The bus going from the Jigokudani Monkey Park to Nagano station isn’t super frequent, so after getting my fill of monkey business, I had a little bit of time to kill.
Enter: Enza Cafe, a small restaurant that specializes in ramen near the beginning of the monkey trail.
Curry isn’t necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Japanese food, but yeah, they love it here. And if a hole-in-the-wall joint called Kitchen Nankai is any indication, that love is very much justified. Like pretty much all of the food I’ve had in Tokyo, it’s good.
Remember that old SNL sketch from the ’90s where Chris Kattan played Antonio Banderas as the host of a talk show? And every time he tried to unbutton his shirt, the members of his band would plead with him to stop, because he was too sexy? Well that’s how I feel about Tokyo at this point. It needs to stop, because it’s clearly too sexy.
You’ve probably noticed from some of my posts, but there are lines everywhere here. Everywhere.
They don’t bother me all that much (and in fact, sometimes I’ll seek out a line since it’s a fairly reliable indicator that a restaurant is serving tasty food). But I was going to Kanda Matsuya, a really well-regarded restaurant that’s been serving up soba noodles for over 130 years. There was no possible way there wasn’t going to be a line.
Tokyo is trying way too hard to make me fall in love with it. But you know what? It’s kinda succeeding.
Its latest attempt to make me never want to leave: a little restaurant called Tempura Imoya. I think you can take a wild guess at what they specialize in.
Like pretty much every place I’ve been to so far, there was a line to get in. Hot tip: if you’re coming to Tokyo, bring a good book, because you’re going to be standing in a lot of lines (at least if you want to eat well — and trust me, if you’re in Tokyo, you want to eat well).
Remember when I mentioned that the eel at Hashimoto was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten? Well, I’ve got another dish to add to that list.
Tokyo is a magical place.
I love ramen, but apparently the ramen back home is garbage, because the bowl I had at Hayashi in the Shibuya district of Toyko was life-changing. It’s almost implausible how good it was. Like, did that really happen? Did I dream it?
Remember when I mentioned how the Jagalchi Market is the biggest fish market in South Korea? Well, the Tsukiji Market in Tokyo is the biggest fish market in the world.
There’s a restaurant in Tokyo called Nakajima — it’s in the bottom floor of a very nondescript building (if you were just walking by, you wouldn’t even know it’s a restaurant).
I had a hell of a time getting from Narita airport to my Airbnb in Tokyo. I’m not sure exactly where I went wrong — I had the stops for each of my transfers written down, and it all seemed straightforward enough. But somehow it went horribly awry, and I found myself staring at the almost comically complex criss-crossing lines of the Tokyo metro, wondering where I even was, or where I needed to go.