Dragon Red River – 43 points

Based on banter with the lads over a number of lunches, we are slowly amassing what have come to be universal rules with respect to eating in the Big Mikan.  Today, as a result of some rather heated discussion at lunchtime, I would like to share some universal truths about eating in this town.

 

• Rule 1 – the bigger the building the lesser the deal

• Rule 2 – don’t eat the meat at a vegetarian joint

• Rule 3 – if you could get married there, don’t eat there

• Rule 4 – the better the view, the bigger the disappointment

Rule 1 is a universal truth.  I mean has anyone ever gone to a mall expecting a good meal.  The same with large office complexes, the ones in this town usually have a variety of restaurants at the bottom, but usually they are over-priced and sub-quality compared to what you could get a stones throw away.  Our excuse for breaching this rule today was simply that the rain was so heavy we were prepared to take a disappointing lunch to save getting wet (a true gourmet cop out if there ever was one). 

 

Rule 2 is also pretty obvious.  If you want a good pizza, don’t go to a French restaurant.  It is so tempting when visiting a restaurant that specialises in one type of food that just happens to have your favourite food listed at the bottom of the others section in the menu to order.  Don’t.  In fact don’t even order items at the bottom of the menu (unless it is a bottle of wine, I am with you and you are paying).  Menus are like supermarket shelves, the bottom is where the put the shit that they don’t want to you to see, let alone order.  It is the restauranters wanting to say we have 50 choices on the menu, but really we are only good at a few of them.

 

Rule 3 is perhaps more of a Japanese thing.  The big fancy restaurants are often used as venues for wedding parties, which every one knows are hugely disappointing life sapping events for the poor bloke paying for it.  Why guys spend a huge amount of money to curtain their freedom and spend the rest of their lives with a woman who is only going to get older and wrinklier is beyond me.  And true to the spirit of disappointment that is the wedding, wedding venues always disappoint, the food is never enough, it never comes out properly cooked (is it unreasonable to want food at a temperature slightly higher than the optimal breading temperature for e-coli?), there is never enough booze, and it is always, always completely overpriced.

 

Rule 4 – this is one from RB as a result of a few disappointing experiences in Rome.  Nonetheless one both Flying and I agree with.  He did have a good recommendation for a McDonalds near the Parthenon in Rome though if anyone needs a suggestion for that great town.

 

The food:  I breached two of the rules today and suffered as a result.  Given the pouring rain, we ate in the large mixed office/retail complex we call home (and others call Suck Arse or Suckers depending on their accents).  I also chose from the bottom of the menu, fried rice with a spicy chicken cutlet on top.  It was shit.  The rice was flavourless, poorly cooked and with nothing more than a bit of egg in it.  The chicken cutlet was dry, greasy and similarly flavourless.  RB and Flying did however say that their beef and green pepper dish was OK (not brilliant, but OK).  15 points.

 

The price: 1,200 yen for a lunch in a flash new building is not overpriced per say, it is just that people should generally avoid flash new buildings as places to eat.  At least it is better in terms of value than the Chinese restaurant on the floor above, which I looks as if it might be the type of restaurant that could be used for a wedding reception . 5 points.

 

The volume:  The cutlet was big enough that even if I do feel a bit queasy, I am not hungry. 10 points.

 

The extras:  Rather average soup and a smallish plate of bean sprouts to share.  8 points.

 

Bonus: 5 points for not getting wet is about it.  The coffee we had afterwards, with a heart mark drawn into it by a lovely with a big smile behind the counter did make up for it though.  A generous plug for Espressamente Illy here, not only do their employees smile better than those at *$s but they serve coffee as opposed to coffee flavoured fluffy milk. 5 points.

 

The details: 1Fl Akasaka Biz Tower, 5-3-1 Akasaka, Minato-ku

Phone 03-5545-6335

Web site: http://www.kiwa-group.co.jp/restaurant/a100394.html

 

Yu no Daidokoro – 67 points

Today had a Chinese theme.  I ventured into a Taiwanese massage place.  I always had a rather dubious image of these places, especially given the rather extreme marketing I am subjected to when I leave the office late a night – there is a limit to the number of tokubetsu kimochi ii masa-ji that one can be offered without wanting to resort to physical violence.  At least this ‘hood is not as bad as the Pong, the touts for the girly bars are not yet here in force.

 

So anyway, having always had a somewhat sceptical view of what may be on offer in a place billing itself as a ‘Taiwanese/Chinese Massage Store’ I had never stepped into one, until today.  A week or so back, I had lugged Little Trouble around most of north London and a result of walking miles and miles with her on my shoulders had managed to put my back out a bit.  Big Trouble suggested that as a sign of appreciation she would take me to a massage place which she visits on occasion and swears is legit.  So off we went.

