Friends and Food in Tokyo - Posted by BOB

The best thing about Japan was the chance to see a bunch of friends I have not seen in years and make new ones. Of course the food was amazing and I had the chance to eat things that you can only get in Japan.

There is this little bar that is right around the corner from Jason's apartment and we decided to stop by one night to see what was happening. This place was super cool and Jason knew the owner a little bit. This place is only open a few days a week. While we were there we meet a nice couple that lived near by and it was a lot of fun to talk to them. They had a chance to practice their English and we got to learn a lot about Japan. The dish right there was something that the owner brought us. We did not order it and I do not remember if we had to pay for it or if he gave it to us on the house. Either way it was a good night.

I have posted about my love of Tonkatsu, which is the world's most delicious porkchop. This is a pretty big meal for Japan, but the large number of side dishes can be misleading because most of the side dishes are only two or three bites. I ate these every chance I got and I even got a souvenir from one of the restaurants we ate at to symbolize my love for Tonkastsu.

More Tonkatsu. This one is miso katsu from Nagoya covered with delicious miso sauce

This is at some famous Sushi restaurant. We had to wait probably close to 2 hours to get in. We went with Jason's roommates and their significant others. The food was so good. There was an awesome soup and just lots of delicious sushi.

This is all of the damage that we did. The waitress has this scanner that they use to scan the stack of plates and then it charges us based on that. Even if there are only 2 or 4 pieces of sushi per plate it still adds up in the tummy.

This is Katsuya. We had a little adventure with him wandering around Tokyo. Jason and I both tried Pachinko for the first time which was massively confusing. I spent $10 dollars to push buttons and turn levers for 3 minutes while there was loud noises and have no idea what was happening. If you asked me what Pachinko is I would not know. All I know is that Pachinko is super popular in Japan for some reason.

This is okonomiyaki, a Japanese pancake. We went to this all you can eat place where you make your own. Somehow Japanese mayo is better than American mayo. I just think it is sweeter or something.

Here is Marco as we tried to find some restaurant to eat at. It can be hard to find a restaurant to eat at with Jason. He has these things that he look for when trying to find restaurants, but he never tells anyone what he is looking for. So what ends up happening is you walk past dozens of restaurants until something passes his qualifications and we finally get to eat.

This is some delicious friend chicken. We took a special train and trick just to get it. I do not know what makes it so delicious, but boy was it good.

This is Hikari. I wish this picture wasn't so blurry, but it is the best shot of her that I have. I remember meeting her in NY once, but it was nice to see her again in Tokyo. We ended up going to one of these micro bars. There was only enough room of 6 of us in the entire bar. These are pretty popular in Japan, but I am not sure how stay in business. They are really popular, but still. It was really hard to find an empty one when we were looking for them.

This is yakitori, which is really just meat on a stick. You can get them with salt or some sort of sauce. They always ask you, which way you want it. You can get some pretty weird stuff here that you cannot get in any normal American restaurant. They have tongue, intestine, heart, liver and every other organ. Japanese do not waste their animal by products.

I do not know what this is, but it is some sort of sushi bowl. They had some delicious sauce on top. I think this was one of the last meals that I got to eat in Japan and it definitely unique and super delicious.

Here is John Rubario, or at least his body. He was a friend of Jason's at Albany and John taught me all types of things that my mom does not want to hear about. John is now an international lawyer (or something like that) and is super successful. This restaurant only has a half door for some reason. This is not the only restaurant in Tokyo with a door like this.

More food.

Here is the lovely Vivian. She was Jason's roommate in NY for a while and it was really nice seeing her. I had not seen her in a while. Plus our glasses match. So in summery Japan is full of good people and good food.