staple diet

Our last meals in Tokyo were the most traditional. For dinner, we met up with good friend David and his wife Shima who we met for the first time. Dave & Shima took us to the sushi restaurant on top of of Shibuya 109, quite a popular place for young Tokyoites.

When Dave asked where we wanted dinner, I told him I wanted to go to a cheap but good kaiten sushi, where Dave & Shima took us was a new-style sushi restaurant, Shitsune (Level 8, Shibuya 109, 2-29-1 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, ph +81 3-3477-5111).

The ordering process was most interesting, we were given a few sheets of paper containing a list of sushi dishes and we wrote how many number of plates of the dishes we wanted. So, instead of the dishes going around in conveyor belts, our sushi dishes were "made-to-order". And each of our dishes were incredibly delicious, we kept ordering and ordering and ordering and between the 4 of us we probable ate more than 100 pieces of sushi.

Of course it was fantastic to catch up with Dave and meet his wife, and we happily recounted old war (kendo) stories as well as keeping up on what has been happening since Dave moved to Tokyo.

The next day, Dr Malc had to go to work, so I was left to do some sight-seeing and omiyage shopping. After a trip to Burberry in Ginza to procure the goods my friends asked me to get for them, I went back to Ebisu and explored the neighborhood. I was absolutely thrilled to find the Tokyo shop of Maison Martin Margiela and did some hip designer clothes browsing.

Further on, on the same street was a small ramen shop, Yottekoya Ramen (2-3-15 Minami Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, ph +81 3 5725 1030). Since it was past lunch time I went in for some food. And, when my bowl of chashumen arrived, it was absolutely heavenly. Instead of just plain dry roasted pork, what rested on the bowl were freshly grilled, marinated pieces of pork. The broth was thick and full-flavoured. Lastly, the ramen noodles, which was thinner than the ones we get in Sydney, was perfectly al dente (if ramen noodles can be described as al dente). Wow!