Monthly Archives: February 2019

Every year, I go to Nagano for about a week of skiing, during which I find new ways to make my legs and feet hurt. Because going up and down the stairs becomes a challenge, it helps me pretend that I am losing weight. We eat the same nabe stews every night, I drink too much sake, and I come close to being Gwyneth Paltrowed at least once. It’s pretty much the same thing every time … although I have to admit that even after 4-5 hours of skiing, a steady diet of comfort food and booze has me looking more like this than Lindsey Vonn:

(Photo from BBC)

But one of the great things about being only two hours away from Tokyo via shinkansen is that … there is Tokyo. And one of the great things about Tokyo is that there is always something new to explore. It’s a lot like Bangkok in that way. My friend Naomi took us to Nihonbashi institution Taimeiken, rightly revered for churning out Japanicized renditions of Western favorites such as beef stew and breaded cutlets in a cooking style known as yoshoku and similar to some of the stuff you find in old-timey Bangkok places like Yong Lee . It’s an interesting fusion that ends up being not-quite-Western, but not-really-Japanese, either.

Downstairs is a casual, first-come-first-served kind of affair, but the second floor (reservations only) is a more dressy deal, replete with white tablecloths and shrimp cocktail on the menu. It doesn’t really matter though — either floor you choose, first-timers are still expected to order the city-famous omurice dish “chicken rice omelet”, popularized in the seminal 1985 Japanese food geek movie “Tampopo“.

The waiter was concerned that I did not know how to eat this dish, but Naomi assured him that I had indeed watched the movie “Tampopo”. Although I’m not always a fan of being told how to eat, I understood how important it was to the kitchen that I slit the omelet lengthwise, just enough to pierce the skin but not enough to cut all the way through to the ketchup-slathered rice beneath. The omelet’s innards, barely cooked, are then laid out like a blanket on the plate and drizzled with even more ketchup from a gravy boat in a move that is commonly known as YIKES.

 

Do I regret passing up the shrimp cocktail and coquilles saint jacques for egg and rice with ketchup? Maybe kind of, but also worth it as a food tourist to say, “Oh, I had that.” Not ordering it the next time I darken Taimeiken’s door, though, which is something that is definitely happening on my next trip to Tokyo.

Another return trip I hope to make is to Toyosu Fish Market, which opened last October as a successor to the much-lamented Tsukiji. While Tsukiji’s outer market (and Sushi Zanmai, so don’t worry Thai people) is still open to fish-loving tourists, the business end of the deal — namely, the tuna auction — moved over to the new place in January of this year.

To see the auction, you can either watch from an upper observation window, or apply to the lower observation deck a month ahead of time. This is so that, unlike at Tsukiji, the people actually working will not be bothered by lameass bystanders getting all up in their business. However, I have to admit, and I am a little embarrassed to say, that I totally completely lucked out by having a family friend who went to high school with one of the tuna vendors on the main floor, so we were able to bypass the auction at 5:30 and stroll on in at 7:30. And yes, I was totally a lameass bystander who got all up in everyone’s business as they were trying to go about their regular day.

 

It was worth it (for me, not for them) because I got a really lovely breakfast of maguro and chutoro, eaten with toothpicks on a table used only minutes before to break down tuna destined for the Conrad and Ritz-Carlton.

The wholesale seafood section, where you used to be able to purchase the stuff you would later find at your favorite sushi bar, is not yet open to the public. However, you can view the action from an upper observation window in an adjoining building which is accessible via outside walkway. You can also purchase some sushi paraphernalia and produce on the fourth floor of the adjoining intermediate wholesale building.

You can also simply sample actual sushi at one of the sushi bars that have relocated to Toyosu (with long queues to match). The place we hit up was Yamazaki (not yet crowded at 10am), where we got an omakase set for 6000 yen and copious amounts of beer and sake which added substantially to the bill and rendered me useless for much of the rest of the day. But hey, great for a first-time visitor, yes?

