Leaving Tokyo - Karuizawa

Buckle up, this is a long one.

We woke up at 9 AM, a compromise between leaving early and sleeping in a bit, and got ready for our trip. Most of the packing was done, so we just stuffed a couple additional items into our duffle and set out. At Shinjuku Station, we considered purchasing a JR Pass for V, but I thought we should just get to Tokyo Station first.  That may not have been the right choice.  Tokyo Station looks far on the map, but the express Chuo line gets there in about 15 minutes. At that point we were aiming for the 10:24 Shinkansen for Karuizawa. Little did we know that the JR offices in Tokyo Station are a complete mess.

Shinjuku has one main JR office that handles pretty much everything, so we could have just taken care of everything there. In Tokyo Station, we went through four different offices until we figured out how to purchase the JR East Special pass. Figures that the most small and nondescript office is the only one you can actually buy it in.

It was all worth it though since we casually asked for two and I was able to get one using my passport as well. You are only supposed to be able to get one using a tourist visa and I should have been ineligible.  Note: The JR East Pass and the JR Pass are different.  The JR East Pass can be purchased within the country; it is restricted to travel on the JR East lines and is significantly less expensive than the JR Pass.  Unfortunately, the promotion expires in November.

Using the JR Pass is the polar opposite of buying one. You just show the guard as you pass through the gate and he stamps today's date onto your pass. The Asami Shinkansen to Nagano didn't have reserved seats, so we were just able to pass (rush) through the gates and hop onto the 11:24 train.

We ended up leaving an hour later than planned, but saved a load of money. The train we got on was a super-express as well and only took an hour or so to get there.

The weather in Karuizawa was beautiful albeit a little chilly. Still, I was surprised that they managed to make snow at the resort. As soon as you get of the station, to your North there's the town and to the South there's a giant outlet mall. Celebrities are known to own summer houses in the area and its basically a huge weekend getaway town.

So we got there in the early afternoon with only a handful of hours until the sun went down. Fortunately, it was also Thanksgiving weekend and the outlet mall had some crazy Platinum sale and late hours. Our plan was to hit up everything that required it to be light out early, and then just spend the night shopping. Karuizawa has a handful of hotspots, but they're all pretty far apart. We'd read that renting a bike was the way to go, and there were plenty of options. We found a decently cheap shop in front of the station and got bikes for the day at 800 Yen apiece.

Our course of action was to head to our hotel, Hotel Firenze, drop off ours bags, and then be on our way. Hotel Firenze was located up the main street from the station. A bit of a walk, but not too bad on bikes. It's clean and has a quaint feel.  Well actually, most importantly it was cheap. The location is pretty decent as well as it's towards the main shopping district, but kind of in the middle of the area. Firenze ended up giving us some issues that evening, but I'll talk about that later.

First real stop of the day was Kawakami-an for lunch. V discovered this establishment, famous for one of Karuizawa's famous foods, soba. We know that soba is a big deal there since we saw a soba shop everywhere we looked. Karuizawa also has a lot of European options as well. I think that in general, either because a lot of foreigners come to visit or because the town was founded by a Canadian missionary, Karuizawa has a much more western feel than the rest of Japan.

We started out lunch with tri-color tofu. The dark one is a sesame tofu, another one of them was firm tofu, and I forget what the last flavor was. Super clean taste and really good. I've always liked tofu but I think I've come to appreciate it a lot more now after eating it with just soy sauce all the time.

Since it was cold out, I went with the hot soba. Really good tempura, really good soba, not quite amazing.

The star of the show was V's fried oyster soba. Not only were the oysters remarkable, but the zarusoba was the best I've had so far. Kawakami-an is one of those restaurants that uses organic, locally-grown ingredients and then lets the ingredients shine in simple and fresh preparations. Damn good. Everyone in the store was eating the zarusoba and although the warm one hit a spot, the cold soba is significantly better.

