Ahh, Gaunter just did his course here in NYC for the first time recently. I thought about it but passed. It looks pretty thorough. How did you find it?

...Tabelog page says they have 4000 and 5000 YEN courses. That's user entered data. Not sure how accurate it is.

Not recommended on your own unless you can read/ speak some Japanese. But you can try the hotel concierge route and maybe they can call and arrange a fixed menu and sake pairing...Don't do anything to ruin it for the rest of us though ;)

Yes, but how would you use google translate to read the packaging?

I haven't gotten the lamb face salad in awhile. What was the issue? In the past I noticed that you sometimes just get different types of face bits or whatever. So it seemed kind of random as to whether it was good or not depending on how much cartilage or whatever you got. A sort of ymmv factor...My biggest concern is if the noodles are fucked up cause basically in my mind, it's primarily a noodle shop. Jason's got a sign up at the shops now stating that the noodles should be eaten as soon as possible as they are not as good when they get home. My obvious qualm about that is that there isn't much room at these places to eat....I've definitely had varying amounts of lamb or pork meat topping when ordered some dishes, but sometimes more than usual. So I just consider that another ymmv factor.

...and reading this again 5 years later and it's practically useless...I would say go for the sake and the mature environment. They were pretty serious in there. And the selection of cream cheeses is one of their unique charm points.

There is probably a law of diminishing returns with regards to quality the more branches you open. But anyway, I hope they are at least making the noodles at each shop... I've been to the commissary outlet in Brooklyn a few times now and the food there has been good.

Good points. I think it is worth noting that there is actually no grammatical gender in Japanese (unlike, say, Latin languages) so it really isn't that much an issue...Gender stuff is more of an affected approach to speaking rather than a part of the language itself. Every once in a while I'll meet a foreign dude who ends his sentences like women. I figure he is picking up his Japanese from a wife/ girlfriend and mimicking her without realizing the differences.

The difficulty of Japanese is two-fold: dealing with the keigo honorific language that you mention and dealing with kanji.

Kanji is difficult because you basically have to straight out memorize characters. So for example Sanuki is written as 讃岐 (these are the characters on the udon cup in the linked photo above). The only way you will know this is if you learn it and remember it. To make matters worse, on menus or packaging and such, kanji can often be handwritten or printed in a stylized, calligraphic way. I have to say that while I am waaaaaay behind the curve on keigo, I'm getting pretty good at reading the (food related) kanji.

A few years ago there was a series of throwback style commercials on Japanese tv for instant ramen where I young sweaty guy in a wife beater t-shirt or something like that, sits on the floor in a steaming hot room, old style fan blowing on his face, as he pours hot water and raw egg over his ramen. They were pretty cool. No BGM. Just sound of fan and the sizzle of the egg and then the slurping guy.

About 5 years ago- http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/538916.

Yeah they've had those types of eggs at conbini in Japan for years.

First off, hard boiled eggs were usually pretty standard ramen toppings, not the hanjyuku/ half-boiled glossy types. The hangyuku thing is only something that has become popular that last few years. I love them too. But hard boiled are not unusual. Sometimes raw eggs are used...even on instant ramen.

Regarding udon, this is just the general name for these type of wheat noodles. There are both thin and thick gauge udon. It depends on what region of Japan they are from. The popular thick gauge that many of us associate with standard udon are usually called "Sanuki" style, which is the old name of northern Kagawa Prefecture on Shikoku Island. The packaging of the noodles that Caroline linked indeed says "Sanuki Style Udon".

Nice coverage! I haven't been to Y.Totto in ages. Gotta get back there again soon.

The chef's wife and co-owner/hostess is American of Chinese descent and she spent a few years in Tokyo. She has a good sense of Japanese hospitality. But as I noted in my original review, this place is a bit expensive- especially if you partake in their sake.

Edit: oh i just googled her and she was born in HK and raised in Pennsylvania. She retains a Western middle name and looks like she is maybe half-Chinese. She's an EVP at NBC Universal. I think that was noted in the NYT review...

I've been to many of them. They kind of blur together at this point, but I do recall the Kagoshima one in Yurakucho had fresh, warm satsuma age for sale. Most of the other have various packaged and chilled goods. Usually free samples of stuff available. They are really interesting. Only potential downside I can see is that if you can't read Japanese, it might be tough to understand what is what. But they are definitely worth exploring if you've got the time and are so inclined. There are a bunch (Hokkaido and a few others) gathered in one building east of Yurakucho Station. There's also a tourist information/travel office in the same building.

Edit: ahh, I see that linked article mentions the satsuma-age as well as some shops now having eateries.

-Kappabashi area for sure for kitchenware, plastic replica, and very finely crafted drinking and eating vessels
-Various depachika
-Food "amusement parks" like ramen museum, gyoza stadium, new yakitori one, etc.
-Prefectural antenna shops
-Meishu Center for sake sampling
-Shochu Authority

http://whereintokyo.com/dbinx/gourmet...

You should try Fu'unji. The broth is thick and rich and you'll swear it was made like tonkotsu. You can't taste the niboshi at all. The chashu is quite good as well....Ippudo is very popular in Japan. They keep expanding every year. Not sure who told you it was not well-regarded......Jiro is a pork ramen, but the soup is light and garlicky and they pile on the pork meat. If you want hardcore tonkotsu and don't want to wait in line or go out of your way, you can look into Kyushu Jangara chain or Ichiran. But Warito, Suzuran, and Fu'unji are all considerably better I think. And I like Rokurinsha best of the lot.

