Our Golden Week plans (and by “plans” I mean “half-assed, too-late attempt to book a trip to Pusan”) fell through, which left Laura and I with lots and lots of precious, precious free time to enjoy ourselves and the gorgeous late-spring weather. On Monday I spent the whole day cooking, and the whole night eating (and drinking and playing truth or dare). Here is the meal around which that wonderful day off revolved: two recipes for two, one very complicated, one very simple, both very delicious and, as always, completely original!

Viking Lasagna

Pasta (adapted from a recipe by Mario Batali)

3 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup rice bran
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons sweet vermouth
1 teaspoon olive oil

1. Mix all ingredients using either the well method or with a food processor or electric mixer.
2. Dust your countertop with additional flour or bran and knead the dough until it is firm, homogeneous, and dry. The dough should not stick to the countertop.
3. Form the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and allow to rest at room temperature for one hour.
4. Cut the dough into eighths and process into lasagne, about nine inches long, according to your pasta maker’s instructions. Alternatively, the dough may be rolled out into very thin sheets and then cut into lasagne.
5. Dust finished lasagne with a small amount of bran to prevent sticking, cover, and set aside.

Filling

3 small eggplants, thinly sliced into long strips
3/4 bunch maitake mushrooms, roughly chopped
about 3/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano
about 3/4 cup grated Mozzarella
about 1/2 cup Ricotta
about 1/2 pound mixed ground beef and ground pork
1 tablespoon pine nuts
1/2 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 or 3 large green olives, minced
7 or 8 capers, halved
1/4 teaspoon garam masala (substitute five-spice and curry powder)
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
salt and pepper, to taste
olive oil, for frying

1. Salt sliced eggplant and allow to sit for about 15 minutes to sweat.
2. Mix cheeses together and set aside, reserving about 1/4 cup Pecorino Romano.
3. Combine meat, capers, garam masala, marjoram, fennel seeds, and pepper in a mixing bowl.
4. Rinse off salted eggplant and drain and dry well. Toss or brush eggplant with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
5. Warm a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, add eggplant and fry until both sides are browned, about 2 or 3 minutes on each side.
6. Remove eggplant from heat and set aside on paper towel to drain excess oil.
7. Add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the same non-stick skillet. Sauté pine nuts, onion, garlic, and olives until slightly browned.
8. Add meat and cook just through, making sure to break up any large chunks. Drain excess fat and reserve.

Sauce

about 20 ounces diced canned tomatoes in juice
1 small eggplant, peeled and diced
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 bunch maitake mushrooms, roughly chopped
2 or 3 large green olives, chopped
2 tablespoons Balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup red wine or fruit liqueur
dried thyme, to taste
dried basil, to taste
dried oregano, to taste
1 bay leaf
1 dash Tabasco sauce
salt and pepper
reserved fat from meat (see above)

1. Warm reserved fat over medium-high heat. Add eggplant, onion, garlic, mushrooms, olives, salt, and pepper and cook until onions become translucent.
2. Add tomatoes, vinegar, wine or liqueur, herbs, and Tabasco sauce and bring to a boil.
3. Cook uncovered to reduce until sauce reaches desired consistency

Assembly

fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
olive oil

1. Boil about 6 cups water in a large pot. Brush excess flour or bran from fresh lasagne and add to water.
2. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until firmly al dente. Remove from pot and rinse under cold water, then drain and dry on paper towel.
3. Lightly coat a 9-inch bread pan with olive oil.
4. Layer pasta, eggplant, mushrooms, meat, sauce, and cheese two or three times until pan is full. Top with pasta, sauce, parsley, and grated Pecorino Romano.
5. Cover with foil and bake at 350º (180ºC) for about 20 minutes, then remove foil and continue cooking for another 15-20 minutes.

In the end, I had extra ingredients, especially pasta, so I made another lasagna-moussaka type thing with extra sauce, sliced onions, and a mixture of beaten eggs. That’s in my freezer now. I’ll let you know how it turns out. After that I still had extra pasta, which I microwaved with clotted cream, dried herbs, and a splash of sweet vermouth. It was delicious.

Simple Almond and Raspberry Tiramisu

about 12 ounces Mascarpone
about 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
about 12-15 lady fingers or amaretti cookies
1/2 cup espresso or strong coffee, cooled
1/4 cup Amaretto
1/4 cup Crème de Framboise
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon roasted almond oil (optional)
about 1/2 tablespoon cocoa powder
freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
fresh raspberries (optional)

1. Blend together cheese, sugar, almond extract, vanilla, and almond oil until homogeneous and set aside.
2. Combine coffee, Amaretto, and Framboise in a bowl. Dip lady fingers into coffee mixture until soaked (but not soggy) and arrange on the bottom of bowls or a baking pan.
3. Spread out one half of the cheese on top of the first layer of lady fingers.
4. Add another layer of soaked lady fingers and then another layer of cheese.
5. Dust with cocoa powder, cover, and refrigerate 1-4 hours before serving. Serve with fresh nutmeg and raspberries.

Los Angeles’s taco trucks may soon face a new traffic law that will threaten their very existence if passed.

This is horrible news. I love taco trucks. They are one of my favorite things about Los Angeles, specifically East LA. They are delicious, cheap, open all night, and most importantly, they are unique. It’s not that other cities don’t have taco trucks, but nowhere has quite so many as Los Angeles. They are a true cultural emblem.

My favorite is Leo’s in Eagle Rock. Rarely does a week pass here in Japan when I don’t crave Leo’s hearty bean burrito or carne asada tacos, topped with onions and a brilliant green sauce: limes, cilantro, and avocado. Mmm. Somebody at my alma mater made a documentary about Leo himself. You can (and should) watch it here.