 

Feeling a bit out of my comfort zone (the idea of some one about to walk on my back being the main reason), we entered into a Taiwanese massage place on Hitotsugi-doori, which I must admit was not a all together unpleasant experience.  I did ensure however that the curtain between my booth and Big Trouble’s was left open just to make sure that I was not molested in any way.

 

So having been sufficiently walked on and kneaded in various not unpleasant ways, Big Trouble and I decided to maintain the Chinese theme and went for Chinese noodles for lunch.

 

The noodles:  Yu no Daidokoro specialises in noodles that are cut off a large lump of dough directly in a boiling pot of water.  They were very good, sort of like a rough cut udon, not quite in the league of my current favourite noodles – okutone udon, but very close, firm to the bite, but with enough slipperiness to make them slide down your throat.  They also had just the right level of absorbency to pick up the soup 24 points.

 

The soup:  We both ordered the tantanmen, which is meant to be spicy, it was not.  This was not a problem however as they had a jar full of chilli-sauce to add to the soup so that the punters could craft their own level of spiciness.  I liked this approach, so many places use chilli to hide the fact that their soup has no underlying flavour, this place did not.  The soup was a rich meaty broth and after a few spoonfuls of the chilli paste had the required heat. 23 points.

 

The extras:  A small plate of three different dumplings, all very tasty, and a mango pudding.  All that was missing was a coffee.  10 points.

 

Bonus: 10 points for the chef not using his arm as a cutting board.  When I suggested this place, Big Trouble was a little worried as she heard that it was standard practice for the chef to put the dough on his arm and then carve away at it with a knife, the result of which is that some of the noodles end up with a bit of human hair in them.  No worries at this place, they used a wooden board to place the dough on (although I probably would not have noticed and given that the noodles are boiled, I am sure they would be sterile enough).  10 points.

 

The details: B1 West Akasaka Building, 3-19-8 Akasaka, Minato-ku

Phone 03 3583 8688

Web site: http://r.gnavi.co.jp/a955400/

 

Ongane – 89 points

After the disappointment of yesterday’s Star, RB said that he wanted a proper meal, one that left him satisfied.  With this in mind and a reluctance to take any risks, we went to an old favourite, the bibimba place.

 

How this place came to be known as the bibimba place is rather unclear, given that none of us have ever ordered bibimba there, but is probably due to us having never bothered to learn the name of the place.  When thinking about what I was going to say about the greatest Korean restaurant in Akasaka, I asked RB if he knew the name of the place.  Given that we have both been coming here at least a couple of times a month for more than four years, this should be a given, but low and behold neither of us did. 

 

This is rather embarrassing given that every time we come in the lovely lady running the place brings us a bowl full of the greatest cucumber pickles and doesn’t even bother asking what we would like, but just asks if we would like a small or large size, but then perhaps when a restaurant knows you that well, you don’t need names.  And I bet that even though the lady behind the counter may know our faces, our orders and our deep appreciation for her cucumber pickles – she probably doesn’t know our names either.

 

The food:  Whilst there are a number of dishes on the menu that look rather tasty, I have only ever had one dish at this place – the ishiyaki karubi don.  This is a great meal, one of Akasaka’s finest, a bowl of rice, with meat, chilli paste and a raw egg on top.  Not just any bowl however, a stone bowl that has been heated to white-hot temperatures.  The contents are then mixed up and smeared all over the sides to form crispy rice bits, a sort of Asian pork crackling if you like.  32 points.

 

The price:  950 yen for a normal size, 1,050 yen for a large size, but either or, I always leave the place feeling satisfied. 8 points.

 

The volume:  More than enough, the only loss of points is that we never seem to get as many of the cucumber pickles as we would like, but that is a minor gripe given that we would probably eat the place out of any profit if we were able to get out fill of them. 12 points.

 

The extras:  A bowl of slightly peppery flavoured soup, which whilst not offensive doesn’t do a huge amount for me, a jug of roast corn (I think) tea, some standard daikon kimchi and the best cucumber pickles I have ever come across.  The cucumbers are pickled in a mixture of chilli, sesame oil and various other secret ingredients (or at least ingredients that I have not been able to identify) and are superb – flavoursome, perfect texture of slightly pickled yet still crisp to the bite with a bit of chilli warmth but not an overbearing hear.  13 points.

 

Bonus: Almost full points, for remembering us, remembering our order and always bringing us extra cucumber pickles, the only reason that full points were not scored was due to the fact that the cucumber pickles come off the menu in winter (too expensive apparently). 18 points.

