Food outings - Mexican and Ramen

It was Friday night, I just had finished working out at the gym and I was hankerin' for some mexican food.  There's one mexican food place near base that I hear people talking about all the time.  I've heard that the mexican food is pretty decent and that their margaritas are good.  

So here it is, Mike's Mexican Restaurant.  This one's easy to find, you cross the street at the main gate, and walk about 100meters to the right.  It's on the second floor.  The easiest way to spot it is to look upwards, you'll see their window decorated with the Mike's Tacos branding.

Mike's offers up mostly combo plates, you'll find that most average Mexican dishes are offered: burritos, tacos, tostadas, enchiladas, nachos, etc.  Unfortunately no pina, horchata, or orange bang.  Shit, wannabe Mexican place, get it right.  

Anyways, knowing that I'm overly critical when it comes to Mexican food, I decided to not go for a large meal like a taco and burrito.  Instead I opted for a "beef taco" and a "beef enchilada," seen below.

I was expecting carne, but it was shredded beef.  The shredded beef was acceptable, I prefer marinated carne, but that's ok.  

Score Card:

Presentation : 7/10 - It's in line with most other sit-down Mexican restaurants

Cost : 7/10 - This meal was ~950ish yen, not much meat though

Emulation of Los Angeles Mexican Food : 4/10, the food kinda looks like what you'd expect from a super white-washed "Mexican" restaurant, but the details are just not there.  The tortilla wasn't grilled.  There's lettuce in the taco.  There's no special salsa (I'd argue that the best mexican places don't even use a salsa in the traditional sense, they use a very special thick sauce that does not use tomatoes as the main ingredient).  

Taste not based on emulation, but on its own merit : 6/10.  The food was fresh, but it was just lacking in flavor.  Imagine trying to emulate traditional Italian cooking by using Ragu poured over spaghetti noodles.  It's kinda like that.

The next day I decided to go back to the Ramen place right next to base, to try out a different soup.  Here I got spicy miso ramen with chicken karage.  

The spicy miso broth definitely had much more depth and richness to it compared to the shio ramen that I had tried prior.  But, compared to the ramen restaurants at the Ramen Museum, the broth was lacking all the little fixins.  In cantonese, the word I'd use is "lieu," basically all the constituents of the soup.  Plain chicken stock is free from "lieu," it's more or less kinda like flavored water.  You get the plain chicken stock, boil it with a whole chicken, some pork bones, and the congealed broth will contain the "lieu" that I'm talking about.  It adds depth to the soup, depth you can literally taste AND see.

Stingy bastards also only gave me ONE piece of pork.  Last time I thought I had accidentally ordered the small size bowl because I got one piece as well.  This time when I saw that one piece I knew they were cheap sonsofbitches.

Chicken karage was good!  I found the pickled ginger, which paired perfectly with it.

This restaurant specializes in shio, shoyu, and miso ramen, but not tokotsu.  That being the case, I be done sampling their ramen!  Onward!

HAMAZUSHi, 94yen per plate sushi!

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And here we are again, Wednesday afternoon, where I get the second half of the day off.  I fully worked up seven full patients in the first half of the day, so I was glad to have a little break.  Wanting Needing my weekly sushi fix, I read up about a local (and when I say local, I mean it) sushi place that offered a flat rae per plate.  Hamazushi was it.  94 yen per plate on the weekdays.  NINETY FOUR YEN!  

As for local, it was retardedly local.  Not walk 45 minutes like an idiot local, or spend 5 dollars in train fees type of local, but literally a 5 minute walk from my room local.  

Just walk down blue street (coming from the base), and on the 3rd intersection, look left.  You'll see this huge yellow building, Hamazushi is at the foot of the building.  If you look right at that intersection you'll see Pepper Lunch and Mister Donut.  