Anyway, please visit this site to sign a petition to stop this evil law from being enacted. You don’t need to live in LA to do so.

Save our taco trucks!

In my recent post about all the yummy stuff I ate in Tokyo, I refrained from discussing my appetizer at Les Saisons on account that I thought it was so good it deserved its own post. The appetizer was seared goose foie gras with warm strawberries and a spritz of twenty-five-year-old Balsamic vinegar, garnished with a fragile ring of crispy batter.

On the menu, it didn’t sound that amazing to me. I mostly just wanted to get foie gras because I didn’t know when I’d be able to have it again. I had had foie gras before - only once, if memory serves, at a Belgian restaurant in Hong Kong - and I must say, I was underwhelmed. Or at least, after having had this particular foie gras, the stuff I had before seems, in retrospect, incredibly underwhelming

This foie gras was like nothing I had ever tasted before. It was like eating softened butter, or a warm custard of heavy cream, encased in a carbonized, perfectly firm skin; the foie gras was solid, and structured, and yet the way it melted upon my tongue suggested Swiss milk chocolate. The flavor was unfathomably deep: silky, mellow, fatty sweetness washed over the inherent earthiness of liver. Satiny pâté, tender chāshū, luscious ōtoro, all synthesized in this one, supple masterpiece.

It sounds heavy, and it was. Nevertheless, it was dangerously easy to eat, somehow light and delicate in spite of its richness. The strawberries and vinegar (I hesitate to call it vinegar; after a quarter of a century, it is much more like syrup) provided a pleasant twang, a flicker of sweetness and mild sourness to contrast and focus the fat-packed liver. But in my opinion, the foie gras hardly needed any accompaniment - it was just that good.

The whole thing nearly made me weep. And I believe that is the first time food has ever made me feel that way.

I should move to France.

In my post about beer in Sapporo, I wrote: “Even in huge, international cities like Tokyo and Osaka, you have to go a bit out of your way to get the good stuff when it comes to beer.” Boy, was I wrong.

I don’t know how I never noticed it before, but this time around Tokyo I was amazed at how little effort it took to find good beer. I suppose on my first two trips to Tokyo I wasn’t yet the beer geek I am now, and on my last trip I didn’t have much time to get out of the hotel. And of course, many of Tokyo’s best beer destinations do take a bit of research to find, but some are in the most high-traffic of areas, extremely easy to simply happen upon. For example, there is a fantastic bottle and glassware shop in the middle of Shinjuku Station, a small Belgian specialty bar in Tokyo Station, and one of the city’s better import selections latched onto Ikebukuro Station. But the best thing about Tokyo is that you don’t even really need to go to any special shops to find good beer. Lawsons, 7-Elevens, and am/pms around the city stock Yona Yona and Ginga Kōgen. Guinness is a standard at bars rather than a novelty. There is a local chain of English-style pubs boasting their own real ale, plus guest beers from Japanese microbreweries. Museum cafes serve Duvel and Chimay. Random restaurants serve a mysterious Witbier brewed by Sapporo. Even the Ramen Museum now offers regional craft brews to pair with their regional craft noodles.

Tokyoites are famous for demanding the very finest in food and drink, and this demand is now turning the eastern capital into a world-class brew city, nearly in the same league as other international beer boomtowns like San Diego, Chicago, Boston, and Bruges. There are dozens of viable craft beer destinations to choose from in Tokyo, but in the interest of time, money, and effort, I was able to whittle my agenda down to just two one-stop shops. Together, they fulfilled all my beer goals quite nicely, just as I’d hoped.

The first place I visited was Tanakaya, a bottle shop recommended by fellow Beer Advocates as well as my friend Sam, a Kantō-region veteran expat who has recently become quite the craft beer connoisseur himself. Actually, Sam is a connoisseur of most things, especially food, fashion, corn dogs, and bars that have two-story aquaria in them. Anyway, Tanakaya turned out to be totally, thoroughly awesome. The only comparable selection I’ve seen in Japan to date was at Mugishutei in Sapporo, and that was a bar, not a bottle shop. Especially exciting to me was their spectacular selection of American craft beer: AleSmith, Stone, Southampton, Dogfish Head, Avery, Great Divide, Full Sail, Bear Republic, North Coast, Sierra Nevada, and several others I can’t remember are all represented. Among them, many (most?) are what might be called extreme beer–barleywines, IPAs and double IPAs, imperial stouts, wood-aged ales, and the like. These aren’t necessarily my favorite styles, but it’s always thrilling to find them in Japan because they’re so rare here.

They also have a cooler full of Japanese craft beer that seemed small at first glance, but upon closer inspection, it was easily the most comprehensive selection of ji-beer I’ve ever seen: Baird, Minoh, Iwatekura, Kiuchi, Echigo, Hakusekikan, Swan Lake, Coedo, Yo-Ho, and the list goes on. Even Kyushu is represented! I picked up a Harvest Moon Yuzu Ale and a Sankt Gallen El Diablo Barleywine, mostly for the bizarre, opaque violet spire it comes in. I also got an adorable hand-painted ceramic Hitachino Nest cup.

And of course, Tanakaya’s European selection is fantastic as well. Their assortment of Belgians would be enough to keep any monk-loving yeast-freak happily drunk for months, and their German shelves are stocked with the crème de la crème of Pilseners, Bocks, Doppelbocks, Hefeweizens, Weizenbocks, and Altbiers. The UK section is somewhat small, but I can’t call it disappointing thanks to their lineup of barrel-aged J.W. Lees Harvest Ales, which had me seriously geeking out.