Kawakami-an is actually located in this three way intersection with restaurants and gift stores lining the sides. We hopped back on our bikes and checked out a couple of Hello Kitty items (maybe not a couple) before moving on. Our first sightseeing stop was the Karuizawa Ginza, which is not like Ginza at all... It is actually one of the streets leading out of the aforementioned intersection, a brick-road shopping district, and flush with little boutiques that are mostly sell crafty type items and foods.

Our objective that first day wasn't to check out all the stores. We wanted to take in all the sights after it got too dark out after all. That didn't stop us from stopping by this cow store.

I know my eyes are closed in that picture, but just look at how content I am with Cow. I forgot the name of the cow store, but they had coffee and milk ice cream. We couldn't help ourselves:

Very good, but personally only the second best ice cream I had in Karuizawa; more on that later. What is it with Karuizawa and ice cream anyway? So, we continued up the Karuizawa Ginza hill, window shopping and heading to the famed tennis courts. Biked up the hill all the way to a bridge and a small church where the first settler of Karuizawa, Alexander Croft Shaw, has his bust encased in bronze. We had clearly gone a little far and had to ask an ojii-san where to find the tennis courts.  Turned out they were right around the corner.

Too bad they were also under construction. That didn't stop me from sneaking onto the grounds where the current emperor met the empress (the first not of nobility). Romantic, right? I thought so as I stood there surrounded by piles of dirt.

Our plan had been to climb the hill up to an observation point. We reached a checkpoint at which we had to get off our bikes. Our concierge had told us it would take us 45 mins to climb the slope, but after 25 minutes and no end in sight, we just turned around. One of the better decisions we made all day. It was a nice little stroll though; Karuizawa is quite scenic and is certainly a welcome vacation from the metropolis. V especially enjoyed the countryside.  I'm not sure I know who I married anymore.

Going downhill was super easy and we stopped briefly by a popular small church. This little guy here is a favorite wedding destination for the rich since well, there aren't that many churches in Japan. So we stood where many famous people had undoubtedly tied the knot and we snapped a photo.

V snapped another photo as I tried in vain to ring the bell.

Our second to last stop of the day was the old Mikasa Hotel. The road to the hotel was long and uphill. Starting to notice a pattern here. The 2-3 km trip is lined with summer homes. A lot of the houses were clearly empty at this time of year but still huge and gorgeous. With all the leaves on the ground, people were doing seasonal maintenance by creating huge piles and burning them. We'd been smelling the incense like smoke all day and we finally figured it out when we saw a cloud in the middle of the street from this fire.

Is this really legal? I guess it has to be since everyone was doing it. Sounds like a huge fire hazard though.

The Mikasa Hotel operated from 1906 until 1970. The hotel is particularly special in this country as a Western style artifact. It was converted into a museum and we paid something like 400 Yen each to take a look. From the outside, it's quite pretty but the inside is a repetitive showroom of antiquated furniture. No really, it just looks kind of crappy and old.

Our last stop of the day was Kumoba Pond. We were making an effort to absorb nature and with all our zooming around we certainly took in plenty of the outdoors.

Zooom.

Kumoba Pond is also referred to as Swan Lake. It's pretty. We walked the path around the lake a little bit and soaked in the sunset. Too bad that with the sun going down, the temperature also started to plummet. That's an interesting thing about Karuizawa; it's at a significantly higher altitude than Tokyo and I don't think we were ready for the chill.

The ducks thought so too, as they bundled up. Did you know that ducks stick their bills into their feathers when it gets cold? I had never seen that before.  Do ducks even migrate in Japan? Why are there no swans and only ducks at Swan Lake? It's a mystery I tell you.  V was telling me to let them sleep and leave them alone.


Am I one to listen to my wife? Of course not. But let the record show that she was in fact the first one to touch one. I tried a couple times and missed before I managed to "pet" a duck.

