Two Weeks of Eating in Japan, Chapter 2.

BBQ.

We must have walked around thirty thousand steps on day two, taking a slow saunter north from the hotel, to the

Senso-ji shrine – Tokyo’s oldest – west through Asakusa, a train to Shinjuku and then another walk south to Shibuya. A fair portion of these steps must have been around neon-pink arcades, wondering when to start dumping cash into gashapon machines (it took a week further into the holiday for this to happen).

The sights and energy of Tokyo made us yearn for an early lunch, and we found a B.B.Q. place down a side street in Shibuya, not too far from the famous scramble crossing and Hachiko the dog but in a locale far, far quieter. We walked into what we thought was the dining room, when in fact it was a coffee shop with a smoking license, where the air was so thick with tobacco smoke you could only barely see your hand in front of your face. We backtracked upstairs, where we found a quaint restaurant with booths providing discretion while you grilled your meat on the broiler set into the table.

We picked beef flank and the usual accompaniments of rice, pickles and beer. I’m not the biggest fan of cooking my own food, that’s what eating out should be for. But having said that, our tsukemen from the night before offered a similar experience.  The B.B.Q. lunch was a convivial, fun experience, and a tasty one at that.  Aside from a side of pasta and mayonnaise salad, the seasonings and pickles were a little alien to me, but I appreciated how they worked together like The European and I sharing the little grill, making every grilled morsel of high-grade beef different to the last. I even got creative and marinated a piece or two in soy sauce, treating myself to a second beer as a reward.  

The food didn’t look like a lot when it was brought to our table, but it was filling and worth the money. We left reënergised and, ready to brave Tokyo in all of its bustling glory, headed back to dog statues, crowds, and crossings.