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Sake Bars in Tokyo

Buri
1-14-1 Ebisu Nishi
Shibuya-ku
Details on Bento

Date of Last Visit: Tuesday, July 22

The Victim: Melinda, Claire, and a very nice girl whose name I forget. Sylvia maybe?

The Damage: Again, Monopoly money. I have no concept.

The Background: So while I'm doing my research about Tokyo, I come across this article in The Guardian. Buri sounds interesting, and after I read this too, I make a mental note to try to check it out while I'm in town.

I also figured that while I was in Tokyo, it would be fun to meet up with another blogger. Melinda of Tokyo through The Drinking Glass was kind enough to oblige. I meet her at Ebisu station Tuesday night and she leads me up and around and over the side streets until we enter a little bar.

A sake bar. A one-cup sake bar, specifically.

It's Buri. (Sorry for the slightly blurry photo. I was a little blurry myself!)

I excitedly show her my print-outs and how I had wanted to come here all along. It's all too coincidental...out of all the bars in Tokyo! She takes me here.   

Melinda has been to Buri before and written it up on her own Web site . As the bar editor for Bento, the English-language Tokyo restaurant- and bar-resource, Melinda has probably been to many bars. So I'm very very pleased that she's taken me here.

But I've been up since 3 a.m. for my Tsukiji tour. And I'm a little jet lagged. And I'm HOT. So after some grilled skewers of meat and vegetables and two great little cups of sake, I call it a night and head back to my hotel, where I proceed to sleep for 13 hours. (I would tell you what sake I had, but I gave my guidebooks to my friend Dave on my last night in Tokyo while we were at The New York Bar at The Park Hyatt, and I had the notes written on the first page of Time Out Tokyo. So Melinda, if you're reading this and can remember, please comment!)

Melinda has another sake recommendation for me before I leave Tokyo, and that's Hasegawa in Omotesando Hills, the luxury mall close to/in Harajuku.

Hasegawa
Jingumae 4-12-4
Omotesando Hills 3F
Details on Bento

I'm so excited to check out Hasegawa that I get there at 10:30 a.m. It doesn't really occur to me that they may not be open this early in the morning. They're not, and it's so HOT that I go back to my hotel to cool off for a bit before returning after lunch.

I enter Hasegawa and I love it already. It's tucked up on the 3rd floor of the mall, so there's not a lot of foot traffic. So if you've found Hasegawa, you're probably seeking it out. There's an older gentleman to my right intently reading all about sake. There are two gentlemen to my left who are in a very celebratory mood. And then there's me in the middle and the bartender, who speaks just enough English for me to order something dry and smooth first, and then something rich and fruity next.

Here's what I had...

I liked the first so much that I bought Dave a little bottle as a "Welcome to Japan" present.

The Verdict: I loved both Buri and Hasegawa. Huge thanks to Melinda.

May I experience many happy returns.

And may I ask...what's the closest I'll come to a sake bar in London?

 

Kids' Meals in Tokyo

Syun Hiroo
2F, Hiroo Complex
5-7-35, Hiroo, Shubuya-ku
Tokyo 150-0012
http://www.syun-hiroo.com
Details from Bento.com

Date of Last Visit: Wednesday, July 23

The Victims: Maki, Rio, and Risa

The Damage: I forget. It was all in Yen and you know it's like Monopoly money with all those zeros.

The Background: I'm in Tokyo! I meet up with Maki and the kids for lunch around the Hiroo Metro station. While I'm waiting for Maki, I take a spin through one of the most beautiful grocery stores I've ever been in. It's in the Hiroo mall right there by the Metro. I get the feeling I'm in a nice part of town, but to be honest, most of what I've seen of Tokyo at this point is nice. Clean. Neat.

The Restaurant: It's HOT outside. Syun Hiroo is cool. And quiet (although it's full). And nice. Organic too! Maki translates for me and I get the eel. Rio gets the kids' menu, and if there's ever been living proof that kids wll eat more than chicken fingers and spaghetti and chips, this is it.

I would have gladly eaten the kids' meal. I had to stop myself from eating Rio's leftovers. Look at the rice balls. The watermelon. The presentation! Rio is four years old and eats her salad! And her tofu. I know adults who wouldn't eat either of those things.

So it leaves me wondering...
A: Why don't American and English kids eat like this?
B: Why don't American and English adults eat lke this?
C: What's wrong with a little tofu?
D: Do you know of anywhere around town that has a kids' menu that does not include chicken strips or chips?

The Verdict: I really enjoyed my lunch here--photo of my eel dish below--and I will endeavor to have my future children eat like Rio ate.

Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo

Tokyo rocks. I can't wait to go back. I need to spend more time exploring Tsukiji. I got to the market last Tuesday morning at 3:40 a.m. to meet my Tsukiji tour guide, Mr. Nakamura. Mr Nakamura used to work at the market himself.

During the tour of the market, I saw frozen tuna...

And I saw fresh tuna.