There was some debate in the Beer Advocate forums as to whether Tanakaya or Tobu is the best beer store in Tokyo. I went to Tobu, too, and having been to both stores, I can’t believe this debate ever took place. Tanakaya is absolutely, positively, hands-down, no-doubt-about-it the better beer store.

However, there was never any debate over the best beer bar in Tokyo: Popeye. The main draw to Popeye is their forty taps, two or three of which deliver gravity- or hand-pumped real ale. Most bars and restaurants in Japan serve only one draft beer, so the sheer quantity of taps is reason enough to pay Popeye a visit. But it gets better: all forty taps pour craft beer, mostly Japanese with a handful of American offerings thrown in for good measure. Not only that, but their range of styles is remarkably wide: mighty barleywines, lively IPAs, mellow wheat beers, balanced pale ales, crisp pilseners and rich stouts have all found a home at Popeye, not to mention the deliciously bold “IBA” (”India Black Ale”), a sort of porter-IPA blend brewed by the bar’s proprietors.

I must say that Popeye’s real ales were disappointing; the Yona Yona, so creamy when I had it on cask in Osaka, was weirdly watery and stridently carbonated, and the Swan Lake Amber Ale didn’t deliver the cask-conditioned nuance I was hoping for, either. But the real ale letdowns were easy to forgive and forget after a goblet of Hakusekikan’s brandy-esque Hurricane Barleywine and a pint of Baird’s hop-charged, nitro-tapped, smooth-as-velour Shimaguni Stout. Mmm!

But the good beer didn’t stop flowing after leaving Popeye. Back in Shinjuku Station, Sam led me to the very impressive bottle shop I mentioned above, where I picked up a bomber of Baird’s Morning Coffee Stout and a Celis White for Laura. Then we met up with Laura and capped off the evening at Hub, a rather average gaijin bar that serves a decidedly above-average house pale ale. Later in the week Sam and I ventured to Yokohama, and after stuffing ourselves with three bowls of mini-ramen, we washed it all down at the aptly (if unimaginatively) named Craft Beer Bar, a classy-but-not-too-classy tucked-away tavern with eight taps and two hand-pumps, all pouring Japanese craft beer. This is where I really got my real ale fix; the casked Iwatekura IPA and Minoh Amber Ale were both creamy, complex, full-bodied and robust–just as real ale ought to be. The Fujizakura Sakura Bock and the Hitachino Nest Weizen were lovely as well. Oh, and Craft Beer Bar also boasts a comprehensive, moderately-priced Scotch list; I closed my session with a nice glass of twelve-year-old Dalmore for only ¥700.

I had high beer hopes and ambitious beer goals in mind when I set off to Tokyo, and by the end of the week (actually, by Tuesday night) they were all completely fulfilled. Plus, I still have plenty of bounty from Tanakaya stashed away at home, so I should be set for a while. Good thing, too; over the course of the week I burned through about three months’ beer budget. I’ve always thought it would be really awesome to live in Tokyo, but then again, it’s probably better that I don’t. If I did, I’d be perpetually drunk and destitute.

The food geek universe has recently been abuzz with the news that Tokyo has more Michelin stars than any city in the world, including Paris. In fact, it has twice as many as Paris. I couldn’t really offer anything beyond mere conjecture as to how this happened, as the publishers of the Michelin Guide are notoriously conservative, and their decisions are often mysterious and controversial.

But it doesn’t really matter anyway. The point that should be taken from this honor is that Tokyo is a really, really amazing city when it comes to food, from those noble three-star French meals to simple (or not-so-simple) bowls of noodles.

Let’s discuss the noodles first.

I had five excellent bowls of ramen over the course of the week. First off was Ramen Jiro’s ラーメン二郎 notorious, voluminous, and delicious pile of raggedy hand-pulled noodles, tender pork chops, cabbage, bean sprouts, and shards of raw garlic softened in a stock so heavy with pork fat you could use it as a substitute for axle grease. I am no stranger to super-rich ramen - my love affair with tonkotsu has been going on for many years now - but honestly, I could barely get through half the bowl. Worldramen.net reports: “some Jiro fans would claim ‘Ramen served at Jiro is not a ramen! It is an independent food called Jiro.’” and I am tempted to agree. At least in terms of sheer intensity, Jiro stands alone. Astoundingly, they also offer a larger portion, which I have never seen, but I imagine it could comfortably feed a family of four for at least three meals. I went to the original Jiro outpost, but I hear other locations offer cheese as a topping. Crazy.

The ramen is extraordinary in and of itself, but the context of the tiny, dirty shop heightens the whole Ramen Jiro experience: outside, a formidable queue of hungry college students and businessmen wraps itself around the block; inside, the air gurgles with voracious slurping, the walls are brown with fire and grease, and in the middle of it all, two seasoned, sweaty cooks stir huge pots of bubbling liquid with wooden beams and bandaged hands. How I wish I hadn’t forgotten my camera at the hotel that day.

Later in the week, Sam and I took a trip to Yokohama to visit the ever-popular Ramen Museum, which three years ago inspired me to write my senior thesis on food museums. Each shop in the museum’s nostalgic, meticulously detailed “downtown” area offers a conveniently sized mini-bowl, perfect for sampling a variety of ramen over the course of an afternoon. We had three: Hachiya’s 蜂屋 stock was ripe with the salty tang of soy sauce, roughed up by the bittersweet, carbonized flavor of barbecued lard; Ryū Shanghai 龍上海 offered pudgy handmade noodles in a thick, nutty miso soup perforated with a confetti of aromatic seaweed, minced garlic, and red chili; and Ide Shōten’s 井出商店 suprisingly meaty soy sauce-tonkotsu blend tasted like the delicious drippings from a lovingly slow-cooked beef brisket.

