The lengths we go for an amazing meal

**This post was started 20 minutes after the meal ended, but I was soooo beat, I had go to sleep. The sequence of food encounters will be out of order because we still have to write about the food on the tour, and Tsukiji this morning!
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Day 1 Dinner

I'm a soba fan and I've only been to one fresh made soba place in my life (it's on King Street in Hawaii). Naturally, I wanted to find a hand made soba place in Japan. Tonight, we did just that.

I was so beat having woken up at 4:00am and going all the way till 6pm on our Tokyo tour. The guide book we brought on this trip highlighted a place that has been serving soba for the last two centuries, and it happened to be near our hotel.

We sought off to an address near the known red light district in Japan. Being Wednesday at 7:10pm, the streets were quite quiet and to the passing non Japanese reading eye, the area was just like any back alley commercial district in Japan. Look a little closer and you begin to notice some fishy/questionable/down right explicit advertisements and shops.

Following the directions given in the guide book, we ended up at the approximate location looking for a green sign. Green was no where to be seen, but, there was a white sign with Soba in Hiragana (Japanese alphabet) on it. I made the quick assumption that this was the restaurant we were looking for. The restaurant probably decided to change it's sign to avoid a throng of foreigners taking up too many seats and thus drive away their regular patrons.

Upon entering, we were greeted with the typical chorus of Irasaimasei. The place sat 20 at most. Arriving around 7:15pm we were patrons 2 and 3. According to the guidebook, the place is open from 7pm-4am...hmmm. The menu was already on the table - in Japanese only. With my best attempt at deciphering the menu, I could only make out soba, mountain, water, and fish. After mumbling with Sandra a few minutes, I mustered up courage to use the limited Japanese that remained in my head from the days I went to Japanese school (1st-5th grade). Eigo hanashi maska? Do you speak English? He didn't respond to my question directly, but he did say 'Eigo, hai' and promptly handed us an English menu. Hurdle 1 surpassed.

Sandra ordered smoked duck hot soba, I ordered conger eel tempura hot soba and we started with crab tofu.

The crab tofu came first. You would expect some shredded crab, on top of some tofu. But no, it was 6 1 inch cubes of dark green (think green tea ice cream) tofu served with wasabi. We questioningly took a bite and we were in instant crab heaven. The tofu was infused with a deep sweet crab flavor. Coupled with some course grated fresh wasabi (you could feel the lumps) and the tofu was even sweeter. The tofu texture was also different. Tofu in the US is often more on the gelatin side than what you would expect of a ground soy bean product. But, this was TOFU for sure. Sandra and I conjectured that instead of using water to make the tofu, a crab broth was used. For what was probably half the size of a Mori-Nu tofu back home, it was still worth the 800 yen/8.00US.

Next came the soba. As a hot soup dish, it hit the spot because it was about 40 degrees out, and we had just gone through an exhausting 10 hour bus tour. The broth was definitely fresh - we found bits of orange peel, and sliced ginko nut at the bottom of the soup. The noodles at the beginning of the meal was firm and slightly chewy. By the end of the meal, they were a bit soft - but that's what happens with hot soba. I wish I had it cold - then the noodle texture/freshness would totally have been showcased, but thats ok. It was still damn good. My 3 pieces of conger eel tempura was very delicious- super fresh firm texture/ bone free/ and a nice white flesh. That deserved an oooiiishiiii. Half way through the meal, as I looked out the window, contemplating the wonderful flavors I was experiencing, the large LCD screen across the way quickly reminded me of the district I was in. I'll leave it at that.

Sandra's smoked duck soba came with thinly sliced duck, and large leeks as the accompaniment, and the same soba and soup base.

Awesome meal number 1.

Ivan