TOKYO - Practice your chopstick skills before you go to Tokyo, although all restaurants keep at least a couple of forks set aside.
-- Unagi donburi. Donburi means "food arranged on steamed rice." Unagi is eel. Some people freak out because eels look like, um, snakes. Cooked, it's just a piece of fish, sweet-sauced and served over rice, often with shredded omelet to the side. Delish.
-- Teriyaki. These small indoor eateries often have a window on the sidewalk. Order a couple of "sticks" of chicken cubes, ground chicken balls or chicken livers. Rice and pickles optional. Ditto delish.
-- Ramen. The grandma's chicken soup of the East. Noodle shops are everywhere, and a bowl of ramen is the comfort meal of choice for lunch, dinner and late night. They also serve gyoza (dumplings) and rice bowls. The drink of choice is beer.
-- Sashimi, sushi, tempura, shabu-shabu, tofu and soba noodles. If these specialties aren't the best and freshest you will ever encounter, I'll eat my chopsticks.
-- Kobe beef. It's true. Kobe beef is amazingly tender and so heavily marbled that it sort of looks like pink seersucker. It was cooked teppanyaki-style on a steel griddle (a teppan), the prototype for copycat American places such as Benihana. Kobe beefiness is totally different in chew and flavor from grain-fed, Chicago-style beef. And grass-fed beef from Argentina is another whole thing. Three beef choices, three experiences. For perspective, my meal with small Kobe steak (200 grams, which is just under a half pound) was $230 American.
Kappabashi, kitchen town
Kitchen town is Japan's largest area for wholesale cookware and bulk food. Every cabbie can find it. There are about 150 stores, side by side for about eight city blocks (and their side streets), selling dishes, lacquer-ware, chopsticks, fancy and practical kitchenware, all at better-than-reasonable prices. At a knife-only store, I bought a rectangular Japanese chopping knife for my husband, the steel hand-forged in layers in the manner of a Samurai sword. In five minutes, the blade was engraved with his name written in graceful Japanese characters. I'd hate to be in the store during an earthquake.
Address: Near Asakusa
Kabuki-za Theater
Kabuki means song, dance and theater. Edo-period popular theater is splendid, exotic and colorful even if you don't have a clue to the language. Some theaters offer English programs and headphones. Ask your concierge for details. I never attended. My bad.
Neighborhood: Ginza
Souvenirs
Take along or buy an extra suitcase. You'll want to shop for small wooden dolls for the girls, lacquer ware and trays for the host, a traditional Japanese kite with a scary face for the boys, a handsome collapsible cane for Grandma (folds to fit in a tote bag), a kimono sash for you to use as a table runner, high wooden clogs for fun, and Japanese paper and stationery for everyone. Wonderful, too, an informal summer kimono, a paper umbrella, small fabric pouches, a sake set, ornate hair ornaments or a good luck cat doll. At temples, buy inexpensive wooden Buddhist prayer plaques to hang by the door to keep away evil spirits.
So far, mine works.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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