tiger

We've been wanting to check out Tiger for some time now and especially after it was featured in a J-drama.

It is about a 30 minute walk from where we live, so we left early so we could be there at 10:30 when they opened.

I had their curry rice...650 yen (tax included).

Simple, pork and onions, this curry reminded me of something my mom used to make.

The gyoza snob had to try their gyoza...550 yen (tax included) for 6.

It passed his test...

I tasted one and it had lots of cabbage and garlic in there.

He also had their Tiger-men...seafood, veggies, thin noodles and a slurry shoyu type of soup.

He enjoyed this too.

I'm glad we got to check out this place and look forward to coming to try other items on their menu.

We'll be back.

Tiger

2-51-16 Nishirokugo

Ota, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3733.3646

Closed Wednesdays

Hours: 10:30-20:00

19201

Sunday, we got out early so that we could check out the Winter botan (peony) display at Ueno.

(The line to get into the zoo was krazy! going from the zoo all the way through part of Ueno park!)

If you remember we saw the dahlia display in October.

The admission for the peony display was 1000 yen, a little higher than the dahlia display, but the area was bigger and there were lots more flowers to see.

So pretty! This display runs from January 1 to February 23.

From Ueno Park we went down the street to Shuetsu, which apparently was the first shop to make fukujinzuke, the pickles that you usually see served with curry in Japan.

They have been in business for over 300 years!

They also gave us some recipes to use their fukujinzuke in, can't wait to try this.

While looking for lunch, we ended up at Gyu-sha for lunch since the other places we wanted to try had krazy lines.

I ordered the 180 gram hamburger curry...1250 yen (tax included)

The curry was not made from scratch, but the patty was made from 100% beef, unfortunately there was some gristle in there but this was still tasty.

Satoshi ordered the 300 gram hamburger with wafu onion sauce...1590 yen (tax included) which came with rice.

It came out sizzling and Satoshi said he enjoyed this.

After lunch we walked towards Jimbocho and had pour over coffee at Glitch Coffee.

I had no idea how expensive pour over coffee could be...live and learn...

I think my cup of Ethiopean was 1500 yen (tax included)...eep

It was floral and I enjoyed this but will stick to espresso drinks in the future here...

Satoshi chose a Columbian bean and his was 1000 yen (tax included)

His coffee had a citrusy tone to it, he said he enjoyed this.

And then we walked to Tokyo station.

It was nice to be outside.

Hope you enjoyed our outing as much as we did.

Shuetsu

3-29-5 Ueno

Taito, Tokyo

Hours: 10:00-19:00 daily

Gyusha

6-5-9 Sotokanda

Chiyoda, Tokyo

Phone: 03.6803.0529

Hours: 11:30-15:30 (lunch), 17:30-22:00 (dinner)

Glitch Coffee

3-16 Nishikicho

Chiyoda, Tokyo

Phone: 03.5244.5458

Hours: 8:00-19:00 (Mondays-Fridays), 9:00-19:00 (Saturdays & Sundays)

p.s. if you are interested in seeing other photos and videos, please look here

front village diner

Front Village Diner is a tiny cafe that opened up on Friday near our train station.

Their menu is quite extensive.

Satoshi ordered their bacon donburi topped with a poached egg...1000 yen (tax included)

It looked kind of pale, but he said this was tasty.

I ordered their keema curry....1000 yen (tax included)

A little spicy, the egg yolk mellowed the flavors out.

Since it was their grand opening, they gave 100 yen off of a take out order so our total came out to 1900 yen (tax included).

Tasty but a bit pricey for the amount of food.

We want to try their eat-in slow food lunch, we'll be back.

Front Village Diner

6-3-7 Ikegami

Ota, Tokyo

Phone: 03.6410.2882

21392

Have you travelled on the Toden Arakawa line? It's also called the Tokyo Sakura Tram and is the last tram/cable car in Tokyo which runs between Minowabashi and Waseda.

Since we had never rode on this line before, we wanted to check it out.

From where we live though neither Waseda nor Minowabashi is close by, so we decided to ride the line from Oji, which I've been to before , which is about the middle of the line and easy for us to access.

The interesting thing about this line is there are no wickets or ticket machines, so you need to charge your IC cards before hand or have change on hand.

The cars of the tram are rather squishy/narrow in comparison to the trains and subways around Tokyo and since they run on the roadways they need to follow the traffic signals.

From Oji, we rode until Higashi Ikebukuro and got off to check out the area.

I had been wanting to check out this area for some time.

Unfortunately, since it was January 2, a lot of places were closed for the holidays.

On top of that, the observatory area in the Ikebukuro Sunshine City building was closed for renovations too.

We wanted to have something with coffee so we checked out Mamemono to Taiyaki...round taiyaki filled with your choice of sweet bean paste, custard or an butter (sweet bean paste and butter)

I ordered the soft serve thinking it came with a taiyaki on top but it was only topped with a cookie...boo!

Satoshi had their tsubuan (chunky sweet bean paste) taiyaki...total 1550 yen (tax included)

I'm glad we tried this place.

After walking around we looked for lunch and decided on Romespa Balboa...a chain pasta place...

the regular size is a whopping 350 grams of pasta!

I chose the bokkake (beef tendon and konnyaku simmered in a sweet salty shoyu based sauce) and topped it with kim chee...loved this, the sweet, the salty, the beef was tender! 950 yen (tax included)

Satoshi had their mentaiko pasta with pickled takana (mustard greens) topping 900 yen (tax included)

It was huge and I thought I wouldn't be able to finish but I came pretty close and surprised Satoshi who also thought I would leave him more to finish.

After lunch we went to check out the Zoshigaya cemetery which has many Japanese historical figures as well as literary figures buried there.