Finally, just before heading to the airport to fly back home, Laura and I lunched at Shodai Keisuke 初代けいすけ, a rambunctiously creative nü-ramen joint that focuses on black miso. Keisuke’s basic stock was greenish-black and almost pasty in its thickness–imagine split-pea soup from the wrong side of the tracks–with a mysterious pesto-like herbal quality. Its flavor was so rich and robust that it even overwhelmed the yolk of a soft-boiled egg I ordered as a topping. Mine also came with shredded cheese, which helped to glue bits of vegetables and miso directly to the noodles for extremely satisfying, textured, salty, and flavorful mouthfuls.

I would have been pretty content just eating ramen all week, but luckily Emiko, our true gourmet navigator, had other, far more ambitious and wonderful culinary plans in store for us. On Don’s birthday, we began the day with a beautiful sushi breakfast at a shop just outside Tsukiji Market. We chose a place stuck in a slot between two apparently more famous (or lucky) competitors, both of which had long queues waiting outside their doors. But of course, sometimes popularity is a poor measure of quality, as it was hard for me to imagine how sushi could get much better than it was at this unassuming little shop. I ordered the chirashi set, which included (among many other things): solid, juicy hunks of crab; extremely fresh, hearty katsuo; some of the sweetest, saltiest salmon eggs I’ve ever eaten; and my favorite, a huge scallop with a gorgeous, silky texture and an almost chickeny flavor perked up by a thin slice of kabosu. The chūtoro tasted like ōtoro, and the sea urchin tasted like no sea urchin I’ve ever had before. It was exceptionally delicious, and exceptionally satisfying.

That night we had another amazing meal at arranged by Emiko, at Les Saisons in the Imperial Hotel. Actually, “amazing” isn’t quite the right word. I mean, it was amazing, but to me it was also a revelation as to how beautiful, delicate, and artistic cooking can be. And that’s saying something, because I’ve had my share of kaiseki meals. Let me put it this way: the chef, Thierry Voisin, warmly introduced himself to us before the meal, and at the end I wanted to meet him again so I could shake his hand and thank him dearly. Actually, a hug would have been a more accurate expression of how I felt, but at any rate, he had already gone home by the time we finished.

First off was an inscrutable amuse-bouche consisting of a cold jelly that tasted something like potato soup with chives, and a bite-size croquette with the same taste, but a very different, crunchy-creamy texture. Next came the appetizer, which… well, actually I’m going to write about my appetizer in a separate post because it was just that beautiful and special. Moving on, my main course was a plump chunk of rare lamb shank served with a salty relish of tongue confit and onions atop a fluffy custard of green peas. It was yummy, but even more yummy was Laura’s beef, topped with parsley paste and baked in buttery puff pastry, like some sexy cousin in the Wellington family.

After that, Laura and Emiko ordered dessert while Don and I indulged in some outstanding cheeses. I don’t know what kind of cheeses they were, except one: a three-year-old French Comte that had most of us convinced it was Pecorino before I asked our server what it was. Ah, Comte, of course! Not salty enough, too dark, and a tad too floral to be Pecorino. Anyway, it was superb, as were the other mystery cheeses: a very balanced Roquefort-like blue-veined goat’s milk cheese; a different sort of goat cheese with a blackish green rind and mellow, fruity flavor; and a gooey, lightly stinky washed-rind cheese that tasted something like Pont-l’Évêque, but with an agreeably sticky mouthfeel. Figs, apricots, and red wine provided a sweet, tangy counterpoint.

The cheese was followed up by petits fours, espresso, chocolate, and Don’s birthday cake. (I was glad I opted for cheese instead of dessert!) The petits fours and chocolate were too diverse to describe, but needless to say they were all very delicious, especially taken between sips of pungent black espresso. The cake was a happy marriage of light texture and rich flavor, a structure of dark chocolate, lush mousse, and cocoa-flavored mille-feuille. It was balanced, elegant, and addictive; I had no problem cleaning my plate despite the fact that I was already stuffed like a Christmas goose. Stuffed and oh so happy.

The next night, Emiko treated us all to yet another exceptional meal, this time at a Chinese restaurant in Ginza. The dinner began with a creamy and subtle shark’s fin soup, followed by shrimp in a snappy chili sauce and oil-scalded green beans with sesame seeds. It all led up to the climactic pièce de résistance: (strike gong here) Peking duck! The noble bronze bird was wheeled to our table on a cart, then ceremoniously carved into glisteningly moist slices before our eyes. But before we indulged in the actual dish, we were all served a few shreds of the duck’s skin, which we were instructed to dust with a spoonful of sugar. It seemed odd at first, but wow, what a charming little morsel that turned out to be; I was amazed at how nuanced a flavor came from the the simple combination of sugar, fatty meat, and melt-in-your-mouth crispness.

But that was just the teaser. The duck itself was tenderloin-tender with a fine, brawny taste, sweetened by a rich plum sauce, brightened by shreds of leek, then wrapped up in a fine pancake and thoroughly enjoyed. Each sumptuous bite reverberated with the glossy baritone of that venerable skin and the taut tenor of its condiments.

These meals I’ve described are only the highlights from a solid week of fond food memories: grilled corn, tres leches and matcha donuts, three kinds of agemanjū, bacon and eggplant pasta, cappuccino-flavored popcorn, straight-from-Tsukiji kabayaki, and fabulously tasty oysters paired with Guinness Draught.

As far as I can tell, Tokyo deserves every one of those stars, possibly more. Just think, what if the Michelin Guide included places like greasy ramen shops, street stalls, and random sushi bars? Tokyo would be untouchable. Paris should consider itself lucky.