 

 

Nothing is more snore-inducing than listening to someone else talk about their dreams, so here are mine. There was the dream about the bees that kept chasing after me, and another one where I was chased by crocodiles in a water park. In another one, I tried to jump out of a high-level window into a shallow lily pond to escape from some invaders who were … also chasing me. I’m sensing a theme. In any case, the dream that recurs most often is the one where I’m at a sprawling buffet (although sometimes it’s a jewelry store, or an underwear sale) where everything looks good and I can’t quite decide what to get, but once I make my choice what I want is gone or lost (“this is difficult to interpret,” said no one, ever).

It’s rare to encounter in real life what you’ve already experienced in your dreams, but this is what happened to me when I dropped by for lunch at Icon Siam. In case you haven’t been to Bangkok in a while, Icon Siam is the latest high-profile mall opening in a city that is chock-a-block with them, but on the Thonburi side of the river instead of in a majorly trafficked part of downtown Bangkok. It’s the first really big development in Thonburi, so only a handful of vendors have been displaced and the street food scene in general there is still pretty robust.

Full disclosure: I was approached a couple of years ago to help consult on a “street food” section for Icon Siam when it was still gestating, but was never contacted again. So — as with anything that I write about “Game of Thrones” the TV series, or most Asian food television programming — anything that I say about Icon Siam can and probably should be interpreted as sour grapes.  That said, the last few GOT seasons have been trash, marred by illogical storytelling and huge misinterpretations of key characters. Icon Siam is not as bad as Season 5 Sansa.

You encounter the thoughtfulness they’ve put into how they present their “street food” the instant you step through the door. They’ve built a Vegas- style “canal”, with careful lighting and nicely dressed vendors set up at various stalls alongside the water, a nice nod to Thai street food’s origins. The food up in front — mostly sweets and snacks — really does look great. It’s just a shame there IS NO ENGLISH LANGUAGE SIGNAGE.

Existing translated signage is wonderfully vague, even in Thai.

As you proceed further in, food translations get better, featuring both Chinese and English. Not surprisingly, these areas were busier.

All the same, it was daunting to get a bowl here, because a dearth of places to sit meant latecomers like myself would be doomed to eating fish-sauced specialties with their dishes balanced precariously on their knees. Come on guys. I am a very clumsy person. Smelling like fish sauce is bad when you are taking public transport. And the chi-chi section in the back, where there actually are seats, serves “nice” stuff that I didn’t feel like eating, like Chinese seafood and Dean & Deluca-style deli salads.

They tucked the best vendors off to the side, like kids who hide their favorite dishes from the table by sticking it behind their elbow. These are the savory vendors serving big-ticket one-dish meals like kanom jeen (fermented noodles with curry) and popular snacks like satay and tod mun pla (deep-fried fish cakes).

Here, the signage was extensive. But the seating,  just like at an actual outdoor floating market, comprises a bunch of tiny child-size stools and is the opposite of extensive. I get the “replicating the floating market” thing, but you are still in the mall, so you have already made a choice. You chose to include air-conditioning, so why not more substantial seating? Of course, this is coming from someone whose butt is too big to sit on a seat that resembles the stool you put your purse on in fancy restaurants.

If you are wondering where the rest of the street food is, some of it is tucked up even further out of view in the mezzanine or “UG” section, accessible via TWO escalators in the same quadrant of the mall (one in the central area, one in Takashimaya). This is annoying because I discovered it only after finally choosing a place to eat, which was, just like in my dreams, nowhere near as good as what I could have been eating (like the soup noodles or pig’s trotter on rice in the mostly deserted UG section, which actually had seating). Instead, I ended up choosing yakitori on the ground floor of Takashimaya, which was the dumbest thing I could have done because yakitori needs smoke and a real grill to be good, and those things are impossible to do in a mall. Also, all of the plating was done in plastic cups, including salad (!) and cold edamame (!!) Is this a tailgate party? Are we in a parking lot? Not surprisingly, I was completely alone.

To be fair, Icon Siam’s food “court” isn’t completed yet. There’s still a market off to the side that needs to be finished, and a bunch of vendors needed to fill out the mezzanine section (and maybe better signage for that too, since the Thai massage parlor on that same level was also completely deserted). As with all ambitious undertakings, Icon Siam will need a little time, and it’s only just begun. This already puts it in a better position than “Game of Thrones” Season 8.