Aforementioned foot of yellowbuilding:

Ok, so when you get there, there's this one machine that gives you a number.  There was no english translation, so I had to ask a lady how to work the machine.  First, you choose how many are to be seated.  FYI, ou have to press kinda hard, it's a weak capacitive LCD screen.  Then, if you're by yourself, hit the middle of the three options, that one's for a bar seat.  I think the first one was a table, but I didn't concern myself with that because I was eating alone.  The machine will issue you a number.  Considering the hostesses announced the 3 digit number at the speed of light, my number was useless.  I just responded to their calls after the person before me was last called, haha.

Here the LCD system is newer, so it's much easier to see what you're ordering.

And they offered me an english menu, too.  This one is full sized so you could check out the details when you click.

I always start out with 2 quick orders because these places don't give you separate plates for soy sauce and wasabi.  

The musical little note they play here is much less obnoxious than the one at point 100 sushi.

How you're expected to prepare your own tea:

Fresh wasabi kicked my ass.  Apparently there IS a wrong way to eat sushi laced with super powered wasabi.  Just make sure you don't have a habit of separating the fish from the rice in your mouth, pressing the little ball of wasabi up against the soft palate of your throat.

Still one of my favorites, although I shamefully feel a little too american for liking this plate =p  Must be the fact that it's got cheese and it's toasted.

Marinated tuna AKA the oldest tuna we've got.  I knew what I was getting myself into, but I knew the marinade would be tasty. And it was!

Again, this toro's got nothing on Kats at Wasabi.  But reminder, it's 94 yen.  And that's AFTER taxes, yo.

All in all, made out like a bandit.  11 plates for ~1034yen, which is like 12-13 US dollars.

I'm sorry Point 100 sushi, you're just too damn far and this place is just as good AND cheaper.  

Japan County Fair and Shibuya

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On Sunday I woke up to this:

As I later found out, the base opens its doors to the public 2-3 times a year.  Japanese people LOVE visiting the base.  

...and now I know why.  That fat slab there cost me 10 bucks!  This place was like the LA fair.  There were ribs, steaks, those big turkey legs, cotton candy, beer, etc.  It was funny because quite a few people were there for "american" pizza.  Japanese folks have their own pizza, which looks kinda too healthy for its own good =p  

This place was like Disneyland.  It's odd because the base is usually so quiet.

Much like how the Japanese variety of items offered at Mcdonalds intrigues me, these folks were also interested enough to snap a couple photos.

Street performers don't their diablo-thing.  Reminds me of Jason back in elementary school.  

And now I've arrived at my intended location, Shibuya in Tokyo, which is one of the local places to go for youth fashion.  Here you'll find all the super high end stores all juxtaposed next to the ghetto-looking hip hop stores =p.  

This is the famous Shibuya crossing that's at the outlet of the train station.  It reminds me of Time's Square, but the difference is that this thing is PACKED ALL_DAY_LONG.  Traffic is stopped in all directions and the street is fully opened to ped crossing.

Whatcha got on that, 3 story Montebello mall Forever 21?!

You'll never be left wanting of a good steak, haha.  Outback's got you covered.

"Ok, so for this next shot, give me your best I-just-shit-my-pants look"

It's Hermeeeees!

The batter had hints of ginger in it, very unique!  Fried chicken doesn't taste like this back at home.

And my turn to reciprocate, the stupid American taking pictures of a Japanese Mcdonalds.

The "Beverly Hills" burger as it's called.  Looks pretty good.  I think it'd be like a 6-7 dollar burger after the exchange rate though =p

Dayna would have shit her pants if she saw this.

Much prettier at nighttime!

 

A downward look at the Shibuya crossing at nighttime:

And for dinner, Coco Ichiban, or just "coco's" as it's called by most on base.  There are two Coco's near base, apparently this one tastes better so I gave it a try.

You specify the type of curry you want (pork or beef), the type of meat, the spiciness level (1-10, 5 gives an itty-bitty bite), and how many grams of rice you want (100+ grams).

Topped with egg!  The curry here is wonderful, very rich and flavorful.

Akihabara Electric Town in Tokyo

I have to admit, I kinda farked up when it came to taking pictures in Akihabara.  One, it was raining a shit-tonne so it was hard to take a shot with one hand while holding an umbrella with the other.  (2) There were huge crowds and some of these Japanese folks are taller than you'd think.  (3) I'll get to the third reason shortly.

