper, and there will only be a few small grease spots on the paper afterwards). They control the batter, the oil, and the temperature to make for a very different experience. On the day I was there, the tempura teishoku included one each of ebi (shrimp), fish, kabocha (pumpkin), a leafy green, a root vegetable, and something else that I think was seafood of some kind.
Besides the tempura, I really have to call out the miso soup. It was a red miso made with a lot of small clams, and had plenty of taste to stand up to being drank along with the tempura.
Finally, like a lot of tempura houses, Tempura Imoya is cheap! The Tempura Teishoku is 650 yen (I don't know how much extra for ebikei, none of us got it). The only downside is that, as you'd expect given the above, this place is crowded. We had no problem getting seats since Suzuki-san and I got there at 11:15, but the place was full when Namikoshi-san showed up a bit late at 11:25. By 11:35, we had finished and people were waiting, so we gave up our seats. To actually do the catching up and talking we wanted to do, we had to migrate to a Doutour around the corner. Nevertheless, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Tempura Imoya for your light, crunchy food fix!
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Natural in Shibuya
Name: Kahemi Cafe
Neighborhood: Shibuya
Style: Organic
Website: http://www.kahemicafe.com/
A few weeks ago my friend Gilles was in town, and since he's allergic to cigarette smoke we were hunting for a place that was mostly or entirely smoke-free. Alas, non-smoking restaurants are largely non-existant in Japan, but I figured that our best bet would be an organic restaurant, since while not technically non-smoking they don't tend to attract the heavy-partier crowd.
I found Kahemi Cafe through web search, and both the menu and pictures looked inviting so we made it our destination. It turns out to be very much as you'd guess from the pictures: a light, airy place with an open feel, despite being tucked away on the bottom floor of a building up the hill in Shibuya.
We started with an local organic beer they stocked I had never heard of before, and it was good if not enough to make me give up on Ushi-tora. The food was mostly the kinds of things you'd expect at a cafe (fried potato) supplemented with a fair range of entrees. Kahemi Cafe is organic but not especially vegetarian; meats were well-represented and most of the memorable dishes in fact came from the meat side of the menu.
It was also an easy place to hang out; we had a good conversation going and the staff was quite happy to let us jabber away (in the front table, no less). As I guessed going in, there were no smokers in the place at all the night we were there. Kahemi makes for a good option if you're looking for a nice hangout in Shibuya.
Neighborhood: Shibuya
Style: Organic
Website: http://www.kahemicafe.com/
A few weeks ago my friend Gilles was in town, and since he's allergic to cigarette smoke we were hunting for a place that was mostly or entirely smoke-free. Alas, non-smoking restaurants are largely non-existant in Japan, but I figured that our best bet would be an organic restaurant, since while not technically non-smoking they don't tend to attract the heavy-partier crowd.
I found Kahemi Cafe through web search, and both the menu and pictures looked inviting so we made it our destination. It turns out to be very much as you'd guess from the pictures: a light, airy place with an open feel, despite being tucked away on the bottom floor of a building up the hill in Shibuya.
We started with an local organic beer they stocked I had never heard of before, and it was good if not enough to make me give up on Ushi-tora. The food was mostly the kinds of things you'd expect at a cafe (fried potato) supplemented with a fair range of entrees. Kahemi Cafe is organic but not especially vegetarian; meats were well-represented and most of the memorable dishes in fact came from the meat side of the menu.
It was also an easy place to hang out; we had a good conversation going and the staff was quite happy to let us jabber away (in the front table, no less). As I guessed going in, there were no smokers in the place at all the night we were there. Kahemi makes for a good option if you're looking for a nice hangout in Shibuya.
Sashimi Insanity in Yokohama
Name: Hatsuyoshi-zushi はつよし寿司
Neighborhood: Yokohama (near hinodecho) / 横浜（日ノ出町駅に近い）
Style: Sushi
Website: None but see for instance http://gourmet.livedoor.com/restaurant/17614/
Sorry for the very long post, but this was just an experience that needs writing about.