For a city as densely developed as Tokyo, they sure find a lot of room for cherry trees. We enjoyed a picturesque hanami stroll along the northwestern perimeter of the Imperial Palace moat, and then into Yasukuni Shrine, where tall, close-together trees created a downy pink canopy beneath a pristinely blue sky.

With the exception of beer and grocery shopping, I don’t really count kaimono (literally “buying things”) among my hobbies. However, I must say I had a fine time shopping in Tokyo, mostly because I visited two markets that catered to a couple of my principal materialist pursuits: New Balance sneakers and exciting food.

The first market was Ameyoko アメ横 in Ueno. I stumbled upon this bustling area while looking for the famous Mita Sneakers, whose website boasts some exclusive New Balance Classics (my fetish of choice) that are indeed very fly. I had originally visited the New Balance Store in Harajuku, and found the most awesome NBs I’ve seen in a while, but they were a very limited edition (each shoe came with its own serial number!) and alas, they didn’t have my size. So I figured Mita would be my next best bet. They certainly did have a lot of sweet kicks, but nothing really jumped out at me; I decided to go outside and check out their street stall I had noticed on the way in. And when a took a look around, a whole world of footgear radness opened up before my eyes! Dozens of sneaker stalls lined the alleyway, including three (three!) ABC Marts. But it wasn’t all shoes; part of what made Ameyoko so interesting and fun was how cobbled-together it all seemed; mentaiko wholesalers stood next to designer luggage shops; cheap knock-off fashions stood next to the real thing; dried fish vendors operated next to overpriced second-hand stores. There were also restaurants aplenty, karaoke joints, standing bars, pachinko parlors, electronics stores, and crappy souvenir stands. It felt more like Hong Kong than Tokyo, and it was understandably crowded, even on a Monday afternoon. I will say the demographics that would probably enjoy Ameyoko the most would be twentysomething Japanese men and tourists who are looking to do a little one-stop Tokyo shopping (serious fashionistas, especially women, may be unimpressed). To be honest, I was mostly just thrilled to find a pair of rare, electric blue, limited edition, all-suede 576s, in my size, for only ¥6400!

And then there was Tsukiji 築地市場, which really needs no introduction (other than perhaps to note that the kanji 市場 is confusingly read shijō rather than ichiba in this case). Emiko wisely and fortuitously booked our stay in a hotel within leisurely walking distance from the market, a sprawling complex built on one of the densest harbors in world. As far as I’m concerned, it can only be described as legendary. It is the largest seafood market in the world, funneling fish, mollusks, crustaceans, and algae from around the world through Tokyo Bay and into the mouths of Japan’s hundred million-odd pescavores. Of course, Tsukiji Market is known for how huge it is, but its size is not necessarily what makes it impressive; I was more exhilarated by the density, the efficiency, and the ground-in griminess of the whole operation. One of the most frightening aspects of the whole Tsukiji experience are the long, tall motorized carts that appear to have been manufactured exclusively for navigating Tsukiji. Their determined pilots zoom around the market’s narrow passageways, brushing past each other with… well, not quite reckless abandon, but some kind of abandon anyway. They have a job to do, and they certainly do not brake for tourists. Why should they? We are obnoxious, after all.

Of course, the carts aren’t the only alarming sights to be seen in Tsukiji. The floors are cluttered with bits–no, chunks of fish, including tuna heads as big as my own. Chain-smoking laborers slice through all manner of sea beasts with knives, cleavers, broadswords, katana, hacksaws, band saws, and circular saws. Stunned eels squirm about in basins filled with bloody water. Extremely fresh jumbo shrimp wriggle in their plastic packaging. Bug-eyed squid, mottled by their own ink. Boxes of sea urchin roe, stacked into little skyscrapers. Sloppy piles of felled octopi. Other white people (shudder).

I would call it carnage, but it was all strangely, gracefully organized; each cart, butcher, and blade was like a diligent organelle working towards a common goal: turning slimy sea life into clean, wholesome food. Oddly, I was still looking forward to our sushi breakfast upon exiting the market (and wow, was it ever tasty).

The last market I visited was Nakamise-dōri 仲見世通り, the hopelessly touristy boulevard of souvenir shops and food stalls that lead up to Sensō-ji 浅草寺 in Asakusa. The whole area is tacky, crowded, and rather ugly. It caters to foreigners’ preconceptions about Japanese culture (ninjas, Hello Kitty), and to Japanese visitors’ penchant for worthless plastic shit (keitai charms, Hello Kitty). But somehow, I love it.

I love it partly out of nostalgia: when I was a dorky budding Japanophile in high school, Nakamise-dōri was just the emporium of charming exotica I had been looking for in Tokyo. The merchandise on display was novel enough to hold my interest, yet dumbed-down enough to be accessible and vaguely familiar to me. Stretched out between two big red temple gates, it’s an extravaganza of lapel pins, lucky cats, Rising Sun hachimaki, handmade chopsticks, handkerchiefs printed with the Tokyo Metro map, and drum-banging mechanical monkeys. Nakamise-dōri is like the Fisher-Price of Japanese marketplaces: my first shōtengai.

I’ll always remember Nakamise-dōri fondly, even if I’ve outgrown the geeky fetishism that made me like it in the first place. Now, I like it for the sheer spectacle of it all, but also for a handful of genuinely delightful shops along the street selling pottery, textiles, and sweets. Takeya, the chopstick store I mentioned, is a real gem; their Edo kibashi 江戸木箸 are so gorgeous (and expensive) that I can’t imagine using them to eat anything other than the finest kaiseki cooking.