 

The details: 1Floor, MT Bldg, 3-6-13 Akasaka, Minato-ku

Phone 03 5570 9442

 

Star Kebab House – 17 points

Is not a star.  It is a simple as this.  The only point of merit here was that they managed to reach an all time low of 17 points on this fountain of wisdom that the lads are behind.  This place should rename itself the No-Star Kebab House.  Which is rather sad, given that along with five daily servings of green vegetables, kebabs are one of life’s essential food groupings; especially when one has been primed with 12 pints of larger.  Perhaps that may be the reason why I though that this place was no good, i.e. I was not drunk and every other time I have had Turkish (i.e. a kebab), I was starving and pished.

 

The place offers a 1,000 yen lunch buffet – which alone seems to be one of those offers that appear to be going for maximum points.  But alas the buffet at the kebab house did not have any kebabs on offer.  What it did have was some rather uninspired meat in a sauce that apart from being slimy didn’t taste of much. 

 

The food:  Harry and I braved it and went for the buffet.  It was a bad choice, mince, chicken and mixed vegetables in a rather bland slime.  I was going to say that it was not bad, just tasteless, but given the way I felt after I left, it was pretty bad.  RB and Lapp insisted that given the place was a kebab house they would have a kebab, which must have confused the guy as I think that no one ever orders off the a-la-carte menu at lunch but just braves the buffet.  The most entertaining part of a-la-carte set menu was that it purportedly came with a side of salad and pilaf.  The waiter went promptly to the buffet table dumped some lettuce in a bowl and gave it to them.  I am sure you could have also sorts of debates about what constitutes a salad, but a bowl of lettuce does not, it is a bowl of lettuce.  Even better was the pilaf, which the new source of all knowledge, wikipedia, defines as “dish in which a grain, such as rice or cracked wheat, is browned in oil, and then cooked in a seasoned broth. Depending on the local cuisine it may also contain a variety of meat and vegetables”.  So instead of preparing some fantastic rice dish, the waiter goes to the rice cooker at the buffet table, puts some rice in a bowl and sprinkles some salt on it.  This was frankly taking the piss.  5 points.

 

The price:  1,000 for a lunch buffet is cheap, but then I would want to be paid to eat here again. 5 points.

 

The volume:  A buffet should score maximum points here, but this was a place where the food was so bad, you would not want to eat enough to get full. 7 points.

 

The extras:  Were shite.  There was a soup, straight of a tin, as well as a desert, fruit, straight out of a tin.  0 points.

 

Bonus: No bonus for the unforgivable sin of serving soup and fruit directly from a tin.  That is not cooking, in the case of the soup, that is simply reheating, and in the case of the fruit that is simply knowing how to operate a tin opener.  If a restaurant can’t even make the smallest attempt at cooking, it should close down and reopen as a supermarket. 0 points.

 

The details: 4^th Floor Akasaka Sangyo Bldg, 2-17-74 Akasaka, Minato-ku

Phone 03 6229 2868

Web site: http://www.starkebabhouse.com

Yoi-no-Kuchi – 78 points

Today was a beautiful late summer day in Tokyo.  The sun was shinning and the breeze has the cooling feel of autumn on it.  All in all a perfect day for sitting outside and having a couple of beers watching the afternoon slowly turn to dusk. Unfortunately given that this was a Tuesday and not one of the many public holidays that September in Tokyo gives us, our options were limited to a dry lunch, which hopefully would not take longer than an hour. 

 

So off we walked.  We walked down the road, turned up another road we had not explored much and saw a nice looking old Japanese building.  And just as the warm sun and cooling breezes had foreshadowed, today was to be a good day (at least in terms of lunch).

 

The food:  Only three choices on the lunch menu; yakitori-don, oyako-don and fried chicken in a mustard sauce, of which the yakitori-don was sold out.  I like this, a restaurant that specialises in one thing, in this case chicken, knows its thing and does it well.  Simplicity at its best, no attempts to match foods, which don’t match, no attempts to show off, nothing fancy, just the basics done well.  So simple, but so many places forget this basic principle.  We all went for the fried chicken and it was done perfectly, crisp freshly cooked flavoursome thigh meat with a tangy, but not over-powering mustard sauce.  It was accompanied by refreshing shredded vegetable salad, which went every well with the fried dish, a subtle light chicken based clear soup and very good rice.  Perfect.  35 points.

 

The price:  1,000 yen for a very tasty lunch in a nice location – can’t complain. 8 points.

 

The volume:  There was a fair amount of chicken and plenty of rice.  So much so that Harry left some of the chicken, which RB promptly devoured before wondering whether he could get any more rice. 12 points.

 

The extras:  The soup, which was very tasty and a small serving of pickles (too overloaded with takuan for my taste).  8 points.

 

Bonus:  Lovely old building that centred around a courtyard with a very lush garden.  What made it even better was instead of a perfectly manicured Japanese garden that one would expect in an area where a pin head worth of land is probably worth more than all the land in a medium sized city back in God’s Own, the garden was a rather overgrown unkempt affair.  I kind of liked it, it even gave us a conversation point. 15 points.