Last week was SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 down in Yokohama, and in arranging the week's events, some of my friends (mostly from Pixar) mentioned that they were planning a sushi night. The initial idea had been to take a train to Tsukiji, the famous fish market.
Unfortunately, that's about an hour away, and while Tsukiji is totally worth going to at 5am to see the tuna auction or 7am to eat the proceeds of the tuna auction, in the evening you'll be eating the same fish there that you will in any other restaurant in the greater Tokyo area. So I decided to cast about for a good choice in the Yokohama area. As one does in this new century, I posted on my Facebook that I was looking for a sushi restaurant in Yokohama.
And as happens in this virtual networked world, a friend who lives in Palo Alto California piped up, "well, my friend was born and raised in Yokohama and they recommend Hatsuyoshi-zushi."
That looked like the most promising of the recommendations, and the group had grown to 9 by now, so I called to put in a reservation. Luckily, they could still take the group, and even give us a private room. But then they asked, "Will you be doing a course?" In Japan, it's very common to have a course (set) menu for any group larger than 4 or 5. "Well," I asked carefully, "how much do the courses run?" (one must always be careful talking too explicitly about money here). "Our cheapest course is 7000 yen" came the reply.
Hmm, that's probably more than most of my companions had banked on. But hey, they're visiting Japan, right? "Sure," I said, "we'll take the course."
As always with SIGGRAPH or SIGGRAPH Asia, the day was chaotic and there was some fluctation in the group. Patrick Lin out, a couple other friends in -- we ended up at 10 people. I warned everybody about the course price, which everybody took in stride. We split into 3 taxis, I made sure all the taxi drivers knew where we were going, and off we went.
Well, actually, almost all the taxi drivers knew where we were going. The first two drivers knew exactly where Hatsuyoshi-zushi was (as we were to gather, it's an institution), but our driver in the third cab had no idea, as a result of which he did the most blatant red-light-running I've ever seen in Japan to keep up with the first two cabs. I was seriously wishing I had buckled my seat belt earlier...
Anyway, we all got to Hatsuyoshi without incident and found it to be a old-ish Japanese building. The first-timers in Japan were quite fascinating with the red-light district (love hotel and something that looked to be a soapland) across the street, but we corralled them into the restaurant.
Indeed we got a private room. Hatsuyoshi was a perfect experience for the visitors, in that it was very Japanese-style (tatami mat room with a low table made from one gigantic piece of wood, sliding doors) and yet it isn't fancy -- as I said, many many Japanese businessmen had spent happy evenings there before us, it was very nice but not all pristine and prissy. It also was fun because we were the only foreigners in the place.
We settled down and the first drama started. One of our group loves sashimi and sushi but has a shellfish allergy (allergy with a capital A, as in, he carries an EpiPen at all times). Fortunately, he had the foresight to have a friend write out a card in Japanese explaining exactly what his condition was. For those of you not from Japan, restaurants here are really not used to dealing with food preferences or restrictions of any kind, so when I first explained it to the waitress (who was very efficient, consistent with the fact it looked like she had worked there for 40 years), she got very flustered and insisted there was nothing they could do. I tried to explain that he was happy to eat fish, just not shellfish, but between the general lack of experience with this sort of thing and the fact that the words don't work the same way they do in English, it dramafied. Eventually she said she would need to check with the chef -- at which point it suddently became a non-issue (presumably the chef read the card and said, "oh, OK"). In the end, I think he ended up getting an even better mail than the rest of us, which is saying something.
Once that drama had played out, we got a yummy tataki appetizer and our toriaezu-biiru ("toriaezu biiru" means "First of all, I'll have a beer" and is sort of the default response to the question, "What would you like to drink?"). We were settling in to wait when it happened.
They opened up the sliding doors to their maximum width and brought in not one but two giant one-meter-across platters covered with sashimi.
One meter across. Covered. with. sashimi. Two. of. them. Topping off each platter was a giant lobster (really, it's not a lobster, it's a huge shrimp properly called ise-ebi, which was a word I learned that night) that had had the rear shell removed to reveal the tail meat... and which was still wriggling it's antenna a little bit, meaning it had alive in the kitchen when they started making our platters. They take this fresh food idea seriously.