It was about time we got around to returning our bikes, but first we had to track down a convenience store. Actually, we were specifically looking for a 7-11 since I can use their ATM for no fee. I'm really not sure how long it took us to find that goddamn 7-11 (a long time), but we dropped of the bikes exhausted and cold and only somewhat prepared to shop.

Sightseeing done, we had something like three hours to spend at the outlet mall. Too bad we were too tired to really take advantage of that time. We covered half of the mall and bought nothing. The sale was supposed to be pretty huge, but the biggest deals we found were sale items that no one else wanted for another 10% off.

I was a little excited to check out Stussy and the Bape Pirate Store. Didn't end up interested in anything though.  I'm still not totally sure how I feel about Bape. I only half like the style, and every time I try something on it feels ugly. You figure for something so expensive, they'd use quality fabrics but maybe they do and I don't know what I'm talking about. Regardless, I commiserated with this guy outside.


Tired and hungry we hit up the food court for some Japanese style fried chicken. Totally hit the spot. After hours of biking, you stop thinking about calories and buy things like the huge chocolate danish below. I ate pretty much that entire thing in two days. I may have biked for miles, but it's pretty much impossible to burn off that guy.

The trip from the station to the hotel seemed so much farther on foot and in the cold. We got back to our cute hotel exhausted. Spent the rest of the night watching TV, falling asleep, waking up, and messing around again before finally going to bed for real. Unfortunately, it ended up being a terrible night's rest for both of us for one humongous reason: memory-foam pillows. Why?!!! Why can't they just have normal pillows? I woke up with this god awful crick in my neck. Ugh. I guess we could have asked for other pillows but I still find those pillows indefensible. I've historically been intrigued by memory foam, but this experience has turns me into a hater. Never gonna get a memory foam anything.

So we woke up a little bit later than planned as it always seems to happen on trips like this. We originally wanted to check out Shiraito Falls, an onsen, and maybe even Mt. Asama. Instead, we decided to take it easy. First up, we headed back to Karuizawa Ginza to do some real shopping. Found this little cute little animals store on the way. Couldn't help but to buy a flying squirrel.

Flying squirrel looks kinda worried about something.  Next stop: ice cream. It might be cold out, but I had to try this Karuizawa specialty: cornet ice cream. Once I ordered it, the shopkeeper took the cornet bread out of the fridge, deep fried it for a moment, and then filled it with ice cream. End result: crunchy on the outside, soft on the outside, and deliciously filled with ice cream.  Thinking about it right now fills me with longing and pain...sweet, sweet pain.  That's kinda like a French pun...kinda.

We continued on to have more dairy back at the cow store. This time it was a pork bun and a hot milk.

The hot milk was quite nice, but they also had a coffee milk that sounded even better. Maybe next time...

That pork bun though, possibly the best pork bun in Japan (not that we've eaten that many pork buns). Still, it was really that really good, really.

We probably spent more time than we should have in the cow store, simply because we were busy petting the guard dog. He chilled out on the front mat so hard that this lady actually didn't notice him and accidentally stepped on him. Poor guy.

This time around we figured out how to get to the observation point properly. A local sightseeing bus takes you up to the summit from the middle of the shopping street. It's a real good thing that we didn't walk it the day before since the bus just kept on going up that mountain for a solid 15 minutes. Walking that road would have taken over an hour for sure.

Once we got to the top, we checked out the shrine up there first. Nothing particularly remarkable about this temple other than the rarefied air and this awesome tree.  How do trees even turn out like that?


It was pretty clear from the long bus ride that we were pretty high up now.  Tack on the additional hill to the observation point and we had quite the view.  First thing you see is this scene here.


The South view is pretty and unobstructed.  The west view has some trees covering it, but you can catch a glimpse of Mt. Asama, the active volcano spewing clouds.  This observation point is definitely out of the way, but I would definitely recommend checking it out.  Once you get up there, the serenity is unbeatable.



 
Plus you get to straddle the border between the Nagano and Gunma Prefectures.  We were in two places at once!

