12:56pm, The Tintin Shop Tokyo (タンタンショップ東京店), Omotesandō Dori (表参道口), Harajuku (原宿).
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Archives for posts with tag: Tokyo
10:22am, the Tokyo Metro Line 4 Marunouchi Line (東京地下鉄丸ノ4号線丸ノ内線), the lifeline for this trip, connecting Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station (新宿御苑前駅) to everywhere else. Last year, it was the JR East Yamanote Line (JR東日本山手線).
1:11pm, PANCAKE DAYs (パンケーキディズ) in Harajuku (原宿). Found this restaurant while lost in the back lanes of Harajuku looking for a particular cafe.
Pancakes for boys and girls big and little. Who can resist pancakes with smiley faces?
Everything here is meant to put a smile on your face.
Just look at that coat of cheese. How did it taste? Awesome.
With pancakes swimming in our stomachs, we stepped out of PANCAKE DAYs only to find the damn cafe we had spent an hour looking for next door…
12:16pm, Fukutoshin Line. Modernity meets tradition.
7:22pm, dinner with Kazutoshi. Shimazu Shabu-shabu (黒豚しゃぶしゃぶ 島津), Shinjuku 3-chome (新宿三丁目).
Kazu-san excelled in Arts during his high school days, hence the pretty arrangement.
Feeling adventurous, we gave horse meat a try. The only thing I can say after trying is “Twaaang…”
2:48pm, Ueno Station (上野駅).
3:26pm, clouds straight out of the opening credits of The Simpsons.
4:06pm, Ameyoko (アメ横).
The Ameyoko mascot. Told you they had a mascot for everything…
1:42pm. Chanced upon this ramen restaurant, Hirugao (ひるがお) , while walking around Tokyo Station (東京駅). It is one of the four renowned names in ramen that make up the Tokyo Ramen Street (東京ラーメンストリー) in First Avenue Tokyo Station (東京駅一番街), a three-floor commercial and retail establishment linked to Tokyo Station via the Yaesu (八重洲) east exit.
Hirugao (ひるがお) hails from Setagaya (世田谷), and specializes in shio ramen. The small prawn on the egg was a nice, dainty touch.
It’s pretty unusual for ramen noodles to have such visible wheat grains.
12:03am, Yakiniku soba at a humble eatery in Shinjuku. Perfect for a midnight craving.
10:08pm, Cat Cafe Calico, Shinjuku, home to 25 cats.
12:24pm, Shinjuku 3-chome.
1:04pm, Shinjuku Southern Terrace (新宿サザンテラス).
4:38pm. The same place, a year later.
9:21pm, a ramen stall outside the Nishi-Shinjuku exit.
9:32pm. Shinjuku Station East South Exit.
7:27pm, kaitenzushi in Shinjuku.
12:28pm, lunch at WIRED CAFE, Shinjuku Mitsukoshi ALCOTT (新宿三越アルコット). Took two hours out of the day’s schedule to prepare a director’s treatment for a potential project. Tetanus’s vacationus interruptus.
This shot was taken with my iPhone 4.
9:27pm, Sakuragichō Station (桜木町駅).
7:15pm, onwards to the ramen! The Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum features nine ramen restaurants hailing from areas all over Japan known for ramen: Sapporo (札幌), Asahikawa (旭川), Fukushima (福島), Tōkyō (東京), Yokohama (横浜), Wakayama (和歌山), Hakata (博多), and Kumamoto (熊本).
Ganjya (頑者) from Kawagoe (川越), Saitama (埼玉県).
The signature of Ganjya‘s chilled tsuke-men (dipping ramen) are its thick noodles and fish-based soup. The soup is a brew of pork bones, chicken, boiled and dried bonito fish, cooked over 10 hours. The taste of the pork reminds me—and I say this without any disrespect—of Tulip canned meat, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Komurasaki (こむらさき) from Kumamoto (熊本市), one of the two areas in Kyūshū (九州) known for ramen, the other being Hakata (博多).
This is typical tonkotsu ramen served with a liberal sprinkling of roasted garlic chips.
About
34, male and very Cancerian. Often irascible, even if he is prescient to his emotions. Lives for the resonance of beautiful passages, cinematic magic and aural bliss. Dabbles in fiction writing, photography, sketching and daydreaming in his free time, even though he is paid to do just those in a professional capacity.
He is, in other words, quite a geek.
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