And it's not like this was cheap-ass sashimi, either. It was a feast. Even for me it was the first time to eat ise-ebi that way, and it was really very good). The rest of the plate was covered with stacks and stacks of tai, maguro, hamachi, tako, ika... Unlike tako (octopus) in the US, which I find rubbery and tasteless, the tako here in Japan is delicious -- as was the ika (squid).
Our shellfish-challenged member -- lest the two meter-wide platters be insufficient -- got a separate plate of fish sashimi only, which included several things we didn't get.
OK, this was a Really Good Thing. So, ten foreigners were doing their best to make their way through all the fish (bad night for mercury content), and it looked like we had a good chance to finish it (except for the compressed loaves of herring roe, which produced reactions ranging from "eh" to "bleh"). And then came... the broiled tai (snapper) heads.
While most things in a sushi restaurant will of course be raw, the head of the tai is often broiled like this, and is considered a real delicacy, including the fat surrounding the eye (no need to eat the eyeball itself, the lens is hard). These tai heads certainly lived up to the reputation, they were absolutely delicious. Well, that made for another eating challenge, to work on the tai heads while finishing off the sashimi. At this point, they had cleared away the ise-ebi carcasses, so the sashimi platters were looking less imposing.
That's when they brought in the second round of broiled tai heads (I don't think this was on purpose, they probably just couldn't get all 10 ready at once). Although, I swear, we ended up getting more than 10 tai heads total between the two rounds. We were now seriously worried that we might not finish everything, but we certainly wanted to keep going because the tai heads were so good.
Oh. And then they brought in the miso soup, which was made from the remains of the ise-ebi they had taken out of the room a few minutes before. Nice touch! Miso soup had the benefit of not being too filling and providing needed water (we were continuing to drink beer and/or sake throughout the meal).
I was starting to get a bit worried. Although I had specified the 7000 yen course when making the reservation, once we arrived they hasn't asked about anything. There was a seriously large quantity of food on the table, and I was wondering whether this was really the entry-level course.
As I was pondering that, they brought two 18" or so platters filled with sushi.
We were all seriously in shock at this point. Especially after the miso (miso soup is often a final course in Japan), we thought we would be done (and we would have been full). But no, now we had two platter of sushi to work on -- and again, the sushi was almost all nigiri (only 2-3 rolls), and was delicious, and included chu-toro. And, our shellfish-challenged member again got his own separate fish-only sushi assortment.
Now I was seriously worried about exactly what course we were getting. We kept doing our best to work down the sashimi, the tai heads, and the sushi, but seriously even 10 foreigners could not finish completely any one of the three. I felt pretty bad about that, because it was all great (unfortunately, not only do they not have a doggie bag tradition in Japan, sushi doesn't work out so well with that anyway...). We came very close to finishing each of the three, but there was still some left.
With some trepidation I asked for the check. The pre-meal calculations involved who had how much cash (like most restaurants in Japan, Hatsuyoshi takes only cash), so if we really were on some more expensive course, we might run short. And, of course, there was the non-trivial matter of all the beer and sake we had been drinking.
The check came. For 10 people, it was 70,000 yen -- exactly, precisely, 10 times 7000 yen. Not only was the massive amount of food covered under the 7000 yen course, that course was also nomihoudai (all-you-can-drink). At that point, this was an extraordinarily good value for a sushi meal here in Japan. Everyone stumbled out of the restaurant in a fish coma, amazed at the fantastic sashimi, sushi, and tai heads, and the incredible experience. We were talking about it all week.
Needless to say, I heartily recommend Hatsuyoshi for a group in Yokohama. I don't know what it would be like to eat there as 2 or 4 people, but it's certainly fantastic for a group. And -- get the course!
Neighborhood: Yokohama (near hinodecho) / 横浜（日ノ出町駅に近い）
Style: Sushi
Website: None but see for instance http://gourmet.livedoor.com/restaurant/17614/
Sorry for the very long post, but this was just an experience that needs writing about.
