lambretta76

I prefer just to drink green tea and water with good sushi. With bad sushi, it's straight shochu, soju, vodka, Everclear - whatever's on hand to kill anything that might be in the fish...

I don't believe there are any restaurants serving this food (though we should petition the museum down on Lower Broadway to do so), but someone mentioned that America: The Restaurant in the Flatiron has Navajo Fry Bread. I seem to think somewhere else was doing a fancy version of this, too - maybe 5 Ninth?

While in Tokyo, or - to be more precise - Nakano, I had the tsukemen at Taishoken (大勝軒), as recommended by Hiroyuki. According to him, "Taishoken at Nakano is where Yamagishi was trained and invented tsukemen." It was the first, and only tsukemen I've ever had, but it was quite tasty. I got the vegetable one, which had quite a healthy serving of pork in it, but many more vegetables than my friend, who ordered the pork one. Great broth, which was replenished halfway through the meal. I think it was 600 yen, if I'm not mistaken. Cool little restaurant about a five minute walk south of Nakano Station.

Here's those pics - from a place called Craighton's Grand Cafe in Shibuya. As you can see, you have your choice of three sauces to top your hot dogs with. BBQ, at least American-style BBQ, isn't that big in Japan...

Torakris - In all my rounds of onigiri roulette (I don't read a word of Japanese) I never encountered such a beautiful thing. Best - spicy tuna with mayo. Worst - natto, cucumber, and mustard. On a side note, I really wanted to like natto. Really. You get so much more respect in Japanese restaurants here in the states if you order a little natto. BUt man, I've never had anything attack my gag reflex like this before. I had to chug green tea just to get it down. (I did impress the sushi chef at this particular place, though, as I smiled through my pain and chugged the tea when his back was turned.) I have fonder memories of the bugs I ate in South Korea!

Also on Lawrence is Justin's Trinidadian and Guyanese Cuisine - great roti and daily specials. (skip the pre-fried doubles and phalourie) There's also a small Jamaican joint on Bridge Street that makes good to very good jerk pork, something you don't find too often...

At one point - you were able to order hand rolls from the sushi chefs. These were made to order and were defnitely the best of the bunch. (I don't know if this is the case anymore - I went the week they opened - upset that Empire Korea was no longer there...)

Of interest - while in Tokyo's Shibuya neighborhood - I noticed a cafe proudly serving Dinosaur BBQ sauces. On what - real BBQ in Tokyo? Not quite - it was being used as a topping for hot dogs. I'll have a picture later this week - it was described as a "Taste of New York!" Gotta give a picture to John Stage.

I can tell you that 05.06.23 means June 23, 2005 - the expiration date. The other part, no idea...

A little off-topic, but as good as any thread to ask this... What accounts for the brilliant orange coloring of the yolks in Japanese eggs? I've tried googling this but have perhaps used the wrong seacrh parameters. Anyways, I was shocked at how all of the yolks looked much more vibrant than their North American counterparts. Does it deal with the diet of particular hens, the particular strain of chickens, or what? And a third, even more off topic question. I had a black egg that I had assumed was going to be a "thousand year old egg" - however, it turned out to just be an onsen egg and, besides it's slightly sulphuric/mineral flavor, was really undistinguishable from a regular egg. DO the Japanese have a similar dish to thousand year eggs?

Who was the dessert chef? It wasn't Chika Tillman from ChikaLicious, was it?

I did have yuba in Kyoto as well, shredded in a side dish with small cubes of tofu (or a tofu like substance - it kind of tasted like the Chinese soy milk drink do-cheon) and these bizarre - for a lack of a better word - Japanese gnocchi. However, there wasn't really enough of it to get a good sense of what it was... I'll have to try some of the restaurants here in NYC that make their own yuba.

