Sumimasen...Om Nom Nom

This trip to Tokyo has been in the planning for something like a year now (or rather, in the discussing...planning only got serious about a month ago) with Mom and her friends. A stated goal of the trip has always been consumption of great quantities of high-quality Japanese food. So far, so good.

Day 1, dinner: We head into the neighborhood (Meguro-ku) for sashimi. As M says, "In Japan, even the worst sushi is better than almost anything you can get outside of Japan." We are each presented with an amuse bouche of a giant snail of some kind. I pass. I opt for the uni instead, which is as delicious as everyone always says it is. Essence of umami in a squishy orange blob.

Day 2, lunch: Noodles in Kamakura, suburb of temples. After a morning of slightly taxing hiking amongst the hills and temples, we duck into a noodle joint on the main drag and everyone has cold soba. Except for me. I need the protein, so opt for an oyaku-don (chicken & egg over rice) instead. Yum. On the way towards the train station after visiting the Big Buddha, we get green tea soft serve ice cream.

Day 2, dinner: An amazing feast at a place called Kamakurayama - ostensibly a "steak restaurant" in the hills above Kamakura, but somehow we manage to have the best sashimi I've ever had (this one's for you, Dad) as an appetizer - consisting mainly of shellfish I would ordinarily never eat but was fantastically, eye-openingly, fresh and delicious. The steak was a beautifully marbled slice of something divine. I'm drooling just thinking about it, and I don't eat much steak anymore.

Day 3, lunch: Roppongi Hills shopping center. We navigate our way through the slightly disorienting complex to a tempura restaurant...only to find that it's closed on Wednesdays. Doh! We navigate our way back into the main area, visually appraise the various restaurants on the food floor, and opt for sashimi. Super-bonus: weird black sweet mochi for dessert, covered in what we guess is peanut powder. Later that afternoon, between visiting the Sky View and the Mori Museum Turner Prize exhibit, we down fruit juice floats.

Day 3, dinner: We head once again into Meguro-ku for yakitori, squeeze into a local 25-seat restaurant, and pig out. We proceed to eat chicken wings, gizzards, livers, and cartilage(!); asparagus wrapped in bacon, tomato wrapped in bacon, potato, eggplant, shitake; pork rolled with shiso, ginko nuts. Yum, yum, and yum. We roll home afterwards.

Day 4, lunch: Shibuya district, Tokyu Honten (department store). We head up to their restaurant floor and once again visually appraise the options. We're planning to get tempura in Asakusa tomorrow, so we pass on the Everything Unagi place and the noodle joint and opt for more sushi. We sit at the bar and point; the chef is very friendly, and even faintly amused by our limited sushi vocabulary. "Is that ikura? Aaaaaaaa."

Tonight we're headed into Daikanyama for another local recommendation by a friend. Gonna have to work up an appetite, or at least work off some guilt at how many calories we're eating!