One thing I majorly regret about our time in Karuizawa is that we didn't do a two-day bike rental.  We just figured we would do a one day and then rent again the next day if we needed to, but it turned out that the rental place was quite far from our hotel and all the ones close to us were expensive.

As a result we wasted a bunch of time just walking around.  In fact, we hadn't eaten all day and were scoping out places to lunch on our way back towards the station, but when you're hungry and tired that's a bit of a painful process.  We finally found Atelier de Fromage, a French place I think.  I say "I think" because the menu had things like pizza and curry along with pasta and salad.  I guess the menu makes it sound more like an Italian place with a Japanese twist.

Both V and I went for a pasta; she got the seafood one below and I got an alfredo.  My dish ended up being a little better, but both were only decent.  The pizza, salads, and curry that were ordered around us all looked really good though.  The baked curry with cheese sounded pretty damn delicious. Well, if you just say baked curry with cheese, it doesn't sound that good.  But if everyone else is eating is and saying, "oishii!" then yeah, it sounds yummy.  Actually, the more I think about it the more appealing it becomes in my head. 


We still had some time left before our train, but all the biking had worn us out.  So we picked up our bags at the hotel and walked it to the station.  We stopped by the outlet mall for a bit, but didn't really have much time to really give things a good look.  Also, we were already exhausted from the day before.

I think it would be nice to take some more time for our trips in the future.  These super rushed trips are exhausting and we never end up seeing everything we wanted to.  Karuizawa was a nice escape and for some reason pretty empty that weekend.  I guess autumn isn't really the right season for it.  We had an awesome time, but missed out on a lot of things.  So, we're thinking maybe we'll come back to check it out again if we do a road trip to Nikko or something.  The thing about a lot of these touristy towns is that it can be difficult to get around without a car.

Hopefully, I can get my international driving permit soon so we don't have to expend all our energy walking and biking.  Still, it was a great time just roaming around.  We'll probably be back.


Karuizawa, abayo.

How to Try to Make Tamagoyaki

So, it didn't turn out perfectly, but I dare say it wasn't a total failure either. I'll talk you through all the steps one by one.

First thing you need is a tamagoyaki pan. 100 Yen shops will have them readily available. I picked this guy up from Daiso across the street. 100 Yen for a pan is amazingly cheap, but you do kind of get what you pay for.

Above is a nonstick pan, but it started to stick towards the end of my effort. This of course made the last few layers a little messy, but I dealt with that decently enough I think.

I did a little research on the recipe and technique and came across these two websites:

http://justbento.com/handbook/recipe-collection-mains/1-egg-tamagoyaki-japanese-omelette

http://lunchinabox.net/2007/07/10/making-tamagoyaki-or-dashimaki-tamago-omelettes/

I ended up using the justbento recipe and tried to follow the steps from lunchinabox. The problem is that we don't have any measuring utensils at all, so I had to use regular spoons to attempt to measure out teaspoons and tablespoons. A lot of recipes call for dashi or mirin of which I had neither (this is the main reason I used the justbento recipe). So, I made a super simple tamagoyaki with just eggs, water, soy sauce, and sugar. I'll talk about some modifications to the recipe as I go along.

After following the justbento recipe, I ended up with an egg mix that looked like this:

They say that you shouldn't mix the eggs too well or you'll end up with a more rubbery texture than is desirable. I used regular soy sauce instead of light soy sauce, and I think that made the mix a little dark. I might cut back on the soy sauce a bit next time. I thought about adding some salt, but that's probably unnecessary since I'm used regular soy sauce which is pretty salty to begin with.

First step is you take a quarter of your mix and start cooking it into a sort of scramble. If you can get it into a box shape, that's perfect. Mine ended up being a little chunky...

I grabbed a corner of this mess to try it and decided it was a little salty so I added a bit more sugar into the mix. Once you have the center made, you just start creating layers by pouring the mix into the empty space. Coat the bottom of the pan and make sure you lift your current tamagoyaki a bit to get a layer underneath for it to adhere to. Once the layer is finished cooking, roll the tamagoyaki onto it to empty out the pan again.

