Monday morning BH had to go to work, so she dropped us at Kisarazu station at the usual time to catch the Sazanami 8:16 train to Tokyo. Here we returned to Takeshita street for some shopping until noon, then we went to Shibuya and checked around a bit. We missed the opportunity to check out 109 or Kiddy Land or Tokyu Hands (the branch in Shinjuku seemed small and incomplete), so next time.
It's a nice day and we wanted to eat outdoors, so we decided to buy food and have a picnic in Shinjuku Gyoen garden. Near Shibuya Hachiko exit was the Tokyu department store so we went down to the Food Show and picked out lunch: 2 sushi lunch boxes(„1409 each), a box of 8-piece seafood shiu mai („690), and 2 shoronpo (xiǎolóngbāo, bánh bao, „160 each). The garden costed money to get in, but it was well kept and clean and there were so many people there with their families, enjoying a day off close to nature. Couples also came in, finding intimacy in the crowds.
We had our lunch on the edge of a big lawn next to a batch of cosmos, and we saw this unusual one. Then we strolled around the park watching people, and caught this cute little girl separated from everyone else.
More grilled seafood in Omoide Yokocho
Omoide Yokocho had a really strong attraction to us especially my wife, and since we were in Shinjuku that afternoon, we went looking for the last opportunity of getting some more of the addicting grilled food in Omoide Yokocho. My wife had been noticing an izakaya there that served great looking seafood that you grilled right at the table. We were lucky, it's open, and not crowded at all in that early afternoon hour. They had a piece of paper out at the counter saying they didn't understand English, yep, that's to set your expectations right! But no problem to my wife. As soon as we settled down and a guy walked up to take our order, she dragged him out to the front of the place where they had the cooler storing the seafood, and pointed out what she wanted and how many. Simple wasn't it? Then it's grill time. The gas portable grill was lit up, prawns, bakagai (round clam), akagai (red/bloody clam, sò huyết), hotategai (scallop) and sazae conches were stacked full, it's fun time. I also ordered 2 glasses of shochu-soda mix with ice, good stuff, but it made us tippy in a hurry. We had a great time there, the waiter was very attentive, probably because we were gaijin, and might be because it's not crowded at that hour. He helped shucked the sazae for us, which we ate its entirety, including the green bit at the bottom!
We planned to go to the Ario department store in the town of Soga for some gift shopping based on our friend's recommendation, however we didn't anticipated that by train it would take such a long time, so by the time we got there it's getting late and we didn't want to be late for dinner, thus we took another train back to Kisarazu.
That evening we went grocery shopping for a family dinner at home. We had negitoro don (ねぎとろ丼), which consisted of a bowl of rice with minced raw maguro (called negitoro, sold in packs in supermarkets for „444), sprinkled with chopped asatsuki (leeks), kizami-nori (dried laver seaweed), and a dollop of wasabi. You add shoyu (soy sauce) to taste and just chow down. Aaahhhh so delicious. The negitoro would be equivalent to the French beef tartare. We also had grilled unagi (eel, „777). Then we finished with a bowl of miso soup with shredded daikon.
|