And then I went to Dai Wa Sushi and had a superbly awesome breakfast. I would have taken more photos, but the staff weren't too keen on photo-taking. I squeezed in just this one.

In short, I would get up at 3 a.m. again to go tour Tokyo's Tsukiji Market and I would highly recommend Nakamura-san as your tour guide.

London Restaurant Blog Search Widget

Let's see if this works...In my previous post, I told you about the custom search engine I've created...the one that will help you search for London restaurant reviews across a number of blogs. I've taken that a step further and made a widget that you can embed into your own Web site...just click the Get Widget option at the bottom of the widget. This will give you the option to add the widget to Typepad, Blogger, iGoogle, anything really.

For this post, I used the option to directly embed the code, but note that because Typepad is a little fussy about Javascript, you'll have the best luck if you embed the code in the Edit HTML view--and save it within that view as well. You'll notice that you can't see the widget in the Compose POST WYSIWYG view.

Enjoy! For the bloggers who regularly write about London restaurants, may the widget bring you much traffic. For the bloggers who blog about other things, this is a neat way of introducing your visitors to new blogs.

London Restaurant Blog Search

So I've been playing around with some new tools and I went ahead and created a gadget that will search across all of the London food blogs out there for a particular restaurant you might be interested in. It's just a rough draft...I've got some more ideas for this puppy..and I know the list of blogs included isn't complete...

Custom Search

So the blogs that I included are these ones...
An American in London
Andy Hayler
Cheese & Biscuits
Dos Hermanos
Edible London
Eggs Bacon Chips & Beans
Food & Drink in London
London Review of Breakfasts
Londonelicious
Love London
Ripe London
Tasty Treats
World Foodie Guide

If you're sad you're not on the list, don't be. I can add you. All you need is a blog with unique and personal London restaurant reviews. (No press release spam, please!)

If your blog is mainly about something else, but you still have some regular restaurant reviews, I will add just your restaurant reviews. The restaurant content should be easily split-out-able from the rest of your content. So for example, Helen at World Foodie Guide has a blog about cooking and dining out. I don't want to include the recipes in my search engine, but I do want to include the restaurants. She has this page here, which makes it very easy for Google to just pull out the restaurant reveiew content.

So...give it a play and if you'd like to be added, use the Comments or shoot me an e-mail at kristainlondon at gmail dot com.

Fish & Farm San Francisco

Fish & Farm
339 Taylor Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
+1-415-474-FISH

Date of Last Visit: Saturday, July 19

The Victim: Kristin

The Damage: $31 each

The Background: I haven't seen Kristin in ages. Back around my 30th birthday in Chicago, she helped organize the best karaoke party ever. I do a good Pat Benetar. I've told Kristin I've been eating like it's going out of style, so something light and refreshing would be great. She suggests Fish & Farm.

Kristin's made the switch to San Fran from Chicago, where she works at a winery on the weekends. This is key because it means Kristin has access to a lot of wine. And in San Fran, you are allowed to bring your own wine to dinner. And if it's local, chances are you'll only pay a small corkage fee. We paid Fish & Farm $5. That's only £2.50! How cool is that? (Now there's an idea for the domestic U.K. wine industry...encourage London restaurants to offer a £5 corkage fee on domestic bottles.)

The Food: So I order some seafood chowder (overly salty), a green salad, and we split an order of chips with chilli mayo. Not exactly the lightest combo of options. The chips are great though.

The Service: Super friendly and nice.

The Odd Bit: There are two Japanese girls at the table next to me. The next day, I see them at the airport.

The Verdict: The chowder was just way too salty. Not my style.

Nob Hill Grille, San Francisco

Nob Hill Grille
969 Hyde St
San Francisco, CA 94109
+ 1 415-474-5985

Date of Last Visit: Friday, 18 July 2008

The Victims: Blair, and Blair's girlfriend, whose name is so totally escaping me!

The Damage: $35 USD each

The Background: A long time ago when I lived in Chicago, my friend Bryan worked with this girl who had a reputation for being high maintence. She had a boyfriend named Blair that I met a few times. So this one day a few years later, I'm sitting around in grad school and I'm talking to this guy Blair and I'm thinking "You look VERY familiar."

And it turns out that it's the same Blair. Funny how life works.

Well now it's ages later and I'm in San Fran for BlogHer '08 so we make plans to meet up for dinner.

After some very decent cocktails at my hotel, we head over to Nob Hill Grille. We take a taxi, and it costs about $7 with tip. So firstly, I feel insanely wealthy in the U.S. Secondly, the restaurant really wasn't THAT far, and when I think about how far I made Melia walk the other night...well...

The Entrance: The Nob Hill Grille is empty up front when we arrive, but has a decent crowd in the back. It strikes me as a neighborhood place with a good crowd of regulars. Our server is young and very enthusiastic. She confidently walks us through all of the specials and her particular favorites. Sometimes I fall in love with America all over again.

