Come Fry with Me

Posted on 2006/03/23 06:24:07 (March 2006).

[Saturday 18th March]
Or alternatively, Fry me to the Moon...

Today Lorenzo came to Tokyo, which was just fabulous. I spent the daytime at home, awaiting with anticipation his arrival. Luckily I was not devoid of things to do - just after lunch a delivery guy arrived with a very large parcel. Upon opening it you can imagine my delight in finding half a whisky barrel - a birthday present from Chie. The idea was to use it for putting plants in on our balcony. You could still smell the whisky that was soaked into the wood, and I was absolutely over the moon with it.

So Lorenzo and I met up in Harajuku around 6:30. After struggling to find anywhere to go in Harajuku for a while, we managed one quick drink before deciding we might be better off heading over to Shibuya. Along the way we met up with Marta and Chie, and the four of us set about finding somewhere to eat and drink in this bustling part of Japan's capital. This was not an easy task - it appears our timing was less than great, and we were turned away from a number of over full izakayas.

Finally we came upon a kushiage tabehodai place. They actually had several free tables - not entirely encouraging as to the quality, given that everywhere else was full, but by this time we would have eaten just about anywhere. So the format was that you get allocated 90 minutes, and in that time you can eat as many little fried things-on-a-stick (kushiage) as you can. Oh and also drink as much beer as you can. Thus you can imagine the commitment with which we entered into this enterprise, and one hour and a half later I was feeling thoroughly unhealthy. Still it was fun though, you got all the kushiage things in their raw form, and we then cooked them ourselves, in our own private deep fat frier built into our table. On the downside though this meant we left the place absolutely stinking of that evil lingering frying smell, an insight into what it must be like to work in a chip shop.

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