Some things I ate recently, Japan

I’ve recently come to see these occasional ramblings as more of a journal than a blog, meaning I feel it is more important to write regularly rather than trying to craft more considered and interesting narratives. Don’t get me wrong, making it interesting is still important, but my hope is to put a greater emphasis on volume, at least in the short term.

This greed to write mirrors my current greed to eat. I am counting down my final weeks in Tokyo before a long-mooted return to less tastier shores. With the creeping realization that my proximity to the world’s best food in Japan is time limited, my inner greedy child has been unleashed and I now feel like I am on a mad supermarket sweep style dash to eat it all before I am relegated back to the real world.

Uni from the supermarket casually dumped on a weeknight dinner at home. Why not? Ditto dessert on weekday lunches, and other, more questionable, life choices like using it as an excuse to “try” Japanese KFC just in case it is different… Like I said, this is about volume, not quality.

Despite having a spectacularly poor memory, one thing I can do well is connect memories to meals, so here are a few things I most certainly don’t want to forget having experienced in what is unquestionably the world’s greatest food destination.

Sushi Toriton, Sapporo and Kaiten Sushi Ginza Onodera, Tokyo

Kaiten-style sushi, delivered on conveyor belts, isn’t typically associated with the best quality. More often than not, it is cheap and cheerful, stack ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap kinda stuff. In fairness, most places in Japan are still reasonable quality (because, well, Japan doesn’t really do low quality…at least by Western standards), but not exceptional.

There are, however, a few outliers. Sushi Toriton, which has a few branches Hokkaido’s capital of Sapporo, should be high up your list if ever you make it there. Much like Toyama off Japan’s West Coast, Hokkaido is known for its cold, deep, waters. And it turns out that tasty things like in cold, deep water. I have made two separate pilgrimages to Sushi Toriton and can advise only two things. First, go early as the queues are massive. Second, order everything even if you’re on a budget (US$25 a head will leave you rolling out, unable to walk, move or speak). The quality and variety of the fish and the incredibly reasonable prices belie the conveyor belt surroundings. On taste at least, I thought it couldn’t be beaten.

Then I went to Kaiten Sushi Ginza Onodera in the posh Omotesando district in Tokyo. Although the prices were significantly higher (c$30 a head for a medium sized scoffing), the quality bar was raised another notch. The emphasis here is more heavily placed on the choicer cuts, like toro (tuna), uni (sea urchin), ebi (prawns) and hotate (scallop) as well as other hard to get delicacies from the sea, which perhaps explains why it costs more and tastes better. Again, the queues are unreasonable, meaning we scoffed a meal between meals at 4pm, albeit with absolutely zero regret.

Sendaga-ya and Mokubaza, Tokyo

Sometimes chasing dishes which look good on Instagram is totally worth it. Like battling queues and boredom to get your hands on a serving of jiggly, fluffy souffle pancakes at A Happy Pancake or, even better, Micasadeco & Café. These are pleasures which, although made famous by their cute appearance, justify the investment.

But some are not. Mokubaza, which serves keema curry over rice, doused in cheese sauce and with an egg yolk placed artfully in top falls into this category. The cheese was hard, and got harder as it cooled. The curry was good but a little dry. So keen was I to satiate my FOMO, that we went mid-morning on a weekend to avoid the inevitable queues, having been unsuccessful previously when staring down the barrel of a 1.5 hour wait, which perhaps increased the heightened sense of disappointment.

But even that unfortunate previous occasion had yielded a good outcome, as it allowed me to indulge my increasing fascination with maze soba at the nearby Sendaga-ya. Much like the peak tsukemen years of 2016-2018, I had fallen hard for this dish of chewy, thick noodles. The premise is simple. Cooked, then cooled and drained noodles on the bottom, with various umami-laden toppings piled high on top. There is typically some kind of ground meat in a spicy sauce, veggies, pickles, seaweed, spring onion, bamboo and (as I later found out from an excellent food blog), a tablespoon or so of ground katsuobushi to add a crucial flavour bomb. All of this is topped with a single raw egg yolk. The diner then frantically mixes the noodles and toppings to create a delicious sauce to slick the noodles. It’s one of the few noodles dishes I can make to a reasonable standard at home, and regularly do so as a result.

Toriguchi, Tokyo

There are too many yakitori places in Tokyo to try, although god knows I intend to give it a good go. Yakitori is often described as a neighbourhood food, one you don’t travel for and usually find a few steps from home. Toriguchi is in Gotanda, so walking distance to home, but judging by the tourists from Hong Kong seated next to us, it is worth travelling for.

The style here was very juicy chicken, with very light seasoning. The tare was not overly sweet, thick or dark, and the salt lightly applied. The omakase menu they served alternated between shio (salt) and tare dressed chicken parts, with each being carefully set on a certain side of the plate by the chef to avoid mixing flavours. The man at the charcoal grill balked a little when we ordered extra of my favourite liver skewers, but the embarrassment was totally worth it for a few bites of the silky smooth offal.

As I go deeper into the yakitori rabbithole (chickenhole?!) I realise that subtle differences in bird, seasoning and preparation can make a huge difference as to the final product. Every place has their own style and their own taste, even if it is all grilled chicken on sticks. Toriguchi is a very very solid option, but I still feel the need to continue searching for the perfect example of what might be my favourite Japanese cuisine. Done, done, on to the next one.

翔太のうどん, Gujohachiman

A road trip around rural Gifu is one of those pleasingly random but rewarding activities that Japan seems to excel at. There is always a fun rest stop with omiyage to browse, or perhaps even a small onsen to dip your tired feet into. There is generally a small, inviting town with enough shops and historical stuff to wander and snack in for a couple of hours between meals, like Mino, where we shopped for Japanese washi paper and ate a couple of nice ham cutlets on the street outside the butcher’s shop which sold them.

Gujohachiman held similar promise, with its small wooden houses and cute stream running through it, but the problem was that it was absolutely pissing down and we didn’t really want to get out of the car. A bit of frantic googling led is to 翔太のうどん, an udon shop on the main road, where we could run to from a nearby carpark whilst avoiding most of the biblical rain.

Like a lot of things in Japan, a product of necessity created a pleasant and welcome surprise. As well as the traditional handmade udon in broth, this shop also did a side in western-inspired udon dishes. We had the udon carbonara and a separate mentaiko butter udon, which were both out of this world. As with a lot of Japanese dishes, the addition of a raw egg yolk on top to mix in gave the sauces depth and silkiness, and the chew of the noodles made them satisfying and warming. It’s one of those dishes you can do a decent job of replicating at home, but the extra care and attention of the professionals here sends it over the top.

At some point I will cease to be amazed at the way you can simply stumble on world class food in the most unsuspecting of locations in Japan, but that time isn’t just yet.

L’As, Tokyo

Arguably this warrants a longer post, but sometimes it is good to sketch out the idea before diving deep on it. L’As is famed for its reasonably priced set menus of French food with Japanese ingredients. At barely US$50 a head for high end cuisine and service, it is a bargain. And it is spectacular. The constant on the menu is the foie gras sandwich, served in a wrapper like a little ice cream sandwich. Otherwise, it is a constantly changing multi-course menu with many more hits than misses. My only regret is not returning more often to see how their menus evolve with the seasons, while knowing that the quality bar will remain forever high.