And then, there is the famous agemanjū 揚げまんじゅう, which may very well be my favorite of all the confections Japan has to offer. I think I like them even more than Goma Tamago. Their deep-fried tempura-like batter wraps a satisfying crunch around warm, squishy-sweet fillings, creating a consummately satisfying texture I have not encountered in any other Japanese confection. With a pumpkin-stuffed agemanjū in one hand, a bottle of ramune in the other, and Puffy AmiYumi on my iPod, sunny Sensō-ji once again became my teenage Japanophile paradise.

Tokyo is much too big to stuff into one, or even two or three blog posts. I have broken down my excursion into six categories and will be posting them as a series over the next couple weeks.

The amount of galleries and museums in Tokyo is almost overwhelming. Even more daunting is the fact that a very large portion of them are actually worth a visit.

On Monday, while Laura, Don, and I were shopping in Harajuku, we happened upon a delightful art gallery hosting an exhibition of prints by mostly British street artists: the LaForet Museum in the famous LaForet shopping center. It was one of the coolest exhibitions I’ve seen in some time, not just because of the quality of the works and the fact that I was familiar with the visual vocabulary they employed, but because the actual display strategies properly framed the art as products of dynamic urban subcultures without feeling overwrought. The prints were hung on metal grids that looked like chain-link fences, which overlapped to give the impression of convoluted cages. White spotlights hung from the high ceiling gave the artwork a sharp clarity against the gallery’s black walls and floor. My favorite aspect of the display was the hip-hop background music, which could have been over-the-top, but instead it helped to place the art in its proper context. It just makes sense for artists like Banksy and Jamie Hewlett.

The next day we went to the Tokyo Photography Art Museum in Ebisu. There did not appear to be a permanent exhibition here, but instead three different special exhibitions on three separate floors. There is also a movie theatre. Entry is expensive–¥700 or ¥1000 per floor, ¥1400 for two, or ¥2100 for all three–but the exhibition we saw, on surrealist photography, was well worth the ticket price. While the display itself was fairly unremarkable, the collection was great and I’d recommend it as a unique option among major art museums in Tokyo. Plus, it’s located in the scenic Yebisu Garden Place, which has some interesting architecture and a variety of restaurants, including Joël Robuchon’s three-story spend-o-plex.

On Wednesday, Don and I went to the Edo Tokyo Museum, a gigantic building that sort of reminded me of an AT-AT from The Empire Strikes Back. The interior is no less intimidating, with dim lighting and a huge entrance hall that features a life-size replica of the original Nihonbashi. From there, the museum leads visitors on a more or less consistent course from early modernity into modernity, beginning around 1600 and ending around the end of the Showa period. I say “more or less consistent” because of the completely unnecessary and baffling inclusion of costumes from David Bowie’s Ziggy Startdust World Tour, which were produced by a Japanese fashion designer and loosely (very loosely) based on kimono and armor from the Edo period. But besides this one kink, the museum presented a very comprehensive view of the past 400 years of Japanese history and material culture. I especially liked the section on printing, which included a collection of 18th-century cookbooks and menus and an ukiyo-e print broken down into each individual layer of color. The enclosed area on the Yoshiwara district was clever, too.

After that, we reconvened with Emiko and Laura, and then went to the Mori Building in Roppongi Hills, which, in my opinion, offers the best possible view of Tokyo at its 52nd-floor Tokyo City View. It also houses one of the best modern art museums in Tokyo, the Mori Art Museum, whose displays often act rather shamelessly as promotions for the companies that sponsor them (past exhibits have been on Armani, Pixar, and Virgin; the exhibit we saw was “Works From the UBS Art Collection,” and an upcoming exhibit is on “The Art of BMW” or some such thing. Personally, I adore the Mori Art Museum’s permanent collection, which focuses on contemporary East Asian artists and boasts work from the likes of Akira Yamaguchi 山口晃, Yoshitomo Nara 奈良美智 and Takashi Murakami 村上隆.

On Thursday, we went to the Ghibli Art Museum in Mita, a sort of museum/funhouse showcasing the beautiful works of one of my artistic idols, Hayao Miyazaki, and his prolific animation company. The museum celebrates animation as art and as magic. The first room we entered was full of filmstrips, clever animation cycles, mesmerizing three-dimentional zoetropes, and animated dioramas; this room laid out the museum’s thesis that not only is animation art, it’s really elegant and complex art. On one of the displays something was written that perfectly and beautifully summarized why I love animation; I can’t remember the exact quote in Japanese, but it translated to something like, “Everything in the world is moving. Plants and animals are moving; the sun and clouds are moving; people are moving. So shouldn’t art move, too?” It was a lot more eloquent than that, but you get the gist. The museum also houses a small cinema that shows exclusive Studio Ghibli short films; we saw an adorable, touching, and very Miyazaki-esque cartoon about a lost puppy. But my favorite part of the complex were the rooms that displayed the many stages of the animation process, with sketches and storyboards scattered across rooms decorated to look like the actual Ghibli studio, complete with desks, art supplies, animation tools, and photography books. As an amateur cartoonist, these rooms had me feeling seriously giddy and inspired. And to think that I expected the coolest part of the museum would be the big, furry cat bus on the third floor, which turned out to be off-limits to adults anyway.

And finally, on Friday I found myself back at the Shinyokohama Ramen Museum, a monument to one of Japan’s most beloved foods in all its forms. Unfortunately, the didactic display has changed drastically since I did research there three years ago. The old display contained photos of some of the nation’s first ramen shops, an authentic ramen cart flanked by customer-luring charmera horns, a TV monitor showing ramen commercials from the 1960s onward, and cabinetfuls of ramen bowls and instant noodle packaging. It was colorful and emotive, and I’m sad it’s gone. But the new display is interesting, too, and more focused, if somewhat less exciting. Now, there are models of noodles and vials of wheat explaining the production of the noodles themselves, bordered by a floor-to-ceiling map of Japan explaining regional variations and a large section focusing on the ramen of one particular region. Currently, the featured ramen is Kumamoto ramen! This is a genre I know very well, and I was excited to see that the exhibit focused on Komurasaki, one of my favorite Kumamoto ramen shops (my very favorite is Ajisen, but I think it’s fallen out of favor among ramen tastemakers due to its rapid international expansion).

