Japan food crawl

This afternoon I walked back to the hotel from the chiropractic college and noticed a lot of Japanese food stalls near Shimbashi station so we decided to go on a food crawl through the area for dinner. The aim was to try lots of different things at different places so we only ordered a couple or few things at each place to try.

This was our food crawl:

Just near the station there are lots and lots of little food shops. We saw lots of business men dining and drinking alcohol after work.

Shop 1

The first stop was chosen randomly. It looked like a nice place and there were seats for us inside. There was a man cooking yakitori near the door and it smelled so good.

The inside of the shop reminded me of an Aussie pub with tables and barstools.
Just for fun, we decided to be food critics and score each dish. 

Cheers! Kanpai! 乾杯!

Dish 1: Maguro (tuna) sashimi (pictured below)

Dave - 8/10

Mel - 6/10 - I have tasted better. This was not sliced neatly and was a bit chewy, not melt in the mouth as sashimi should be

Marika - a solid 5/10

Dish 2: Shiitake Mushrooms (not pictured)

Dave - 6/10

Mel - 8/10 - this was actually my favourite dish of the night.

Marika- A yummy 8/10

Dish 3: Yakitori with 3 types of topping - fish roe, something pickled and wasabi

Dave - 7/10 (and a thumbs up)

Mel - 5/10 - pass but slightly dry and small

Marika-6 1/2 /10 - I was hoping for teriyaki

 

Shop 2

We walked down another cross street looking for a place to try other types of Japanese food. The other criteria that the shop must meet is that it must have room for us to be able to sit. Stop 2 was another random find. This was also interesting for us as it was the first time we needed to use a vending machine to order our food. The menu is shown on a board outside so when you pick what you would like, you then pay via the vending machine and take the receipt to the counter.

Vending machine

Dish 4: Karaage Chicken (pictured below)

Dave - 8/10 - favourite dish of the night

Mel - 7/10 - the chicken was well cooked. It had nice spicy flavouring.

Marika - 7/10

Dish 5: Gyoza (pictured below)

Dave-

Mel - 5/10 - passable

Marika - 6/10

At the third store, we wanted to try a noodle dish like udon, ramen or soba.

Again, we wondered the streets to find another random shop that took our fancy. There were lots of choices.

Spoiled for choice with streets lined with food stalls and shops

Dish 6: Beef udon noodle (pictured below)

Dave -

Mel - 6/10 - I usually prefer ramen to udon. Udon noodles can be a bit chewy. The soup base was flavoursome.. so above average.

Marika - 9/10 - great tasting soup base (This dish wins Marika's highest score for the night!)

Dish 7: Cold soba noodle and tempura prawns and vegetables (pictured below)

Dave -

Mel - 7/10 - the prawns were nicely done in tempura batter. The cold noodles were refreshing with the sauce.

Marika 8/10

After having these 7 dishes, we decided to try some dessert. On my way back from the chiropractic school I had noticed this shop with a long line. Stop 4 was a taiyaki shop on a street corner. Taiyaki a fish-shaped waffle filled with red bean or vanilla custard.

Dish 8: Taiyaki

Dave -

Mel - Red bean - 4/10 (not a big fan of red bean), Custard-6/10

Marika-Red bean - 3/10 (it's a red bean thing...nothing personal) Custard - 5/10

I think red bean is probably an acquired taste. Whilst not minding it, in the dessert, it becomes too much. 

Dish 9: Aisumonaka  - Green tea ice cream and red bean in a wafer case

Dave-

Mel - 7/10 - reminds me of an ice cream sandwich... yummm

Marika - 7/10

The menu for the Taiyaki shop

We were quite satisfied after our 9 course food crawl. We got to try many different types of Japanese dishes rather than being confined to ordering one each. 

Dave decided to call it a night. 

The foodies Mel and Marika decided to kick on with more dessert as there are many European bakeries around Ginza. They seem to be very popular.

We chose a couple of desserts to try from Almond bakery.

Dish 10: Mohito jelly dessert (pictured below on the left)

Mel - 7/10

Marika - 7 1/2 /10 - very refreshing!

Dish 11: Mont Blanc (pictured below on the right)

Mel - 3/10- it looked like a beautiful dessert. It was very well presented. The score partially reflected the fact that I did not really like the ingredients. The top was a dense chestnut paste. The dessert could have been a lot worse as chestnut paste has the ability to taste dry or grainy. This was fairly smooth just thick. There was too much cream in the dessert for my liking.

Marika - 3/10 - We chose it because it looked good in the window :-) but it's not really my type of dessert)

Almond bakery desserts

Here ends our food crawl. Terribly indulgent. Hopefully we covered enough kilometers to have walked it off. But it was just a lot of fun and great to get to try a bit of everything and experience Japanese food.