My goal on this particular Saturday:

- make it Tokyo without getting lost - CHECK!

- buy a DD-WRT hackable Linksys router (preferably used) - FAIL!

-make it back to base without getting lost - FAIL!

Ok, so Akihabara (official name is Akihabara Electric Town), is the official electronics "borough" of Tokyo. Imagine a whole mini-city that is filled with stores that range from your mom and pop electronic stores to your Fry's electronics, all crammed on the same street.  Notice the use of the word "imagine" as I don't have that many good pictures to share =p  

There's a few Fry's equivalents, but they're set up a little differently.  Instead of the huge square-footage that we've all grown accustomed to in Fry's, divide up each major department and stack it on top of one another.  For most large akihabara stores, the lower floors are dominated by cell phones, tablets, and their respective protective coverings.  Floors 2 and up (maybe up to floor 6-7 for some) are usually computer parts, laptops, displays, video gaming, movies, etc. 

So that is why I didn't take many pictures.  Pictures in an electronics store in Japan are essentially pictures in an electronics store in the US/anywhere.  

As for my search for a linksys router, I came up empty handed at the Fry's equivalents.  Apparently linksys doesn't have their hand in computer networking in Japan.

Ok, so when you're not in the large electronic chain stores, you're walking down the main street, right out of the train station, seen here.

Picture one out of two total for Akihabara.  Savor it =p

And on the street just adjacent to the train station is where you find the swap meet-looking area, where individual vendors sell their goods.  Most of the goods offered here are similar to what you'd find in a Radio Shack, more specifically the electronic component drawers that you probably haven't perused, hah.  You'll find things like soldering irons, resistors, switches, wiring, sensors/motors, etc.  It's basically all the type of nerd stuff I wish I had at home when I'm toying around with electronics.  What makes me wonder is how these vendors stay in business.  Most things are not high profit-margin type stuff, so I don't know how they pay their rent.  I didn't take any pics of an actual storefront because they all just kinda stared at me while I walked past.

And that's the end of the picture series of Akihabara.  Don't let my lack of pictures paint an unenjoyable or boring picture of this part of town.  The absence of my beautiful, artfully-captured stills (=p) were only secondary to the rain and to my goal of finding that damned linksys router.

Akihabara has undergone some change over the past decade or so, from what I understand.  It was mostly all PC/computer-centric, but with the decline of PCs and the ascent of mobile computing, a lot of the stores have shifted their focus and/or closed down.  Those that closed were replaced by anime-related stores.  I no care about those, so I didn't go into any of them.  It makes me wonder what'll happen to all the individual vendors that I pictured up above.

The Japanese found it appropriate to take our love of fat brick toast and turn them into goddamned cakes!

I find myself in a predicament on most Saturdays and Sundays with regards to food.  My local options: ramen, curry, sushi.  I know that Japanese people love soba and yakitori too, but shit, I run out of options when there are realistically only what, FIVE?!  Anyways, I found this ramen place, right out of the station.  I ordered a spicy miso ramen, which was pretty good.  The broth was excellent, very rich, which became more flavorful after I added in the puree'd garlic.  The bbq pork was avg.  As for the noodles, I'm guessing this part of Tokyo uses the lo-mein type of ramen, which I'm 2/3 not a fan of.  Overall not bad.  I'm totally a sucker for good broth.

Below you'll find MOCHICREAM, a combo of mochi and ice cream?  I don't even really like mochi, but damned if the displays didn't look tasty!  I ordered a green tea mochi donut-thingy and an caramel mochi (they ran out of the apple pie mochi's!).  The two were good.  But, still not a fan of mochi, haha.

Lastly, on my way back home I found this little Yakitori stand in one of the alleyways north of the train station.  If I recall, if you're heading towards the navy base on Blue st. from chuo station, it'll be one of the first alleys on your right side (it might be across from the TGIFridays.  Anyways, 70yen per each yakitori!  Super tasty, there were things like cow tongue, chicken hearts, and chicken tails among other assorted weird and normal snacks.