tokyo food file

barracuda breakfast

Kamasu himono. Barracuda, cleaned, salted and dried overnight. 

Tomorrow's breakfast? 

かます 魳 干物

 

Foodies turn to zombies: #summer #Tokyo #dining

 

Trapped in the furnace of a Tokyo summer, even the most ardent foodies turn to zombies. We skulk inside, out of sight of the sun, emerging only after dark has fallen to roam in search of sustenance.

Instead of elaborate full-course meals, we seek out casual places close to home. Anywhere will do as long as we can nibble and graze, ordering a dish or two at a time, and interspersing food with drink and conversation till late into the night. 

Thankfully Tokyo has more and more restaurants expressly intended for that purpose. Here are four new favorites that have arrived over the past half year or so.

 

Kitchen Nakamura is one of those hip, quietly stylish places so tucked away from sight you’d never find it unaided. Mere minutes from Omotesando subway station, in the basement of the swish La Porte Aoyama building, this unobtrusive basement oasis of late-night dining is still much of an insiders’ secret.

Not that it will stay that way long. As the newest offshoot — it opened late May — of Namikibashi Nakamura, the classy-casual Japanese dining restaurant on the Ebisu end of Shibuya, word is spreading fast.

Like its parent operation, Kitchen Nakamura revolves around a large open kitchen and focuses on ingredients sourced almost entirely within Japan. Where it differs is that it serves no sake and little shochu. The food here is crossover Western and wine is the libation of choice.

Standout starters range from the kabocha squash croquettes and lightly salted mizu-nasu eggplant to the excellent stem ginger wrapped in pork. The pasta dishes are good, and the homemade sausages great. But at the heart of the (Japanese-only) menu is the charcoal grill there are kushiyaki skewers of Yambaru pork, jidori chicken, Edomae anago conger eel and more.

 

Gar Eden is another new place with a strong presence and a hybrid sensibility. Housed in a compact, free-standing two-story house that was custom-built earlier this year (it also opened in May), it has a simple, uncluttered feel that puts you immediately at ease.

The inspiration for the kitchen here is Italian. The antipasti list is brief, but there’s a good range of pasta with several made fresh in-house each day. But these are mere preliminaries for the main event: pork (spare ribs or shoulder butt), chicken or beef, scampi or tuna, even spit-roasted lamb, all served straight from the charcoal grill.

It’s the kind of food that demands good beer more than wine. Gar Eden obliges with 10 varieties on tap, ranging from what it calls “standard” (Asahi SuperDry) to “new standards”, which is its terminology for craft ales. The joker in the pack here is the Italian beer. not the usual Moretti or Peroni but one of the new generation of microbrews (currently Birra del Borgo) that are now booming off there. 

Manager Kenzo Kobayashi used to be in charge at Craft Beer Market in Jimbocho, so he not only knows his ales and IPAs, he understands the right price point. At ¥580 a glass or ¥880 per pint, he gets it spot on.

 

You’ll never guess what’s on the menu at Butcher Brothers. Or, rather, you will. But you won’t believe how good it is — or how affordable. 

Thick rashers of smoky bacon, soft-stewed tripe, juicy homemade sausages and sizzling steaks, all served up from the busy, smoky open kitchen that occupies the heart of this buzzy new (February) restaurant close by Kanda JR station. 

Butcher Brothers is as cheap as it is cheerful, with generous steaks from as little as Y840 for the beef rump or ¥1,250 for rib. As for the wine, it’s ¥450 by the glass, and just about no bottles over ¥3,500. 

For the longest time, this part of Kanda has been down-at the heel, with no shortage of sleazy salaryman dives and sake bars. Butcher Brothers is tangible evidence that there is new blood coursing through this old-school neighborhood.

 

World Breakfast All Day also has a name that says it all. This brilliant, whimsical little café/diner has not only come up with an idea that is totally original, it is doing it in a way that feels more Brooklyn or Camden Town than anything you’d expect to find on Gaien-Nishi-dori in Gaienmae.