But of course, the real reason anybody visits the Ramen Museum isn’t for the displays on the thicknesses of various noodles or for information on their carbonate content. People come for shitamachi, a 1958 street scene built within a huge two-story area, complete with narrow alleyways, movie posters, fake clinics, a fake pachinko parlor, a fake onsen (which actually leads to the elevator), and a perpetual sunset. The nostalgia is palpable, and the quality of the scenery rivals Disneyland in its texture and attention to detail. It all serves as context for the ramen itself, which can be sampled at eight different shops tucked away in various areas of the display. I can’t think of a higher honor a ramen shop could achieve than being offered a place in the fond collective memory that is shitamachi.

After breakfast in Kurokawa, we took another lovely bath, then packed up and left for our next stop: Aso. Our perpetually pleasant innkeeper drove us to the bus stop, and just a few minutes after he dropped us off, he was back again, to give us a complimentary tourist map of Aso! What a guy.

Then we were on our way. The bus ride was uneventful, as bus rides tend to be, but the view from the winding mountain road into the sprawling Aso caldera, green with agriculture and encompassed by high, volcanic mountains, was gorgeous. I suppose it’s a shame I don’t have a picture, but I figured one taken through a shaky bus window wouldn’t turn out very well, so I just relaxed in my comfy coach seat and enjoyed the moment.

We had booked a stay at another onsen resort, but before checking in we headed to Moo Moo Farm (formerly Friendly Farm), an establishment that offers hands-on encounters with the rural idyll (plus lots of dogs, for some reason). I don’t remember how I found out about this place - I think it might have been through the official Aso tourism website - but I’m glad I did. They have a restaurant and a rather sad souvenir shop, but Moo Moo Farm’s main draw for me was a series of fun, farmy workshops and experiences (taiken 体験) such as butter making, pony rides, and bread making. Also, there were ostriches, just for good measure. Anyway, we chose to do three activities - calf nursing, cow milking, and sausage making - which we had to reserve ahead of time by phone. (In the summer months, reservations are required only for the food workshops.)

First up was cow-milking. Our coach was a kindly young woman who explained, with wisdom and respect in her voice, the finer points of mother cows and their delicate dispositions. She reminded us that the cow (named Bell, or possibly Belle) is an animal, just like ourselves, and as an animal, we should treat her with respect, and also watch out for sudden… uh, evacuations. Then she showed us the milking technique, which took a lot more finesse than I expected. Then again, I expected it to look something like this:

Here’s what it looked like in reality:

Bear in mind that I’m from Wisconsin, born and raised in America’s dairyland (it says so on our license plates). And when I grasped that squishy pink udder in my hand, I felt I had grasped something important; no, something elemental, something at the very core of my being. At that moment, I thought to myself, “This is me!” It was like holding my own heritage in my hand.

Actually, I didn’t feel like that at all. I was mostly just focusing on the matter at hand: trying to coerce some milk out of the large mammal before me. However, upon reflection, the whole situation does strike me as somewhat strange. I spent all of college and most of high school wanting to live in Japan after growing up in Wisconsin. And what do I do now that I’m here? Milk a cow. I mean, WTF?

Anyway, we were done milking in a matter of minutes, at which point we tossed the spoils to a pair of hungry pugs, who wedged their heads into the bucket and began pushing it along the floor in a panicked attempt to lick up as much of the fresh milk as they could. Then we headed for the barn, where we were to nurse calves with warm milk in big baby bottles. It turned out to be a feeding frenzy. The calves became unmanageably unruly as they scrambled for the warm milk; the whole thing was over in about sixty messy seconds. I only got one picture out of the experience.

Then we played with the dogs, ate soft cream, and made sausages in our final workshop of the day. Considering it was our first time, I think the sausages turned out pretty good! However, I do think our coach overcooked them and they tasted a little dry in the end. But they were still palatable, though their porky aroma was somewhat overwhelming on the bus ride to Sozankyō 蘇山郷, our hotel.

I have more exciting things to write about than our lodgings on this leg of the trip, but I must say that it was a fantastic deal at only ¥14,000 per night. It included a nice little private bath, a sizable breakfast, and some of the best service I’ve ever received - and I live in Japan! The bar’s shochu collection was quite impressive, too. Highly recommended if you’re in Aso.

We spent just an hour or so relaxing at the hotel, and then we set off to what would be the highlight of the trip: the hifuri kamiwaza 火振り神事 at Aso Shrine, one of many fire festivals held around this time of years in and around Aso. Because of its somewhat alarming volcanic activity, the Aso area, and sometimes the whole of Kumamoto Prefecture, is known as hi no kuni, or the country of fire. At the festival, which loosely translated means “divine fire throwing,” the nickname proved to be more than just poetic.

I knew that the festival’s main attractions was some sort of spectacle involving people throwing fire; what I didn’t know is that this spectacle would be performed by whoever the hell wanted to give it a go! Here’s how it works: festival leaders light two or three big stacks of hay on fire, in the center of a long, narrow courtyard in front of the shrine. Then, eager members of the crowd rush to grab small bales of hay bound with rope (about one foot in diameter, and about two feet long) from large piles in various places throughout the courtyard. They unwind the rope, dip their bale into the flaming haystacks, and whirl it around their heads like crazy people.