The Food: We get spinach and artichoke dip to start and a wave of homesickness hits me. God how I've missed this stuff. It's really hard for me to stop eating it.

I order the scallops as a main and golly if they're not the hugest scallops I've seen in a long time. It's a generous serving. I sorta want to ask if the scallops are from a box that's from Vietnam, but I hold my tongue. The unfortunate part is that the scallops are served with a sh*tload of tomatoes. And I just can't eat tomatoes in huge quantities like this. 

The Bad Part: I am so wobbly from jet lag, I keep losing my train of thought. I think I hid it well though.

The Verdict: The Nob Hill Grill is nice. I guess that's like me describing a guy I don't want to date.

Canteen, San Francisco

Canteen
817 Sutter St
San Francisco, CA 94109
United States
+1 415-928-8870

Date of Last Visit: Thursday, 17 July 2008

The Victim: Me

The Damage: $50 USD

The Background: I'm in San Francisco for BlogHer 2008, the conference for women bloggers. I'm dying of jet lag, but I've refused to let myself fall asleep and have booked myself into Canteen for dinner, a place that's supposedly great for solo dining. My San Fran friends are all very impressed that I was able to finagle a booking.

The Entrance: Canteen IS great for solo dining. There's a counter with about seven stools, and then there are four (maybe five) small booths. The staff are really friendly and welcoming and Californian. I'm pleased. Oh yes, and they're playing Cat Power. Old Cat Power. I love Cat Power.

The Food: It's a short and concise menu. I start with the halibut gravlax which is very cooling...this would have been great if it had been 80 degrees Fahrenheit outside. It has to be about 55. I'm serious. (12 Celsius.) Still, it's a nice dish and very well-presented. I proceed to the pork schnitzel, which is comforting and done in Japanese panko--only one of my favorite things ever--and it comes with a soft-boiled egg on the side. It's a generous serving (if haphazardly so), which is good because I haven't eaten since about 9 a.m. California time. (Saving myself for dinner!) I round it all off with a hazelnut chocolate mousse...I should have had the vanilla souffle. The mousse was too soupy for me.

The Camaraderie: Everyone is a solo diner at Canteen. I make friends with the two random strangers to my right. Curiously, we're all from Strong Island. This was nice and made me fall in love with America all over again. Americans are good about talking to random strangers.

The Verdict: I liked Canteen. It was good. And the service was truly excellent...knowledgeable and friendly.   

Kurz & Lang

Kurz & Lang
1 St. John Street
EC1M 4AA
Tel: 020 7993 2923

Date of Last Visit: 16 July 2007

The Victim: Me

The Damage: £5

The Background: I probably had too much Sauvignon Blanc on Wednesday night. I had, as always, the best of intentions. Go home early. Maybe run 3 miles. But then we went to the garden at the top of Coq d'Argent and the sun came out and one bottle of sauvignon blanc turned into another.

And they refused to feed us out in the garden. We needed to go inside. I didn't want to go inside. The sun was out!

So instead, I drank on an empty stomach and went to Kurz & Lang on my way home. And I had a frankfurter. I've been to Kurz & Lang before and it was a less than memorable experience. I had the worst currywurst I've ever had in my entire life. And the most undercooked, coldest potatoes. So I wasn't so optimistic.

When I ordered my frankfruter, they attempted to put it in a naked, cold, and doughy bun. I wouldn't let them, I forced them to toast it for me.

The Verdict: So my frankfurter was okay. But I think I need to eat a lot of frankfurters all within a short period of time to determine where this frankfurter fits in the universe of frankfurters.

Story Deli

Story Deli
91 Brick Lane (entrance on Dray Walk)
E1 6QL
Tel: 020 7247 3137

Date of Last Visit: Sunday, July 13

The Victim: Molly

The Damage: £13 each or thereabouts

The Background: Back when I was in college, my friend DeeDee and I (among others) spent a year at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, drinking beer and eating Schnitzel and pretzels.

DeeDee's friend Molly has just moved to London, so Deed asked me if I could show her around town a bit. We did the usual loop around Spitalfields and then wandered through Brick Lane, stopping at Story Deli for some pizza.

£11 pizza. This seems like a lot.

Interestingly, at 2 p.m. on a Sunday, Story Deli has a bouncer. A big one. But we liked him because he kicked some beer-drinking thugs away from the outdoor tables and got us two seats.

The Food: The pizza at Story Deli is served on something that's a bit more doughy that Sardinian Carta di Musica, but a lot less doughy that bread. It's very crispy. This was odd at first, but I got used to it. My pizza was chorizo and rocket...that's it there in the picture. When I was done with it, I felt like I had eaten a lot of snacks--like breadsticks and some chorizo slices and some buffala mozzerella, but I was still hungry.

The Verdict: I thought this was just okay. I'm not dying to go back. Plus, I felt like my purse would get stolen and at least one homeless person bothered us and someone else asked us to give money to charity. Not while I'm eating, please.