Japanese food is delicious. I didn’t realize how delicious until this trip. So much more than sushi and ramen – the food is varied with traditional dishes like miso soup, outside influences like gyoza (originally from China), curry (India) and tonkatsu (US), and wonderful ingredients like fresh wasabi, miso paste, burdock root, etc. 

Tokyo was our first taste of Japan and what a splendid one it was. Three days of new and interesting flavors and textures in restaurants, markets and tiny food stalls. Back in March, we met a woman named Maria at a friend’s wedding and found out she lives in Tokyo with her Japanese husband. She was unfortunately state-side for our trip, but we were able to meet up with her husband Masa on our first night in Tokyo.

We started in Memory Alley which is a narrow street filled with even narrower food stalls all serving up yakitori – grilled meat on a stick. We shoved our way into a tiny room and ordered a bunch of items – chicken skins, pork belly, mushrooms, etc. All delicious.

Next we went to a slightly larger spot for ramen and gyoza. Yum!

Then it was on to Golden Gai, an extensive grid of the tiniest bars you will ever see in your life. No exaggeration – they seat about 8-10 and to get to the back of the bar, everyone already inside had to get out to let us in. Whew. 

We all enjoyed Japanese whisky as I fought back my mild claustrophobia. Great first night and so glad we were able to meet and hang out with Masa!

Saturday was breakfast by our hotel at a cafe. Lunch was at Ramen Street, in the lower level of Tokyo Station. You order all ramen at a machine, then present your receipt and are seated for your meal. A neat idea, but in this instance the menu had no English and I found the broth to be a little too smoked-fishy for me. Sean loved it and I wish I had, too. Oh well – there would be more ramen! 😉

I’m planning to do a entire post on our omakase but I will say that we had Maria and Masa help us get the reservation. This is their sushi place and they don’t generally serve tourists without a local referral. The restaurant seated 11 and we sat up at the bar. No plates – the sushi is set directly on the counter. We had many incredible bites but I would say the Toro (medium fatty tuna, pictured below) and the Uni (sea urchin) were my favorites. The sushi rice was also the very best I’ve ever had. 

Sushi chef at work!

Beer vending machines are everywhere! Japan is open-carry so walking on the street with a beer is no big deal – actually, it’s quite common.

After our architecture tour on Sunday, we had tea and pineapple cakes in a building that looked like a treehouse with some of our fellow tour group. The cakes are made in Taiwan with specially-grown pineapples and they were SO GOOD!

Our architecture tour guide invited us to have lunch with him at a local food truck park. Lots of fusion going on here with inventive dishes and blends. He set his bag down at a table with his laptop and informed us it would be safe while we went to get food. “No one will bother it. Welcome to Tokyo,” he said. WOW. So impressive.

Fried chicken + yuzu “sandwich” with crispy rice as the bun.

Chicken wings with a yuzu-flavored rub and burdock root fries. I immediately loved the burdock root – a cross between a green bean and a potato as far as texture, with a slightly peppery flavor.

For dinner on Sunday night, our last night in Tokyo, we went to an izakaya by our hotel. Izakayas are restaurants that serve many different kinds of dishes – a contrast to the majority of Japanese restaurants that focus on one type of food or style of food.

We had a tofu-yuzu (yuzu is a Japanese citrus that is often compared to lemon, but is sweeter) appetizer that was light and slightly sweet. Then we had seared mackerel sushi rolls, grilled chicken, and seared whale. Yes, we ate whale. It’s the red meat in the photo below. Since whale is a mammal, it’s not fishy at all – very lean and more like venison or elk. Unique experience!

Monday morning we went straight to the Tsujiki Fish Market. We walked through the actual market, watching them cut, pack and move an abundance of fish and shellfish. Amazing place. 

The market is surrounded by streets filled with food stalls selling all types of fresh foods from sushi to grilled seafood on a stick to raw oyster on the half shell to mochi (a Japanese dessert usually filled with a sweetened bean paste or custard).

We started with a custard-filled mochi then had tamago, a Japanese omelette, followed by toro and otoro (medium fatty and fatties tuna, respectively) that made #2 on my list of the best things I ate in 2017. Eel on a stick was next, then a stop in a small restaurant for bowls of uni (sea urchin), maguro (tuna), and chopped otoro over rice with green tea.

We walked after that and looked in shops, picking up some sesame cracker snacks, dried mushrooms to take home for the in-laws, an assortment of mochi for the road, and a small hand towel.

Our food tour finished with an oyster on the half-shell each, grilled hamachi (yellowtail) on a stick for me and grilled clams on a stick for Sean, and some coffee. Yes, this was all breakfast. The most memorable breakfast EVER!!!

Are you convinced to go to Tokyo for food now? Trust me, it’s amazing and truly has something for everyone. It’s not just sushi. 🙂