Last week was SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 down in Yokohama, and in arranging the week's events, some of my friends (mostly from Pixar) mentioned that they were planning a sushi night. The initial idea had been to take a train to Tsukiji, the famous fish market.
Unfortunately, that's about an hour away, and while Tsukiji is totally worth going to at 5am to see the tuna auction or 7am to eat the proceeds of the tuna auction, in the evening you'll be eating the same fish there that you will in any other restaurant in the greater Tokyo area. So I decided to cast about for a good choice in the Yokohama area. As one does in this new century, I posted on my Facebook that I was looking for a sushi restaurant in Yokohama.
And as happens in this virtual networked world, a friend who lives in Palo Alto California piped up, "well, my friend was born and raised in Yokohama and they recommend Hatsuyoshi-zushi."
That looked like the most promising of the recommendations, and the group had grown to 9 by now, so I called to put in a reservation. Luckily, they could still take the group, and even give us a private room. But then they asked, "Will you be doing a course?" In Japan, it's very common to have a course (set) menu for any group larger than 4 or 5. "Well," I asked carefully, "how much do the courses run?" (one must always be careful talking too explicitly about money here). "Our cheapest course is 7000 yen" came the reply.
Hmm, that's probably more than most of my companions had banked on. But hey, they're visiting Japan, right? "Sure," I said, "we'll take the course."
As always with SIGGRAPH or SIGGRAPH Asia, the day was chaotic and there was some fluctation in the group. Patrick Lin out, a couple other friends in -- we ended up at 10 people. I warned everybody about the course price, which everybody took in stride. We split into 3 taxis, I made sure all the taxi drivers knew where we were going, and off we went.
Well, actually, almost all the taxi drivers knew where we were going. The first two drivers knew exactly where Hatsuyoshi-zushi was (as we were to gather, it's an institution), but our driver in the third cab had no idea, as a result of which he did the most blatant red-light-running I've ever seen in Japan to keep up with the first two cabs. I was seriously wishing I had buckled my seat belt earlier...
Anyway, we all got to Hatsuyoshi without incident and found it to be a old-ish Japanese building. The first-timers in Japan were quite fascinating with the red-light district (love hotel and something that looked to be a soapland) across the street, but we corralled them into the restaurant.
Indeed we got a private room. Hatsuyoshi was a perfect experience for the visitors, in that it was very Japanese-style (tatami mat room with a low table made from one gigantic piece of wood, sliding doors) and yet it isn't fancy -- as I said, many many Japanese businessmen had spent happy evenings there before us, it was very nice but not all pristine and prissy. It also was fun because we were the only foreigners in the place.
We settled down and the first drama started. One of our group loves sashimi and sushi but has a shellfish allergy (allergy with a capital A, as in, he carries an EpiPen at all times). Fortunately, he had the foresight to have a friend write out a card in Japanese explaining exactly what his condition was. For those of you not from Japan, restaurants here are really not used to dealing with food preferences or restrictions of any kind, so when I first explained it to the waitress (who was very efficient, consistent with the fact it looked like she had worked there for 40 years), she got very flustered and insisted there was nothing they could do. I tried to explain that he was happy to eat fish, just not shellfish, but between the general lack of experience with this sort of thing and the fact that the words don't work the same way they do in English, it dramafied. Eventually she said she would need to check with the chef -- at which point it suddently became a non-issue (presumably the chef read the card and said, "oh, OK"). In the end, I think he ended up getting an even better mail than the rest of us, which is saying something.
Once that drama had played out, we got a yummy tataki appetizer and our toriaezu-biiru ("toriaezu biiru" means "First of all, I'll have a beer" and is sort of the default response to the question, "What would you like to drink?"). We were settling in to wait when it happened.
They opened up the sliding doors to their maximum width and brought in not one but two giant one-meter-across platters covered with sashimi.
One meter across. Covered. with. sashimi. Two. of. them. Topping off each platter was a giant lobster (really, it's not a lobster, it's a huge shrimp properly called ise-ebi, which was a word I learned that night) that had had the rear shell removed to reveal the tail meat... and which was still wriggling it's antenna a little bit, meaning it had alive in the kitchen when they started making our platters. They take this fresh food idea seriously.