 

The details: 4-3-29 Akasaka, Minato-ku

Phone 03 5575 7433

Yasube Ramen – 27 points

There are some superb combinations in the food world; pears and gorgonzola; raw fish and rice; bacon and brown sauce; fish and chips.  But there are also some that just don’t work.  Some chefs will try and show off by combining the unusual, but most of the time this just doesn’t work.  Unless you are one of those very few genius chefs who has the creativity to pull it off, stick to basic rules, one of which is that meat and fish generally don’t go well together.  There are obvious reasons why cows don’t swim and tuna aren’t often seen on green pastures, one of which is they don’t get on well.  I mean, has anyone ever seen Daisy and Nemo having a pint together down the local?  No, they are not mates, not meant to be mates and will probably never be mates.  It doesn’t mean that they are not jolly nice in their own respects, but it just means that they don’t go well together.

 

Yasube Ramen is one of those new school ramen joints, which is a bit too much about showing off instead of doing things properly.  Their first mistake, which is an appalling schoolboy mistake, is to have a fish base stock for their soup with a generous amount of pork fat in it.  This is just not going to work.  You can picture the process of how the soup was developed – some high ego show-off young ramen guy gets a bunch of adoring lackies together and shows off his soup with the unexpected combination of pork and fish.  None of the lackies have the guts to say there is a reason why this combination hasn’t been done before and that is because it is a really bad idea.  Young ramen ego then thinks he is brilliant and finds some backer who doesn’t know the first thing about ramen to poor (<- deliberate spelling mistake) a bunch of his hard earned cash into the venture.

 

I admit that my view of this place is probably not in line with the mainstream view.  Perhaps my lack of appreciation and understanding for this great food means that I cannot truly appreciate it.  But I thought it was shite.  The place is very popular though, there was a queue when I went there at 2:00 and the place seems to be pretty popular in the ramen rankings so I may have got it all wrong.  Probably as a result of my being a hard in my ways cynical old git.  Next year fish and meat may be all the thing.  Imagine it, oysters in your hamburger, steak with octopus sauce; show-off meals for overpaid executives of sea urchin on foie gras – or perhaps maybe not.

 

The noodles:  Not the right noodles for the soup.  With a tsukemen the noodles need to be such that they can capture the sauce, which these ones were not that good at doing.  Also, they lacked much in the way of shine.  Not bad per say, but just not that good.  10 points.

 

The soup:  My first zero.  Sorry it was never going to work.  It was a bad idea from the start and no addition of miso or chillies or whatever is likely to make it better.  Go back to the drawing board, start again and prepare a new soup.  If the soup isn’t right, a ramen store is never going to work. 0 points.

 

The toppings:  The pork in the soup was OK, not much else to write home about though.  7 points.

 

Bonus: Nice interior, the gyoza were OK. 10 points.

 

The details: 6-3-19 Akasaka, Minato-ku

Phone 03 3505 4211

Web site: http://www.yasubee.com/index.html

 

Asterix – 93 points

The Gaul.  An old favourite and rightly so.  This place does by far and away the best pepper sauce to ever grace a hunk of dead flesh. The guy ruling the stove is an old surly bloke, who always appears to be in a cow of a mood and regularly abuses his staff in the foulest French a non-native has ever spoken.  There is a tendency of a lot of French restaurants to adopt the typical Gaul service style, i.e. rude, unhelpful and generally not the sort of people you want to sit down and have a pint with.  This is annoying in France, but even worse here as you always get the feeling that if the waiter was in any other restaurant, he would be formal and polite as expected.  At the Gaul however, the guy behind the counter really does appear to be a grumpy old git; he can probably get away with it because the food is so good.

 

The food:  Fantastic.  The steak is great, it is better than great, it is a force surhumaine that goes well beyond la potin magique.  The menu consists of two options, an A course for 1,500 yen and a B course for 2,000 yen.  Both courses have 3 or so options as a starter, 3 options as a main and a desert plate that contains more calories than a grown man needs for a week.  I have visited a number of times, and almost always have the steak, but the lamb there is also very good.  37 points.

 

The price:  For what you get, a bargain. 8 points.

 

The volume:  Only 1 point lost for its ability to induce sleep about half an hour after eating. 14 points.

 

The extras:  A coffee and Tokyo’s best lunch desert place.  14 points.

 

Bonus.  Full bonus points because I always leave this place happy.  This is a place to look forward to, a Friday lunch to celebrate the end of the week, the sort of lunch that if you had more than once a week (or year perhaps) you would keel over with a heart attack.  20 points.

 

The details: 6-3-16 Akasaka, Minato-ku

Phone 03 5561 0980