The one above is ready; it's ok if the egg is still a little runny. Add the next layer into the empty space and repeat until you run out of mix. Continually wrapping each layer around the tamagoyaki will create the roll shape you desire.

Six or seven layers, this is what I ended up with.

And this is what it looked like cut up. Some parts of it are obviously too brown. It's ok to brown fried eggs, but the taste of tamagoyaki is really too sweet and delicate to get any char on your eggs at all. However, I did succeed in getting that spiral shape. Like I mentioned, the pan started to stick towards the end making it very difficult not to brown the last few layers.

A couple of very important tips I learned from this trial:

1. Don't make your layers too thin. If you do, it's difficult to roll and hard to deal with altogether.

This layer might look pretty, but it was kind of a pain. Don't worry, if your thicker layers don't cook through all the way. It'll all end up getting cooked as you keep the rolled mess in the pan.

2. Grease the pan generously. Sticking is your worst enemy in tamagoyaki. The process is time consuming and you really need to reapply oil between every single layer. Can't be helped.

3. Turn your heat very low. My stove is super strong, and I tried to keep the flame small but it still ended up too hot to handle. Using slightly thicker layers on a low flame will uniformly cook the egg to a yellow.

Tamagoyaki is a really labor intensive process. It's not really that difficult, but you need to watch the pan through every single step. Nnnn, it's kinda difficult... I only used three eggs and it took me a solid fifteen to twenty minutes of cooking time.

I made this as a surprise for V who loves tamagoyaki. If I had the time, I would practice more and make her a perfect one; alas, I hope she likes this one.

Update: She hasn't tried it yet, but we had Ichiran again. I think our ramen tastes have evolved since coming as we find Ichiran fairly light now. Pretty sure V will keep it the same, but I might make mine richer next time.

The Great Jeans Search Part I + Epic Yakitori

Side note: I think the Japanese women's volleyball team won the world championship last night against America, in Japan. I've seen games and commercials off and on, and the hype over it seemed pretty intense. I'm trying to figure out what's going on, but it seems this is the first time in 32 years that they've taken gold. Some of these girls are definitely gonna be in commercials now.

Like every Monday, I had the day off. Unlike every Monday, I decided to go shopping for something distinctively Japanese: selvedge denim. Some of it is a marketing ploy, but a lot of it is remarkably romantic. The word "selvedge" actually comes from "self edge" which is the natural edge you get from a roll of denim on the loom. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but basically since it's not mass produced, you end up with a super high quality pair of jeans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denim#Selvage_denim

A lot of companies make selvedge denim, but Japan's jeans mostly come out of Osaka and is made of 14 to 16 oz denim. Most normal jeans are something in the 10 oz range, so the jeans are definitely quite heavy. In the beginning, the jeans tend to be very rigid and even uncomfortable; however, wearing them in is supposed to be part of the experience. They are dyed in natural indigo and not chemically treated so they always start out really dark but then slowly fade with time.

The basic point is that the jeans start out something like this:

Then begin to get broken in within a couple weeks and start to fade within months, but it takes two years of consistent wear to get them looking like this:

Yeah, those jeans look just like a lot of jeans you can buy that way originally, but the whole point of raw selvedge denim is that the pair will turn out the way you make them. Plus they are rugged enough to last forever (I haven't found an instance of people destroying their jeans) and continue to fade for years afterward. Lately, I've been going through my jeans pretty quickly, and although Japanese selvedge designers all cost around 20,000 Yen, these pair of jeans could potentially be cost effective.

I spent way too long researching this and made this map of potential stores:

Tokyo Denim

Today, I decided to hit up Harajuku and Shibuya to try on a couple of pairs. The first store I went to is inconspicuously named "Smart Clothing Store." I certainly felt smart walking into this place.