Every two months, the menu changes to focus on the cuisine — specifically the breakfast — of a single country. Currently it’s Mexico. That means you get a generous plate of chilaguilles, fried egg with fresh tortilla, avocado, cream cheese and cilantro salad. There’s coffee, lightly sweetened horchata or Tecate lager to go with that, depending on your whim and the time of day. 

Alternatively, there is a simpler muesli bowl. Or you can go for the full English brekkers with egg and sausage, fried bread, baked beans, mushrooms and more. Then in the evening (from 5 p.m.), a rather more substantial dinner menu of Mexican specials comes into play.

The narrow dining room has only very basic décor, and everyone (maximum 14 people) sits at one long communal table. The walls are decorated with folksy Mexican artifacts and the menu has cute explanations (in Japanese) about the culture. But what makes this place so special is that at the end of the month everything will be overhauled and the featured cuisine will be Vietnamese.

Kitchen Nakamura: ameblo.jp/kitchennakamura/

Gar Eden: www.facebook.com/gareden.kv

Butcher Brothers: http://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1310/A131002/13152432/

World Breakfast All Day: world-breakfast-allday.com

This is the unredacted version of my column in the Japan Times this week. More details (address, opening times, etc.) are at the bottom of the column

Ivy Place in Daikanyama: quality comfort food

I dropped by last night's opening reception at Ivy Place, the latest project from David Chiddo and the TY Harbor Brewery group.

It's in the shiny new Daikanyama T2 development, facing Kyu-Yamate-dori. There was a good turnout, buzzy but not over-crowded...

It's a handsome building, low-rise and freestanding, with plenty of timber. 

It's also got ample deck space — and because it's in the middle of the development, it looks out onto pedestrian paths, not traffic-choked streets.

This is the main dining room, spacious but with low ceilings...

On the other side there's a cafe area which will be open from 7 in the morning, serving buttermilk pancakes, scrambled eggs and other breakfast specials. 

And in the middle is a bar area, complete with six taps dispensing ales from the TY Harbor Brewery.

As for the food, David tells me the aim is to serve quality comfort food, blending Mediterranean influences (a la Cicada) with modern American dining (Beacon) and a line of craft beers in the bar (TY Harbor).

It all sounds excellent. And we'll find out exactly how good just as soon as it's up and running — which will be from tomorrow (Dec. 5).

The Ivy Place web site is here... 

On the Corner + Bear Pond

 

The most compelling reason for dropping by the aptly (or is it unimaginatively?) named On The Corner is certainly not the retro-tinged decor, with ceiling fans and exposed ducting. 

 

Nor is it the (almost) all-day breakfast — or even the egg muffin (with fries) that illustrated the side bar to my JT column.

 

It's the coffee. More specifically, the espresso counter in the entrance lobby, called Bear Pond No.8.

 

As the name suggests, it's produced by Bear Pond, the "cult-classic barista shack in Shimokitazawa that serves the hippest — and the finest, many swear — espresso in the city."

 

With its funky wooden furnishings and its counter-culture-oriented core clientele, Bear Pond is a throwback to the time when Shimokita was a radical-alternative student enclave — not the youth shopping plaza it's become today.

They ask you not to take photos of the interior, so I have always refrained (apart from sneaking one of the cup itself). But you get a sense of where they're at by the way the menu is printed out on a simple sheet from a ruled pad (as if it had been typed).

And the fact they call one of their blends the "Flower Child Espresso".

 

Fine as their coffee is — and it really is a wicked brew — that's all they do serve. But right across the street is a branch of Hara doughnuts, which are made from tofu (or maybe it's okara or just soymilk). They're pretty good.

[And don't quote me on this, but I think you're allowed to bring the donuts into Bear Pond to nibble on with your latte.]

off-season oysters + breakfast in Biarritz

A double-barreled post — over at Bath to Barcelona...

A few oysters at the "bistro de l'huitre"...

...and café/croissants on the waterfront...