Stomachs on legs are proud to present

I can't help getting sucked into Muji on my few but every visit to Tokyo.




And can't stop worshiping bouncy udon with the just-right garnish and dipping sauce.


It's a texture-pleasure.

I am not sure why sanuki-style udon is not winning the world recognition, yet, like sushi. I gobbled sushi too but didn't dare taking pictures when I was sat at the counter facing the serious sushi man. If I had blond hair, maybe I would have felt foreign enough to do so...

Sorry for bad quality pictures... it was very dark and my camera sucked.

Brown rice & veggie nigiri:


Also, tofu quiche.


Both from Gaya-Aoyama, Tokyo.

I've been there in good old days when they were still a regular (i.e., not claiming "organic") izakaya.

It was a pleasant surprise when they turned into a healthy beige food capital.

They actually have both strictly macrobiotic veggie and non-veggie menus, so it's actually quite handy. A good variety of shochu and sake too.

You can also smile at the Japangrish introduction:

Since The GAYA restaurant originated in Yoyogi-uehara in Jun.28 1987,we've been struggling for our wishes that all guests get full of vitality and more healthy day and night．We've been branching out having hope to offer Delicious cuisine,Good drink, and Pleasant talk.

What is the TRUE TASTY?
What is real necessary for vitality of guests?

Since mad cow disease problem occured,we've thought of safety of food seriously and considered what our restaurant should be like.In truth,we had made an effort to purchase ingredients as low price as possible and hardly thought about the environment in which vegetables and meat grew.We started to concidered the importance of food deeply and we must change the stance of our restaurant.

We resolved to try opening up ORGANIC IZAKAYA!!

“All dishes the guests have build their bodies．”We'll always keep this in our mind and decided all ingredients and seasonings are natural. We call this “REAL FOOD".
Please have dishes,drink happily and laugh heartily．
Both a healthy mind and healthy body are true vitality．All of us try as hard as possible to help all guests with their vitality from now on.

My favorite line... What is the TRUE TASTY?

I am not sure if Maytel is ready for this.


A colloidal and humble sibling of okonomiyaki is called monja-yaki.

While okonomiyaki is more of Osaka-origin (western Japan) and has a Hiroshima (southwestern Japan) variant, monja-yaki is of downtown Tokyo (eastern Japan)-origin.

Similar ingredients (shredded cabbage, flour, dashi broth, plus some extra meat, seafood, veggies etc.), but more watery.


Due to its high water content, it never solidifies.

You first fry the cabbage on the griddle, then make a cabbage circle weir, then pour the watery flour-mix ingredients in the middle. The batter is so watery that without the cabbage weir, it won't stay on the griddle.

When it's cooked it has a consistency of slime.


When done, you eat it with the special small metal scraper, directly from the griddle.


I know what you might be thinking.

It pretty much looks like puke.

As a matter of fact, the very first time I ate monja-yaki when I was a kid, I puked later in the evening, and thought it's not that different.

Okonomiyaki and monja-yaki, those flour batter food originates back in the postwar days in Japan. Having been bombed throughout the country, the rice was scarse, so people made something with flour that came in the aid package, mostly from the U.S.

Speaking of monja-yaki, there has not been much ingredient other than flour, water and a bit of chopped cabbage and seasonings.

Small candy shops would have a small griddle out on the street, and kids would come holding their wee pennies. They'd play with the batter by drawing letters on the griddle, thus the name monja-yaki (coming from moji=letter and yaki=fry).

Today it has become a lot more lux, some monja-yaki restaurants even throw in Norwegian salmon.

Tsukishima is famous for having their shopping arcade filled with fifty or more of these monja-yaki restaurants that it's often referred to as "monja street."

There may be some competitions, but when one place is full, impatient customers would go to another two doors down, so all in all it's not that ferocious. The problem is, once you are done with monja-yaki and want to move onto something else, you are surrounded by fifty other restaurants that serve the same thing.

The monja-yaki restaurants close somewhat early, most of them closing well before 10pm.

Another downtown monja-yaki enclave is found in tourist-friendly Asakusa, but unlike the monja street in Tsukishima, the restaurants there are more scattered.

It's a bit early to start thinking about winter goodies, but since Maytel and Hock asked for restaurant suggestions in Tokyo in October... here I'm throwing my two cents.

If you'll be visiting Tokyo during the cold months, and have a taste for good seafood, monkfish steamboat at Hotei-san is my recommendation.

Hotei-san is located in good ol' downtown Tokyo, just fifteen minutes walk away from the world famous Tsukiji fish market.

When you make a reservation (a must, because they are usually fully booked during the season), you just tell them the headcounts.
Once you are seated on the day of reservation, it just starts!
They only have one menu, which is sashimi and monkfish steamboat course.

They'll first give you all the big cuts of sashimi plate with heaps of uni (sea urchin roe) and some starters including their lovely sesame-arrowroot tofu (drinks are separate):
Needless to mention the sublime quality of sashimi given the proximity to the Tsukiji fish market.


Then the huge steamboat of monkfish cooked right in front of you in a clay pot:

The orange stuff is the huge load of monkfish liver, which some people refer to as "ocean foie gras". They load it on top of the pile of monkfish meat, guts (which is considered even tastier than its meat) and vegetables and give you a chance to taste it raw before they put the lid on and cook it all up. Apparently it is not a very gout-friendly food.

After you eat and eat and eat and eat, they'll finish you up by throwing rice into the broth to make a rice conge. By the time you happily leave the table, you are about to burst.

It's a lot of food, so go hungry, by all means.

It's very local, if you don't speak Japanese, have your hotel help you make a reservation unless you have a Japanese-speaking friend helping you out.

Hotei-san
3-9-7 Tsukishima, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
03-3531-5200
Three-minuts walk from Tsukishima subway station, in the Tsukishima shopping archade (also famous for tons of gooey cabbage pancake restaurants).
Open 17:30 to 22:30 during October to March (they are also open during non-monkfish season for something else).
Closed on Sundays and national holidays.
Approx. 5,000 yen/person for the sashimi/monkfish steamboat course, drinks separate.
Reservation (from two people up) is mandatory.

Hock is taking his annual leave shortly, so we are off to NYC and Tokyo for two weeks in early October.

We have an enormous eating list for NYC, including WD-50, Shake Shack, Katz and other deli's, Hill Country BBQ, Cafe Habana and so on and so on and so on....

But where to eat in Tokyo? We are staying in Asakusa at Ryokan Sadachiyo

Tips? Recommendations?

#1: Hersey Kiss in a Humpty-Dumpty position... near the Niagara Falls.



#2: Upside-down ice cream on cone in Cologne.



#3: The infamous "beer foam" on top of Asahi Beer headquarter building in Tokyo.


... or more popularly known as "unko biru (building)."
(unko means... well, excrement in Japanese).

We all made fun of this monument when it came out... it just looks like golden unko.

Believe it or not, it is designed by Philippe Stark.

We all wondered what came across the designer's mind... the legend is that it was originally meant to be installed upright, and was supposed be "flamme d'or," golden flame, but due to some building restriction laws it had to be installed horizontally.

If you take one of those tempura-frying restaurant boats on the Sumida river, you will cruise by this unko building.