The Smart Clothing website sells a bunch of jeans brands, but the store only really had Pherrows. I tried on a couple of pairs, but none of them fit really well and for some reason I really felt like a cowboy...

I continued down the street to Studio D'Artisan. Someone on a forum thought they were French and got totally bashed for it. SDA is another pretentious Japanese name. There are actually a whole bunch of other stores around Harajuku that I could hit as well, but I didn't have the time for it today.

SDA is where I found my favorite pair of the day. Amazingly they were also the most affordable at 17,000 Yen. The cut was still rigid but somehow a little softer than the rest and I was feeling the color. I wonder if just cuz it's a little softer, it might not last as long as the rest of the denim.

Yep, that's me taking pictures of my legs in the fitting room.

Next stop is the place I've been raving about: Momotaro Jeans. Not only does Momotaro have the coolest name, they have an awesome store front that just screams at you to come in and check it out.

Momotaro Jeans also makes the most custom and expensive jeans in Japan. Most of their pairs cost 22,000 Yen, but there's a gold label that is totally handmade on an oldschool loom and goes for 178,500 Yen. Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csPL3WQrLRM

Momotaro is a heavier cut at 15.7 oz. The others I tried on today were around 14 oz and you could really feel the difference. I tried on their tight straight and their medium classic straight and found myself wanting something in between. The storekeeper recommended another cut that was kind of in between, but I didn't have the time to try on another pair as I had one more stop before everything closed.

The double butt-stripe pattern is very distinctive of the brand and proof of how cool you are for wearing them... Well, I like them. The Momotaro Jeans are a little bit more daunting than others because they are so heavy. I have no idea how they're going to end up, but they are super stiff at first. I really like them, but I'll probably pass on them as my first pair of selvedge.

Last stop of the day was the most famous brand out of Japan, Evisu. Evisu is located in Shibuya so it was a little walk away, but tucked away out of sight is this mecca.

There are seriously so many jeans inside that store. One wall of the second floor looks like this:

There are a couple of walls like this, but I went to the one in the back where they have the classic ones. Evisu is known for its high quality painting, and a lot of the pairs have crazy hand-painted graphics all over them. However, that wasn't what I was looking for and I headed straight to their Classic No. 1 and No. 2's.

The No. 2's are their more popular raw selvedge jeans and every year they produce a different cut. So you won't find any classic, straight, tapered, or bootcut in Evisu. Instead you get 2000, 2001, and 2002. It is impossible to navigate that stack without some help from a store clerk, and he eventually picked out a 2000 for me to try.

Evisu is recognized by the "m"-shape painted onto the back. Super high quality paint will last a while, but not forever. Interestingly, you can always bring them in to get repainted for 1500 Yen. The No. 2's didn't really end up fitting me that well. So, I tried on a pair of No. 1's which ended up being amazing. Too bad they also cost over 30,000 Yen.

All these jeans are so rough and rigid that I broke a sweat going from store to store and trying on a dozen pairs. Do you know how hard it is to button up cardboard pants? Seriously, my fingers hurt. I can't wait for a pair of my own.

The whole experience has been sort of mind-boggling and intimidating. I mean these are jeans that are kind of a pain to begin with, but slowly become made for you. It feels like I'm entering a relationship that might suck in the beginning, but if I put in the effort, a year or two down the road, we're going to have an amazing time. Yes, I made a metaphor between jeans and girlfriends, and yes, I'm married.

I have a handful of other stores to try and plenty of time. Uniqlo also makes lower quality selvedge and I'll go to check it out. From what I hear, it bleeds a lot more easily and wears out more easily as well.

Can't end a blog without some delicious food. Khai was back in Tokyo for the day, and I hoped to meet up with him before he headed back to London. He had plans to go back to this yakitori restaurant that he had eaten the week before, and thus Diana and I went to join him and his sister.

