Lately I’ve had a lot of reasons to stop by Ginza. (See my previous post for what that’s about..) After wrapping up my business in Ginza, I walked over to Tsukiji to eat. Tsukiji is pretty much the center of Tokyo’s food world. Because the freshest ingredients are right there, great restaurants cluster around it. But it’s a market atmosphere, prices are on the high side, it’s swarming with tourists on weekends, and most of the good places close by late morning, so making time to visit them isn’t easy. This time, though, someone I got to know through work recommended a good place in Tsukiji that’s open in the evening too, so I went.
It’s an izakaya written 虎杖 (“tiger staff”) and read “Itadori.”
The shop is down an alley like this in the outer market.
-_- I thought I’d been to the outer market plenty of times, but this was the first I knew this place existed. I had a map with me and still couldn’t find it, and wandered around for quite a while.
Looking into the alley..
There’s a little shop set up like a street stall.
The front
Step inside and it’s so stylish you’d never guess you were in the middle of the Tsukiji market. I couldn’t help thinking, what a strange place I’ve wandered into. They open at 5 p.m.
The entrance
Inside it’s a small place with counter seats only. It looks exactly like a street stall, yet a waiter in a proper uniform greets you and pours your water. Jazz plays quietly in the background. It’s a calm, relaxed bar. Looking at the menu, it’s not exactly cheap. Draft beer is 550 yen. Draft beer in Japan averages around 400 yen, so think of it as a slightly pricey izakaya. But the food looked good, so I figured it’s worth putting up with. Besides, it’s not the kind of place where you chug beer.
This is the main shop, but business seems to be good, because there appear to be quite a few branches too. One of them apparently takes group bookings. Next time I should come with a group.
This is the most famous dish here, small-shrimp tempura curry udon.
Funny that at an izakaya the udon is the best thing. Apparently it’s the signature dish, famous enough to have been featured on TV. Honestly, the other izakaya dishes looked tasty too and I wanted to order some, but going alone made that impractical in all sorts of ways.
The mellow curry udon with cream in it, the chewy noodles, and the plump, springy shrimp are a work of art. It fills your mouth with the kind of happiness you only get from a bowl of noodles. The shrimp were small, but maybe because they were so fresh they had a snappy bite like big prawns. That said, the curry flavor is strong, so I wouldn’t quite say the topping matched it well. I thought beef might have been the better topping.
Price aside, it’s not much different from the udon I had in Sanuki, udon’s home turf. If you love both curry and udon you’ll be as satisfied as can be, but if not, 1,200 yen may feel like a lot. And coming all the way to Tsukiji for udon.. it’s an even worse fit for tourists who absolutely have to have sushi.
A shot of the noodles
It could hold its own against any udon specialist.
Thanks for the meal~
When I finished, I felt a little wistful. The other dishes looked good too, and I had to leave after just one bowl of udon. A place like this deserves to be enjoyed at a leisurely pace.
If you search the online review sites, some people say it isn’t worth the money. To be fair, for a place in the middle of a market it’s definitely not cheap. Well.. it seems to be the kind of place with both regulars and haters. It’s your call.
Tsukiji Hongwanji
I snapped this while walking past. It’s a temple, but with a unique Islamic-style architecture. I prayed that the souls of all the countless fish that gave their lives to become my flesh and blood may rest in paradise.