On the whole we attempted to avoid sushi and sashimi because you can actually get quite decent stuff here in the States. Here's what we had, in roughly chronlogical order (gonna have to break this up into 2 posts)...
Tonkatsu sandwich - fried pork inside Japanese-bakery-style white bread, cut into thirds and then packaged in a to-go box.
Ramen - frankly, Ryowa or Maru Ichi in Mountain View is just as good or maybe even better to these American taste buds.
Pumpkin pastry with red bean - sweets in Japan tend to be quite light and low on sugar, more natural sweeteners like red bean and fruit.
Soba - I had herring as the topping, other folks had stuff like mochi. With soup noodles, I still prefer ramen.
Bar - we went to a sake bar (think Chili's) and got to order a bunch of small appetizer-type items off the computer display right on the table. Food included stuff like daikon salad, beef tongue, a couple of pork/chicken skewers, Japanese spaghetti (cooked in a cast iron skillet with some special sauce), poke, edamame, and a few other items.
Katsu curry and katsu-don - the katsu-don I had was much better than anything you could find here. The egg was still runny, the fried pork moist, and lots of little grated onions and ginger for added flavor. Great stuff.
Tsukiji Fish Market - imagine a couple acres of warehouse of people like the guy below chopping up all manner of seafood. We got up early (6 am) to go to the largest fish market in the world. It made me wonder if there was any seafood left in the ocean...
We had a pricey but memorable sushi breakfast at the market, where I had tuna toro and uni (sea urchin) for the first time. So that's the hubbub about toro... good stuff, required very little chewing and pretty much melted in my mouth. The uni was actually pretty good, but that may have been due to the extreme freshness... I've heard bad things about that stuff too.
Mos Burger - we spent a long time looking for this fast food joint. Ended up kinda disappointed... the burgers were pretty basic, and the rice bun-marinated pork sandwich (pictured below) was different and tasty but not great.
A dish that I had never heard of prior to going to Tokyo this time around is called "okonomiyaki", kind of like a Japanese pizza. Quite tasty. The traditional ("Kansai" style) is a mix of batter, various meats, and a heap of cabbage, all grilled and then layered with sauce. We were given bowls of raw batter and ingredients, mixed them together ourselves, and spread them out to grill.
Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is layered rather than grilled.
We also had nabe, which is basically hot pot. This was in the section of the city famous for producing sumo wrestlers, and the restaurant we went to was founded by sumo for sumo (I guess they would eat the pot all by themselves).
Overpriced gyoza:
To be continued...
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