Fuku is a small shop out in Yoyogi-Uehara. The area is quiet but distinctively upperclass. I think a lot of the South-Southwest suburb type areas of Tokyo are like this: where the rich people go to buy houses. The restaurant has the most nondescript but classy storefront which clearly eschews its popularity. House was packed on a Monday night and we had to wait a bit to get seating for four. Making a reservation for larger parties is definitely advised as seating is very limited overall.

Still, Fuku is unlikely to get any larger because all the cooking is done by one chef. He has grunts in training that help him with plating and preparation, but the yakitori grill is invariably manned by this guy.

Just look at his face; yakitori chef man is serious about his yakitori. Fuku is definitely pricier than your average joint, but it is totally in a different echelon when it comes to yakitori. A lot of it is in the special sauces they use to season, but an even more a lot (...) of it is because of that man. You sit at the bar and watch him work his craft, and you never see him plate anything that doesn't look absolutely perfect and also tastes impeccable.

I started off the meal with a Fire Rock Pale Ale straight out of Kona Island, Hawaii. Don't have too much to say about it; a very standard and delicious American Pale Ale. The first thing we ate though was probably my favorite of the day: enoki wrapped in bacon. It didn't last long enough for us to take pictures, but it's ridiculous how amazing something so simple can taste.

Another one of the early dishes was also quite good: toriwasa. Toriwasa is rare chicken marinated in wasabi and served sashimi style. Fittingly, you eat it with wasabi and soy sauce; Diana was right when she said it tasted like fish. Everything tastes like chicken, but raw chicken tastes like sushi... Health hazards aside, I think that the way it tasted was the most amazing thing about it. I mean the way it tasted like fish. It was good, too.

Second favorite dish of the night may have been the oysters. I'm usually a big fan of raw oysters, but the oysters at Fuku as by far the best grilled oysters I've ever had.

My least favorite thing today was the liver Diana ordered. She loves it and I was able to appreciate one piece maybe, but liver is totally not my thing. Fuku is unique in that it has a menu full of standard yakitori items, but it also has a specials menu filled with things you can't find anywhere else. Like the bacon wrapped mochi...

More interesting than delicious. When in Rome, right? The dishes kept coming and coming. We had the normal chicken, chicken with green onions, and chicken wings. I believe that they use free-range local chickens or something, but whatever it is, that chicken meat is supernatural. Bacon wrapped asparagus was enjoyable, but my apologies to the chef, that's one of the dishes that my wife just owns. I may be spoiled; hard to meet my bacon wrapped asparagus standards.

We had our fair share of veggies as well. The maitake mushrooms were among my favorite and the cheese stuffed pepper was pretty spot-on. Actually, anything mushroom was pretty awesome. The shiitake mushrooms were stuffed and heavily salted, but the salt was grilled and crusted on like you get on a good steak. Freaking amazing. One of the last things we ordered were the potatoes.

Hokkaido potatoes are somehow different. It's hard to describe, but yes they are marginally more tasty.

We ate a whole lot of yakitori. I'm not sure how it happened, but food just kept coming and when last order rolled around, I had no desire to order anything else. Tons and food and a healthy dose of alcohol came out to a hefty but not outstanding 3500 Yen apiece.

That sounds like a lot, but it was totally reasonable for how much we ate. I will bring V with me next time and we probably won't break 4000 Yen together. Yeah, I like yakitori, but it's not anywhere on my list of favorite Japanese foods. Fuku though is a whole other matter. The place is a haven for gaijin and more than half the store was speaking in English. The owner has some pretty damn good English himself, a rarity in Japan.

I just get this feeling that somebody classically trained made up that menu whether it was the owner or the head chef. Either way, it's the kind of chill joint where they'll cater to your every need and even take a picture with you if you like.

Ridiculous food and perfect service; Fuku is a must try and a definitely come back. Digression: Khai is Vietnamese, but after seeing his sister, it's official. There is some caucasian in his blood, somewhere. Yeah, I dunno, we were just talking about this the other day...

Can't wait to bring V.