And it's not like this was cheap-ass sashimi, either. It was a feast. Even for me it was the first time to eat ise-ebi that way, and it was really very good). The rest of the plate was covered with stacks and stacks of tai, maguro, hamachi, tako, ika... Unlike tako (octopus) in the US, which I find rubbery and tasteless, the tako here in Japan is delicious -- as was the ika (squid).
Our shellfish-challenged member -- lest the two meter-wide platters be insufficient -- got a separate plate of fish sashimi only, which included several things we didn't get.
OK, this was a Really Good Thing. So, ten foreigners were doing their best to make their way through all the fish (bad night for mercury content), and it looked like we had a good chance to finish it (except for the compressed loaves of herring roe, which produced reactions ranging from "eh" to "bleh"). And then came... the broiled tai (snapper) heads.
 | The platter is so thick, and the servings of sashimi so big, it's hard to get a sense of how much food this was. Look at the pitcher of beer for scale refrence. We had already been eating for quite some time by now. |
| From SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 | |
While most things in a sushi restaurant will of course be raw, the head of the tai is often broiled like this, and is considered a real delicacy, including the fat surrounding the eye (no need to eat the eyeball itself, the lens is hard). These tai heads certainly lived up to the reputation, they were absolutely delicious. Well, that made for another eating challenge, to work on the tai heads while finishing off the sashimi. At this point, they had cleared away the ise-ebi carcasses, so the sashimi platters were looking less imposing.
That's when they brought in the second round of broiled tai heads (I don't think this was on purpose, they probably just couldn't get all 10 ready at once). Although, I swear, we ended up getting more than 10 tai heads total between the two rounds. We were now seriously worried that we might not finish everything, but we certainly wanted to keep going because the tai heads were so good.
Oh. And then they brought in the miso soup, which was made from the remains of the ise-ebi they had taken out of the room a few minutes before. Nice touch! Miso soup had the benefit of not being too filling and providing needed water (we were continuing to drink beer and/or sake throughout the meal).
I was starting to get a bit worried. Although I had specified the 7000 yen course when making the reservation, once we arrived they hasn't asked about anything. There was a seriously large quantity of food on the table, and I was wondering whether this was really the entry-level course.
As I was pondering that, they brought two 18" or so platters filled with sushi.
We were all seriously in shock at this point. Especially after the miso (miso soup is often a final course in Japan), we thought we would be done (and we would have been full). But no, now we had two platter of sushi to work on -- and again, the sushi was almost all nigiri (only 2-3 rolls), and was delicious, and included chu-toro. And, our shellfish-challenged member again got his own separate fish-only sushi assortment.
Now I was seriously worried about exactly what course we were getting. We kept doing our best to work down the sashimi, the tai heads, and the sushi, but seriously even 10 foreigners could not finish completely any one of the three. I felt pretty bad about that, because it was all great (unfortunately, not only do they not have a doggie bag tradition in Japan, sushi doesn't work out so well with that anyway...). We came very close to finishing each of the three, but there was still some left.
With some trepidation I asked for the check. The pre-meal calculations involved who had how much cash (like most restaurants in Japan, Hatsuyoshi takes only cash), so if we really were on some more expensive course, we might run short. And, of course, there was the non-trivial matter of all the beer and sake we had been drinking.
The check came. For 10 people, it was 70,000 yen -- exactly, precisely, 10 times 7000 yen. Not only was the massive amount of food covered under the 7000 yen course, that course was also nomihoudai (all-you-can-drink). At that point, this was an extraordinarily good value for a sushi meal here in Japan. Everyone stumbled out of the restaurant in a fish coma, amazed at the fantastic sashimi, sushi, and tai heads, and the incredible experience. We were talking about it all week.
Needless to say, I heartily recommend Hatsuyoshi for a group in Yokohama. I don't know what it would be like to eat there as 2 or 4 people, but it's certainly fantastic for a group. And -- get the course!
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