Mascarpone - I've been trying to find the business card for the place we went to, but I seem to have misplaced it. Anyways, the place we went to was along the main road going westward once you crossed the Shinkyo Bridge, about 1 km on the South side of the road. It was a a rather tacky looking place, with a gift shop on one side and an empty dining room on the other. However, after hiking and seeing the temples, we didn't have enough strength to make it back into town for food, so we decided to just go here as they had the kanji for yuba in the window. We sampled three of the area's "delicacies", according the waitress - yuba udon, sweetened yuba roll w/vegetables and peppers, and fried river shrimp. The yuba udon was exactly as expected, a fine bowl of udon w/ a roll of yuba in it. The sweetened yuba was interesting, especially as we were instructed to put the chirashi on it - it was a nice play of sweet and spicy. The fried river shrimps were exactly that - a bowl of about 100 half-inch long shrimps that were deep fried. Kind of like popping fishy, crunchy french fries, but weren't as good. I'd pass on these the next time. Sorry I couldn't try any of the recommendations from the board but we were too exhausted. (It was an absolutely beautiful day and we ended up walking WAY too much.) Our plans to stop in Utsonomiya for gyoza on the way back were also thwarted by our blistered feet. (I actually didn't have gyoza once on our trip - and I love them!) If I can find that card I'll scan it in (there wasn't any Romanji on the card.)

I just recently had the Kyushu-style ramen at Jangara Ramen in Tokyo. The stock is made with pig bones and is much more flavorful (to me, at least) than the more traditional and miso-based ramen stocks. Jangara is a chain, so there may be one out that way? (Though I'm sure someone in Kyushu does Kyushu-style ramen better than this chain.)

Thanks for all of your help - I'm off to Nagoya (Airport) in a few hours, but I won't be in Nagoya (City) for a couple of weeks. I will make it to a Furaibo - and I guess as long as it's good, that's all I will need.

I'm try to track down a great okonomiyaki restaurant in Kyoto. Are there any that stand out, with a bonus for one that would serve it with Kobe beef (I've heard a couple of them do).

Torakris had mentioned in an earlier post that "Furaibo is supposedly the store that created them...." - referring to tebasaki. Though I guess it is certainly possible to have sprung up as a multi-chain entity, I would think (or hope) that the original Furaibo is still around. If this is not the case, then the one closest to Nagoya Station would probably be the best one, then... (I didn't realize there were so many of them...) Thanks for your help, all of you!

I am unfortunately unable to read Japanese - this is the problem that I was coming across. As for the tuna auction - last time I was there I was able to see one and, well, I was underwhelmed. Sure, it was a flurry of business, but I was still more impressed with the varieties of fish available at the stalls than this. Thanks for your help, though!

Hiroyuki - Do you perhaps have the address of the izakaya Rakuichi Rakuza in romanji? I can't seem to find out what the address is other than: 岐阜市神田町9-15（トリタビルB1 Thanks in advance...

Does anyone have the address for the original Furaibo in Nagoya? I've found a map, but it's entirely in kanji.

Does anyone know of any online maps for finding the way around the above listed restaurants at Tsukiji? I'll probably go to Daiwa again, but in case it's TOO packed, I might try one of the others...

A friend and I are planning on working our way down the Golden Gai doing some eating and drinking one evening and were wondering what the better "foreigner-friendly" bars are. Everyone keeps mentioning La Jetee, Shadow, and J Fox R&R, though the food is supposedly best to be avoided at Shadow. I imagine that there are others out there doing something interesting. Also, do any of them serve any interesting regional cuisine, or is it just standard bar snacks...

I went there Saturday for a cup of coffee and pastry. I was surprised that from a man who spent hundreds of thousands on a stove that this place had a computerized espresso machine. That said, I opted for the coffee which was quite nice. (I believe it was Kubrick's, but is was brewed well.) My fiancee had a croissant, which was flaky and buttery, almost too much perhaps. But it was good, and we spent a couple of minutes picking up flakes with our fingertips. I had the lemon poppyseed muffin, which was dense with a strong, almost ricotta-like flavor. This, I felt, was magnificent. Neither the upstairs or the cellar were open, though they have a number of tables outside where one can enjoy their treats. Prices are a bit high, but fair - two coffees and two pastries came to just shy of $9.

I heard there were some outstanding - and huge - 100 yen shops in Tokyo - can anyone direct me to any - particularly to ones that would stock pottery and glassware (vases and table settings, preferably...) Many thanks!

So - it looks like I'm either going to shell out an arm and a leg or I'm going to go to some place that isn't all that good. I guess this is a style of food I'm going to have to pass on. Thanks, though!