Tokyo: Rainy Day
Mäneka:
The downpour meant that it was time to orient ourselves towards the mall! Back at the Aeon Mall in Kyoto we had seen a poster promoting Naomi’s Party featuring one intriguing-looking Naomi Watanabe. Because I can never not look something up, I searched her name and found that she has a fashion line, Punyus. Kamala was struck by the fun graphics and so we made it our goal to make it to the Punyus store. We were able to find it in the basement of Shibuya 109. This mall is just straight-up insanity. There are tons of tiny shop fronts, each with loud shopgirls shouting “irasshaimase” as shrilly as possible. This shrillness is necessary to cut through the frenzy of electro-pop blasting from each store. Needless to say, once we hit our store, we had to high-tail it out of 109 in order to retain our sanity.
The next stop was the Adidas store so that I could take advantage of being in the land of fellow short-legged people. I bought two pairs of sweatpants (one of which is made in Japan) that are both the perfect length, something I would never find at home, where apparently everyone is a 6’0” amazon.
My other victory was finally finding the Frederic Cassel counter at the Ginza Mitsukoshi. Back on my first trip to Japan I became enamored of his pistachio financiers. They are nutty, soft and buttery and are topped with a small dried cherry. On the last trip I would polish off half a bag for breakfast. On this trip, only after looking at two other Mitsukoshis did I realize that M. Cassel only sells his pastries in the Ginza store. The helpful information lady led me to his counter straightaway. Long story short, I went crazy and blew an embarrassing sum on pastries.
Balaram:
Today began as the first really rainy day of the trip. We woke to the sound of the pattering of rain on the deck and windows. The plan was to go to the Edo-Tokyo museum and then lunch at Muto, a highly regarded buckwheat soba restaurant.
We got up a bit later than usual but we completed our routine expeditiously. I had been sampling croissants from the local convenience store and the one this morning was a larger version of the small ones eaten the day before. Texture off just a bit, too sweet and clearly not fresh. Enough of that! The others wisely waited for the lunch.
Once we got off the subway train, the large Edo-Tokyo museum mural indicated that it was closed Mondays. Darn! So we decided to visit the adjacent Sumo museum, a large and ornate building in its own right. We went through the gate manned by a jolly rain coated security guy and entered what appeared to be a small foyer filled with wet foreigners. No line for tickets as this was free. The foyer led into a relatively small rectangular room depicting the history of Sumo wrestling going back to the early 1700s.
Lots of nice images of the early wrestlers and photographs beginning in the late 1800s. Unfortunately, much of it as in Japanese, but it was impressive nonetheless. The wrestler rankings for tournaments as early as the late 1760s were displayed along with clothing and related paraphernalia. All in all very interesting but it turns out we only saw a tiny part of the rather large building housing Sumo history. Apparently during season, matches are held in this building. The exhibit also had a tv showing recent matches which was interesting. As Mäneka noted, the Sumo referees are the best dressed officials in all of sports!
We headed back out into the rain and took a slightly different route back toward the subway stop and went to Mitsukoshi Dept. store. As has been mentioned already in these chronicles, Japanese department stores have fabulous food emporiums in their basements. So we wandered through the aisles looking at pastries, chocolates, salads, breads and a host of prepared foods. Really a site to behold. Kamala purchased a couple of nice looking donuts, far superior in appearance to those from Jack in the Donuts. They suggested that I purchase breakfast pastries here instead of from the convenience store. Not a bad idea.
But it was time to find Muto which as nearby. We left Mitsukoshi, crossed the street, walked past a high end Wagashi store and turned into an alley with lots of bars and restaurants. Still, it was difficult to find Muto. Someone gave us directions to proceed one way and K suggested the opposite based on the map on her phone. It turns out we were pretty much standing across from Muto but as there was only a small inconspicuous sign, we had not seen it.
Lori had read about Muto in Japan Times and arranged with our Air B & B host to make reservations for lunch as dinner was booked. It is a very nice, typical understatedly elegant Japanese restaurant. We were ushered into a room of our own immediately off the entry area. Despite having two small rectangular windows, one above the other, along the back wall, the lighting was rather dim which created a sense of being in a church or monastery. We were served buckwheat tea which had a nice aroma and flavor and set the right tone for the lunch.
The meal began with a thick cold pumpkin soup topped with thin slices of okra and sesame seeds. Very rich and flavorful. This was followed by a buckwheat tofu dumpling filled with beef in a light broth with mushrooms and two thin slices of melon. The third course was tempura vegetables and fish with a wonderful dipping sauce to which we added the grated fresh daikon and ginger combination, unusual but one that enhanced the flavor significantly. A small amount of salt was also available which enhanced the overall flavor of the tempura. The main course, of course, was the soba which came with another tasty sauce to which we added grated daikon, wasabi and ginger. Excellent noodles, each of a slightly different shape as would be expected of hand made noodles, with the right texture and consistency. We finished off the remaining sauce by adding to it the water in which the noodles had been cooked, another great combination. Dessert was two small mochi with sweet an. A wonderful, leisurely meal with the right amount of food! We spoke briefly with the chef/owner who asked if similar soba, made from 100% buckwheat was available in the Bay Area, and we could not think of any such places. Lori told him she enjoyed reading his blog, which he seemed to appreciate.
By then it was early afternoon and the rain had stopped. We decided to go to Mitsukoshi in Ginza as it is a bigger store and spent most of the time in the basement looking at the food. BP followed his daughters’ advice and got a croissant and a chocolate pan and L got a fruit danish for breakfast on Tuesday. We also got rice crackers and Kamala & Mäneka bought chocolates and cookies. Lori pretty much hit all the floors and declared that this was not the store for her. Clearly an expensive store with some very cool things such as bowls and knives and clothing etc and seemingly popular with the locals. Perhaps the most interesting were the displays for New Year food that were impressive and provided Linda with some ideas for our annual New Year’s event.
Our next stop was Shibuya, a crazy, crowded, Times Square-esque locale with people bustling everywhere between the train station/subway, stores, cafes and restaurants. Kamala and Mäneka went to 109 Women to shop for clothes and Linda and I went across the street to Excelsior Caffe to sit, have a coffee and tea and just observe the scene. Lori also went on to shop for gifts. We eventually went to Mark City mall and walked around. Not as impressive as Mitsukoshi for sure. We all met back up at 109 where Kamala and Mäneka had bought sweats and a jacket. Lori had gone to Tokyu department store and also found gifts, so a successful trip.
We then began a meandering search for a store called Tokyu Hands, a “creative life store” that turned out to be a multi level store with clothing, arts and crafts, hardware, stationery and cooking paraphernalia. Pretty interesting. We all found something to buy there.
By then it was close to 7 PM and Mäneka indicated that a tonkatsu restaurant Maisen was nearby. We found it in another shopping complex that was just off the main Shibuya area. This was pretty “high tone” as Linda’s grandfather, the venerable S. Ohye, would have said. Maisen was great. Probably the best pork tonkatsu we’ve had. Light, non oily and very flavorful. We had different combinations of pork tonkatsu including curry and with egg. The cabbage salad was good too. A really nice stop after the Shibuya walking/shopping experience.
We concluded the day with dessert at Harbs, a Japanese cake store where we shared three slices of cake. Since this is the season for chestnuts (marron) two contained chestnuts and the other was a traditional cheesecake. Hot and cold tea, decaf coffee and milk topped off the repast.
Fortuitously our direct subway home could be picked up in that building, which as Mäneka noted, was better than anything we could have planned. 4 stops brought us back to our Air B & B home where we spent the rest of the evening reviewing photos, updating the blog and reminiscing about the miso class from Sunday.