We saw so many cats hanging out here too.

From Zoshigaya, we got back on the tram and went to the Waseda end of the line.

It was our first time to see the Waseda University campus...beautiful.

On the outskirt of Waseda University is Anahachimangu shrine that has a yabusame ceremony every October

Yabusame is where the horseman shoots arrows at a target while riding on the horse.

We then decided to walk to Takadanobaba...the only problem was that we realized a little to late that we were headed in the wrong direction and heading to Itabashi instead.

So we stumbled on Kagurazaka.

I love this area! so many shops and places to eat, definitely want to come back to this area.

My feet were so sore after this but it was good to walk off all that pasta and desserts.

More photos and videos, here if you are interested.

I hope you enjoyed this adventure as much as we did.

Mamemono to Taiyaki

Sunshine City Ikebukuro, Alpa B1

Closed when Alpa is

Hours: 10:30-21:00

Romespa Balboa

Sunshine City Ikebukuro, Alpa 3F

Closed when Alpa is

Hours: 11:00-22:00

p.s. today is a national holiday, Seijin no hi (Coming of Age Day)

this and that

The wasabi ginger ale was meh...really fizzy and you couldn't tell there was wasabi in there.

Kaldi haul...lots of new (to me) Rittersport bars, a salted caramel by Bonne Maman and a can of cream of mushroom 

The Awfully Chocolates from friend H, loved the chocolates, rich and creamy.

The packaging was cool, a can like box, perfect for colored pencils.

The roasted soba was similar to rice puffs, the gingerbread flavor was non-existent.

While walking around the neighborhood I noticed a snake shop...AND if you notice the window above their door is open...eep!

NYC Sand, a popular cookie at Tokyo Station came out with ice cream products that were only being sold at 7-eleven.

The cup version has lots of caramel in it.

The bar version has lots of chocolate chips and cookie bits in it.

We enjoyed the bar version more than the cup version.

Toshikoshi soba on the 31st for lunch

Ozoni for breakfast on the 1st

Kinmedai takikomigohan for lunch on the 1st

This was tasty though the rice after it was cooked was kind of dry

Mitarashi sauce for our mochi...1 tablespoon sugar + 1 tablespoon dashi shoyu, heat until the sugar melts and sauce gets thick

So ono!

Osechi for 2 days.

We also went on a little adventure on the 2nd but will tell you about that next time.

Have a safe weekend.

kinenbi & ebisuya

Wanted to tell you what we did on the 29th of December...We ran some errands close to home and then wanted to have lunch somewhere...

When we went through the area in the past, I had remembered seeing a tiny restaurant but couldn't remember the name.

Glad we found it...Kinenbi, a tiny Chinese restaurant in Higashi Kamata.

I tried their mabodon...kind of heavy on the slurry, a little spicy, lots of garlic and ginger in this, this is Japanese style mabo tofu....700 yen (tax included)

Satoshi went with their “A” lunch...

small ramen and pork kim chee stir fry...700 yen (tax included)

He said the portions were just perfect for him.

You should know he actually wanted an order of gyoza too but the older couple running the place was kind of overwhelmed trying to fill a large delivery order, so they told him he couldn't order it...

Nearby we stumbled upon Ebisuya Tofu and picked up some of their soy milk sweets to try.

okara donut...90 yen, soy milk cheese cake...210 yen and soy milk cream cheese dessert 240 yen, all tax included.

We shared these and were impressed that you could still taste the soy milk and that these were not too sweet.

I'll be back to buy tofu products from Ebisuya and we also want to go back to try the gyoza at Kinenbi.

Kinenbi

2-36 Higashi Kamata

Ota, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3737.2929

Closed Saturdays

Hours: 11:00-14:00 (lunch), 17:00-20:00 (dinner)

Ebisuya Tofu

1-10-8 Minami Kamata

Ota, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3738.4239

Hours: 8:00-19:30 (Mondays-Saturdays), 12:00-19:30 (Sundays)

caldeirada

Hope you all had a happy start to the new year.

Have you ever had caldeirada? We've never had it.

We watched a show the other week about a Portuguese living in Kyoto and cooking Japanese cuisine.

The show also showed him making caldeirada, it looked delicious, so Satoshi said, “please make this”

I looked online and found this recipe.

Serves: 4 : from Feasting at Home

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, diced

4 garlic cloves, rough chopped

2 tomatoes, diced

1/4 cup white wine

4 cups chicken stock

2 teaspoons fish sauce (skip if using fish stock)

large pinch saffron

1/8 teaspoon all spice

1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 bay leaves

1 tablespoon fresh thyme

1 pound potatoes, washed, cut into 1 inch cubes, skins on

1.5 pounds fish: wild cod, haddock, assorted, cut into 1.5 inch pieces

Garnish: lemon, parsley 

Serve with baguette

Heat oil and saute onion and garlic

Add tomatoes, cook until soft

Add white wine, simmer until most has evaporated

Add stock and spices

Add potatoes and bring to a boil

Cover and lower heat to a simmer, cook until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes 

Add fish and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes

NOTES: first off, I cut this recipe in half

I also sauteed a (1 inch piece) of chorizo (diced) with the garlic and onion, because the author mentioned that some families use chorizo in their caldeirada.

For the stock I used dashi which is made from fish and kelp

Instead of white wine, I used sake (rice wine)

Also instead of potatoes I used satoimo (dasheen)

Pretty easy to put together and it was a nice chance to use saffron.

For the assorted fish, I bought a small tray of assorted sashimi.

I cut the pieces of fish in two to “stretch” out the amount…

This was good with toasted baguette and a salad.

And this was a nice way to end 2022.

I’m glad I tried this and would definitely make this again.