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We've mostly been eating at run of the mill places, still great Japanese food dirt-cheap compared with the UK, but nothing to write up really, except for comic value, but last night when we ate at Rakushokushu Mara in Shibuka-ku. It was truly very good. With only 26 covers or so, a third of them along the bar facing the chefs preparing the food, the rest at simple tables, it felt approachable and intimate. Although the sign on the outside is only in Japanese, so if you decide to go, it’s the second doorway down after Muji. The staff were friendly and very helpful and seemed genuinely excited about serving us the food. Sam and I under-ordered and the guy who took our order, very casually suggested sashimi and their speciality, rice... more of which later. Unlike some other places I've been to, especially in the UK, we weren't made to feel silly that we'd done this and instead kind of came away thinking it was our idea to order the sashimi and rice really. The food was sublime. Very simple combinations of flavours and textures, all with a very Japanese flavour. We had pickled vegetables with sesame dressing, followed by a very rare sliced duck with wasabi and avocado which took no chewing at all and just melted in my mouth. Sam ordered Kyoto omelette, which we both expected to be a cold sweet omelette in the traditional style, instead it was hot and delicately flavoured with fish stock. The simple salt chicken with Japanese pepper tasted like chicken squared; a wonderful release of fatty juices and chickeny flavours, offset by exactly the right amount of salt. Next, Sam had, to my surprise, ordered sweet potato with honey and butter. As it arrived, it looked a little like a baked potato simply split down the middle. It was scorched a little and scored along its top face. A pea-sized ball had been scooped out and replaced with a tiny ball of unsalted butter. Honey dripped from each piece. Sam cut it with a tiny wooden fish-slice-like item and we tasted it. Sam said it was the best thing he had ever eaten, and I had to admit, the simplicity and balance of the dish was breath-taking. The house speciality was an iron pan of rice. It took half an hour to prepare so we were expecting something special. When we chose it, we were asked to choose from one of six accompaniments, I can't remember them all, but we went for fried sardine and Japanese pepper. This arrived as a small bowl of fishy pieces, like you had smashed up a packet of bombay mix into pieces about 4mm long. I think I expected the rice to be like 'special' rice in the UK, with all sorts of stuff in it, it wasn't. It was simple, sticky, white rice. We were offered two bowls and told to sprinkle the sardine mix on. I don't know what was in the rice, how it was flavoured, what was special about it, even whether it was cooked in the tears of an angel, but it was divine. Certainly as close to heaven rice as rice can be. Finally we shared a 'steamed pudding' which turned out to be a small bowl with a very yolky egg custard, at the bottom of the bowl was a caramel sauce, so I suppose the whole thing was very close to creme-caramel, except the burned sugar was truly bitter, which lent a fantastic off-set to the richness and sweetness of the custard.I drank sake, three small bottles, and Sam had orange and cranberry juice, and green tea, the meal came to 15,00¥ - about £70 and we were in there for nearly three hours. I thoroughly recommend it. Well as close to a proper restaurant review I can manage that is. 

Plus, this blog entry is a rework of an email I sent to a friend of mine, who happens to be a real restaurant reviewer, I hope he doesn’t mind me reusing the words.

Back in Tokyo, we were less in awe of the whole getting around thing. In fact we were a bit blasé which led to, if not a downfall, at least a tiny hiccough. We decided to leg it back to Electric Town (aka Akihabara) and try to find a Japan-only DS game Sam was keen to buy and look for a new watch for me. (One can never have too many coats, bags, shoes or watches.)In a kind of, we-know-what-we’re-doing swagger we left the hotel and popped into the ‘am-pm’ convenience store next door but one to get a bottle of water and a cake for Sammy’s breakfast. ‘Oh, I’ve forgot the Tokyo map, I’ve left it in the room. I’ll just pop and get it, I’ll see you here in five minutes’ I said and handed Sam 1,000¥ to get provisions with. Back in the hotel, our room was already being cleaned and changed by the maid. I popped in quickly and bowed and apologised but I couldn’t find the map, so I left.‘Oh well, we’ll have to get a subway map from the station, no problem’ I underestimated.We bought two one-day passes and found a map. Only it was in Japanese. Which actually turned out to be much less useless than we had expected and we ended up at the right station without any problems. Which was probably more luck than judgement so it was good that we managed to get an English map when we got there.It was then that we fell for one of Japan’s funniest practical jokes. We had almost been got by it when we first arrived at Tokyo Station nine days ago, but we spotted it then. Somehow today, our smugness blinded us and we just fell right into its trap. The thing is that in Japanese subway stations, the map that shows you where you are in the station and where the exits are are not orientated north-south. Instead, they are alighed as you are standing in front of them. Which makes much more sense really if you are trying to find your way out of a station because it is really easy to work out where exit B1 or A13 is because the map is all drawn relative to you, not an arbitrary grid system. (A quick aside here: you might be wondering why we needed to look at the map? well the thing is, Japanese subway stations are mad, they have scores of exits and they can be a kilometre between the most westerly and the most eastern ones. Sam and I had to walk 500m between lines on one journey when changing from the Tozai Line to the Hanzomon Line, and it was still the same station.) Anyway, the not N-S thing meant that the map we were looking at actually was orientated E-W so when we started walking east, when we needed to go south. After 15 minutes we were getting very hot and a tiny bit worried. ‘This is wrong’ Sam said.‘It is’ I admitted for the squillionth time.He looked at me with a bit of a frown and then suddenly perked up ‘Look, look there, look.’He was pointing at a nondescript five storey building. It was tiled in beige tiles and had a shop front that was blacked out except for some posters. I was wearing my sunglasses, so I couldn’t see much more than that.‘Look’ he repeated as he crossed the road and I followed him. Then it came into view. This was one of the happiest buildings on earth. The creative centre of so much of Sam’s life and quite a lot of mine in the past 16 years. The international headquarters of Nintendo.For some reason, I suddenly stared to cough uncontrollably. I coughed and coughed until my eyes watered and I had to sit down a bit.‘Probably your body going into shock at the prospect of bumping into Yoshi or someone’ Sam offered. “I’m quite excited as well, but I’m probably better able to deal with it than you.’I looked at him, but deep inside me something told me he was right. What if we did meet Yoshi? What would I say to him? ‘I like your work’? ‘I’m a big fan’? I decided it was better we left quickly to avoid a situation. Sam agreed.

On the Shinkansen we had bento. I bought two from Okayama station. They both looked fantastic. And were. Mine had a whole baby octopus in it. It was delicious.