These are all pics from my actual birthday. I hadn’t realized that what would change when I turned 34 was that I would gain the ability to be invisible. Kind of excited about it. I haven’t mastered it quite yet, but I think it will come in handy at some point this year.
Bamboo Shoots. So good grilled! This was a secret little family spot off a side street of Shibuya. Vegetarian to recover from all the meat in Korea.
That’s Tuna jaw! So tender, just falls off the bone.
One of my favorite things is the intimacy of the restaurants in Tokyo. More often than not, they seat less than 15 people total.
Without a doubt the coolest thing in all of Tokyo.
There are two rival Rockabillie gangs – the Lebels and the Strangers. They set up every Sunday on the edge of the park with their own boomboxes and they dance. That’s it – they just dance. They aren’t very good, but their energy and commitment is beyond reproach. The rival gangs don’t talk to each other, and they have very different aesthetics while remaining within the Rockabilly sensibility. Oh, and by the way, if anyone in the audience tries to dance along with them, at least 1-2 of the gang members will stop dancing, and walk over to the perpetrator and get right in their face and start yelling at them and bumping chests – there will be no mocking or funny business with these guys. All business.
Eggplant, chicken, rice.
Dinner in Nakameguro with Q and Mauri. This is a place where you actually cook your own food – and it requires a ton of skill. Luckily we had Q with us. This dish is egg, bacon, and dried fish flakes on top. Super tasty. I noticed that the Japanese couple next to us didn’t have such a master chef and so their’s turned out runny eggs and gross. Thanks Q!
Grilled rice balls with soy sauce. These were amazing and the last dish in a meal which Mauri and I both agree was top 5 of lives! We’re not going to share the location because we don’t want it spoiled by a bunch of foreigners being there…
This is a typical control panel for a toilet in Tokyo. This one happens to be from my apartment, but in general nearly every public toilet has a corresponding panel such as this. There are buttons for lifting the seats – awesome! There are buttons for heating the seats – awesome! There are buttons for the toilet to make a humming noise so that your neighbors can’t hear you on the toilet – weird! There are also about 50 other buttons I can’t figure out what they do, and I haven’t been brave enough to sit on the toilet and test them out. I’ll leave that for the next adventurer…
Really interesting meal.
Process: First, you actually buy your meal from a vending machine at the doorway. The machine doesn’t actually give you the food, but instead prints a ticket – movie ticket style – which you then sit at the U shaped counter and give your ticket to the big guy who runs up and down inside the U to take your ticket to the kitchen and about 1 minute later brings you a tray of whatever you ordered.
Food: That is a raw egg. You crack it open, add soy sauce and spicy spices (alliteration!) and then pour over your meat (don’t ask what kind!) and rice bowl. It actually tastes quite good. Then, the other bowl is filled with a minced meat (again, don’t ask about quality) and some udon noodles. You also get free cold green tea (very smoky flavor).
Overall: The meal was especially good for a slight hangover. The entire purpose of the service is to facilitate speed, so no one talks in this restaurant and it is head’s down slurping and eating. We were in and out in 15 minutes max.
Fun