Also, I just checked their website and it says the satsuma age and the hanpen are from Tsukugon, a famous fish cake maker based in Tsukiji.

Yeah, Sendai is famous in Japan for beef tongue. I think the city itself didn't sustain too much damage though but the airport and seaport were affected....It's expensive, but you should dig into the sake selection as they have a good one and also, the menu is kinda geared toward sake accompaniment....I gotta get back there

It says they only prepare 10 bowls of that item a day for lunch and it is a 1km walk from Takadanobaba Station. How practical is that for someone visiting the city for only 3 days? Humm...

Ramen Yamaguchi is 1km from Takadanobaba station and the soup there is made from chicken base and katsuo according to the explanation on their menu....If you want seafood only soup, try Kaijin in Shinjuku (http://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1304/A13040...).

Fu'unji, which is made from chicken and niboshi, is like a 5 minute walk from Shinjuku Station and is great and very unique... Using katsuo and niboshi in ramen soups is a new thing, not old.

Haven't been to Hakkasan yet.

The crab was $9 when we first started going in 2005, before they opened the new wing on the right. It got bumped up to $11 a few years later. This is my wife's favorite dish. We used to sometimes double up on it...Never had any negative issues with the beef in the Penang Curry or the BBQ beef app. It's less chewy and gamey than you would get in Thailand and that's not necessarily a bad thing...Fresh sator beans cooked into a dish are not that stinky unless you really hate asparagus (smells similar) and they have a nice plump texture and mouthfeel. Shrimp with sator beans is a Phuket style southern dish.

Their noodle dishes, like most Thai restaurants in the US I find, lack "wok hay".

I think I've been to SPP more than any other restaurant in the city.

My favs are:
-Sauteed pork leg with basil (seemingly made different every time though)
-Penang curry with beef (get it with beef the way it was meant to be)
-Softshell crab with mango salad (Was $9 only couple years ago. Now it's $17)
-Any of the steamed or fried whole fish preps (not the boring filets)
-Seafood with green peppercorn dish (interesting herbal flavor)
-Green curry (roasted duck green curry is very good)
-Raw shrimp (Thai ceviche!)
-BBQ beef/ pork tenders (these are OK, not great)
-Tom Yum (don't really order it anymore but it's good)

In general, I think their fried stuff is good. They use clean oil or change it frequently perhaps. And the seafood dishes are pretty solid, though I wish they had more.

My thoughts on some of their other stuff:
-I don't think they do stir-fry noodle dishes well. The noodles themselves are almost always poorly prepared. Noodle soups I haven't explored so much.
-The som tam are prepared seemingly as an afterthought here. Not one of their strengths. Better at Zabb Elee.
-I find their larb dishes a bit too farangafied. Prefer northern style with a bit of offal, etc. If you want sort of straight clean ground meat larb, then I guess this is the place for you. Otherwise, another one better at Zabb.
-The sator beans are either frozen or made from dried beans. I don't know if they can get fresh sator beans here. They are not really THAT stinky or hard to eat. Using fresh beans makes a serious difference. Much better. So I stopped ordering this dish here.

Pretty cool and pretty cheap. And looks like you can tack on 1500 YEN for 2-hour all-u-can-drink deals as well.

Agree with you 100%. Soup, men, gu. That order.

Szechuan food went through a boom in Tokyo and there are tons of Szechuan restaurants and Szechuan style restaurants. But I'm not sure I'd seek it out if you are coming from NYC area though as that is NY's sweet spot. It will be dialed down in spice in Japan unless perhaps if you gave them special instruction. Also, lamb meat isn't so popular within Chinese cuisines, though it is associated with Mongolian. Southeast Chinese should yield tons of options...Doesn't Chen Kenichi, the Chinese Iron Chef, specialize in Szechuan cusine? He has a few restaurants I think.

There's a whole enclave of Dongbei restaurants in Flushing......The dishes you listed (gyoza, mapo dofu, jinja rosu, etc.) are mostly those that have been appropriated as Wafu-chuka. Many (not all) of those are Northern Chinese origin that became popular with returning army vets who served in Japan's occupation of Manchuria...There are plenty of standard regional authentic Chinese restaurants though.

Since Cantonese and Taiwanese cuisines share similar sensibilities to Japanese tastes, there's not really an issue of flavors being muted. And there are a TON of Cantonese and Taiwanese restaurants in Tokyo. There are also a TON of Szechuan places, a TON of Shanghai places, and a TON of various other regional Chinese restaurants. Like LA and NY and probably a few other big cities, Chinese restaurants break down along the lines of Chinese sub-cuisines, along with a genre of pan-Chinese, fast food Chinese, and Wafu-Chinese. The scale obliterates those other cities, so I'm not sure it's worth simply panning the entire Tokyo scenes as not "real".

That said there is not a lot of info in English. There are many acclaimed Chinese restaurants at hotels though and those can be researched online.

I've made similar oxtail dishes (see attached). They are pretty messy to eat. The gloves was a nice, thoughtful touch. Their version was tougher than the ones I've made myself.