It was like a culture of pyromaniacs. There was no dearth of volunteers for this, despite the fact that nobody had been trained or briefed on the dangers of swinging large fireballs around. It was not at all rare for a rope to burn through, sending flaming hay flying into other participants, into reporters, or into the wide-eyed crowd. It was madness. And it was awesome.

Needless to say, I had to give it a try.

I have had a lot of fun in Japan, and I have done a lot of really interesting, exciting things. But I’m afraid I can’t think of any other experience I’ve had, in Japan or any other country, that comes close to the thrill of wrangling a flaming bale of hay above my head, in close proximity to others doing the same thing. It is really very dangerous, and yet nobody seemed to get hurt over the course of the hour-and-a-half-long fire-flinging free-for-all.

There was also something going on about a goddess princess’s wedding ceremony. As good an excuse to play with fire as one could probably come up with, I suppose.

After that big, explosive climax, the rest of the trip consisted of much-needed falling action: a couple baths, a few beers, a ¥1000 glass of shochu, a big Japanese breakfast, and a pleasant denouement atop Mount Aso. Mount Aso is apparently the largest active volcano in Japan, and one of the largest in the world. We got up there by bus and by ropeway, and at the summit, the air was brisk and tinged with the smell of sulfur. On the way up, I wishfully half-expected to see bubbling streams of magma and barely-solidified black rock. Instead, there was the almost equally striking view of a steaming-hot, bright turquoise pool of mineral-dense liquid (I hesitate to call it water, because it didn’t look like any water I’ve seen before) in the volcano’s deep crater.

That’s about it. It was an amazing trip. Granted I haven’t been to Oita or Miyazaki yet, but I’m pretty sure after this long weekend that Kumamoto is my favorite prefecture in Kyushu. I will miss Kumamoto quite a bit when I leave Japan this summer.

One of my first-ever entries was a travelogue about Kumamoto City, a place that made me fall in love with Japan all over again over the course of three days filled with hospitable people, delicious and exotic cuisine, ska music, storied history, and beautiful art. I vowed to return; and I have - twice! I took my parents there last spring, and over the summer I took my friend Vijan, to let them take in its consummate Japaneseness: the castle, the garden, and of course, the beer, ramen, and horse meat.

I never did feel compelled to write about Kumamoto again, though, because I didn’t really have anything new to report after my subsequent visits. But this weekend, I travelled to the quite volcanically interesting far northeastern regions of rural Kumamoto for a much-needed countryside getaway, and the newness and excitement of the trip refreshed me in the same way my original visit to Kumamoto City did. So without further ado, here it is: Kumamoto, part two.

The first stop on our journey (by train, then bus) was Kurokawa Onsen, a hot spring resort area famous throughout Kyushu for its gorgeous scenery, especially in the fall, when the maple leaves glow red in the crisp, blue mountain air, and in the spring, when the plum and cherry blossoms burst open and their pale petals cover the mossy ground like snowflakes. Or that’s what I hear, anyway; we came a bit too early to see Kurokawa in all its exuberantly floral glory, but it was beautiful nonetheless. With time to kill before our check-in time, we took a leisurely stroll to admire the vibrant terrain around us after a surprisingly delicious lunch and a glass of refreshing Balsamic vinegar ginger ale at a cute little hilltop cafe.

However, even all of Kurokawa’s natural splendor couldn’t entice us away from Tairōkan 大朗館, our ryokan, once we checked in; the service, the food, and the baths were just too nice and too inviting to neglect. Despite hearty recommendations from six of our friends (three couples), we weren’t so sure about the place when we first got there. It was lodged awkwardly in a row of shabby, nondescript houses, and there was nobody there to greet us upon our arrival. And the lobby smelled of teacher’s room coffee - something I had really hoped to get away from during our trip.

But despite first impressions, it turned out to be a lovely stay. The baths were rustic, salty, roomy, and piping hot; the room was spacious, homey, and comfortable. The octogenarian owner told us that his ryokan had been in business since for 180 years - since the late Edo Period! The proprietors’ pride in their establishment’s history was palpable in the overall quality of the inn and in the courteous, smiling, and fretful service we received.

After a dip in a spacious, rocky bath overlooking a natural waterfall followed by a spirited game of Travel Scrabble, it was dinnertime. We knew there was going to be a lot of good food - there always is at these ryokans - but nothing could have prepared us for the amount of food brought up to our room, in three trips. I have never felt more honest in declaring gochisosama deshita (”It was a feast!”) than I did after this meal, which included, let me think… something like fifteen to seventeen different dishes. Plus ice cream. I won’t bother rattling off the whole menu (mostly because I don’t know what everything was), but here are some highlights: a hotpot piled with noodles, vegetables, and beefy duck meat, with a hearty depth that reminded me of homemade turkey soup; a cold salad in which the crispness of bamboo shoots were met with the lively, aromatic tang of creamy yuzu dressing; tender horse meat sashimi freshened up with sliced onions and grated ginger; and (probably my favorite) a teppanyaki course with eggplant, chicken, onions, and luxuriously marbled chunks of Japanese beef, sautéed to soft, browned, buttery perfection.

The meal was so large we had to take a breather halfway through to digest. Amazingly, we did end up eating everything, then relaxed in the taruburo 樽風呂 (barrel baths) before hitting the futon, thoroughly unwound and satisfied.

Huh. I just noticed this photo looks like a skull. Weird… anyway, up next: Kumamoto, part three: Aso!

If any foreigners living in Japan read this entry and would like help planning a trip to Kurokawa, please leave a comment and I will try to be of assistance!