What's New

Dragon

2009-01-03T06:09:00.000-08:00

"This is the traditional taste of Japanese style food stall", I thought, when I first came across with the Ramen at Dragon. It reminded me a little bit of the ramen at Gifuya in Shinjuku many years ago. There is no cut nori, I know. I am talking about the soup. There are two main ingredients for the ramen soup. One is Ajinomoto and the other is Chinese chicken soup powder. Nowadays a lot of ramen restaurants use Chinese chicken soup powder against the tradition of Japanese ramen, which is not ramen but Japanese style tanmen in my opinion. In my definition, Ramen should be based on Ajinomoto. Shoyu ramen soup is simple. Ajinomoto, lard, dashi and soy source. What kind of Dashi, a class of soup and cooking stocks, is used depends on the tradition and routes of their ramen style. Whether or not lard is really made of pork reflects the quality of the ramen restaurant. - I would like to use the word "restaurant" rather than "shop" because it is sacred place for Japanese philosophically. And the restaurant offering the taste of food stall should be considered most sacred place. - Dragon looks mediocre. People working there are not enthusiastic unlike other service oriented big smile eating spots everywhere in Japan. They do not flatter. They just serve what it should be at the right price. Do not hesitate to ask questions to them. If someone asks, they answer.

Korean Restanrant Ojori

2008-12-29T20:50:00.000-08:00

Ojori is a chain of restaurants originally founded in Shibuya. Their Futako Takagawa branch used to be located nearby bus terminal area about three minutes from the station. Recently due to the Futako Tamagawa "Rise" development project, they moved to the new location under the bridge of Denentoshi Line just in front of the station. Just after you open the door made of white wood with old Korean Kingdom style, there is a fish tank at the entrance. They serve fresh seafoods. The interior of restaurant is decorated with hand painted wall paper full of Korean authentic atmosphere. Tables are equipped with air circulation system for Korean BBQ. Last night, we ordered Seafood pajon, Korean pancake, and a plate with variety of Kimchi as starter. And we regretted that the volume was probably too much for two persons. Then we decided not to take Korean BBQ and instead ordered Yukke, Korean style hourse meat carpaccho, Bibbimba, Korean stlyle frid rise made in a stone made ball, and spicy soup. All those dishes were excellent. Next time, I would rather come over to this restaurant with more than three people once to enjoy thier Chige, Korean soup pod, and then later their Korean BBQ second time at least.

My weekly exercises and café PEACE

2008-06-06T23:45:00.000-07:00

Recently I decided to do some exercises at least once in a week. Its menu is very simple. I would swim for 1km on a rainy day, and I would ride a bicycle for 20km on a sunny day. Today, I passed through Hyogojima, an small island along with Tama River nearby Futako Tamagawa station. And I found a a good café just along with the river. The name of café is PEACE. I found an introduction of this cafe in internet in Japanese. http://allabout.co.jp/gourmet/cafegohan/closeup/CU20070611A/ It is so relaxing to be on the riverside at the café especially on a rare sunny day in between rainy days in June.

Your precious time - Unane, Setagaya

2008-05-24T23:27:00.000-07:00

This is a short video introduction of my house.

Costco Kawasaki

2008-01-03T08:24:00.000-08:00

Costco is well-known membership warehouse club in the states. It is similar to Metro or Macro in Europe. Costco recently opened its 6th location in Kawasaki. http://www.costco.co.jp/eng/whs_863.htm If you like American foods, you should love it. Although they have three other locations nearby Tokyo, Tamasakai, Kanazawa Seaside and Makuhari, this location is the nearest to Futako Tamagawa. To get there from Futako Tamagawa area, you just take Kampachi, Tokyo Metropolitan Road Nr. 311, or Tamagawa-Ensen Road, the road along with Tama River on Kawasaki side, until crossings with the national road nr. 15 and then go west. You will find the Costco on the left on the national road nr. 15. Its 7th location will be opened in Sapporo soon.

Big Boy

2008-01-02T04:10:00.000-08:00

This chain restaurant is recently opened in Futako Tamagawa area. Do not expect the original Big Boy, http://www.bigboy.com/. As same as the other American chain restaurants in Japan, this restaurant or better to say dinner serves you Japanese-taste customized menu. But you would better check the most famous Big Boy menu in Japan, “Oh-Dawara” grounded beef stake. It’s unique and juicy!

Big Blue

2007-12-25T06:35:00.000-08:00

This cozzy jazz bar is located at a basement floor in a building on a street between two Takashimaya buildings. If you are alone and a standard jazz fun who likes Guiness Beer, you should love this place. I do not want to write too much about this nice nice place. All you have to do is just be there once especially on Saturday night.

Moti - Indian Restaurant

2006-05-16T07:07:00.000-07:00

- Moti in Futako Tamagawa is closed due to the development project -

If you are a fan of Indian crusine and live nearby Futako Tamagawa, you should already know about this Indian Restaurant. There are six Moti restaurants in Tokyo and Yokohama. Their first restaurant is opened in Akasaka in 1978. Since I used to work at an office in Minami-Aoyama, I had eaten sometimes at Moti in Roppongi. What I like very much about restaurants in Japan is its lunch special menu. Most Japanese restaurants offer high quality launch menu at surprisingly reasonable price. Moti is not an exception. Moti serves you a mix grill menu only at 1,280 yen. This menu is only available on weekdays. But unfortunately, Futako Tamagawa branch was closed due to the development project in Futako Tamagawa area.

Ramen Koroku

2006-05-16T06:24:00.000-07:00

How often do you eat Ramen? If you ask any Japanese around you, you should expect a lot of different answers. For my case, I would eat Ramen at least once a month. I think I am not a Ramen freak. Some people would eat Ramen every day for lunch. But I do eat Soba more than twice a week. Ramen Koroku is good for non-Ramen freak like me to associate with Ramen more often.

What I do not like about ordinary Ramen is its greasy soup. Some of famous Tokyo style Tonkotsu Ramen, noodle with pork bone made soup, come with extremely unhealthy oily soup. Koroku is an adversary to such typical Ramen that young generation would rather prefer to. I would strongly suggest that you would order Koroku Special. It comes with corn, wakame seaweed, and roast pork. Its soy source based soup is only a little bit oilier than the soup for soba noodle.

Hakata Koimaro Ramen

2006-05-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

This ramen shop serves you very traditional Hakata style ramen. Hakata style ramen is known with its very thin noodule and pork bone boillon soup. It is also known by toppings such as Mentaiko, Moyashi and Takana, green radish pickles. I actually went to this ramen shop just after I went to Hakata to tast the real Hakata ramen in the backstreet of Hataka station. And I found the taste of the Hakata ramen at Hakata Koimaro Futako Tamagawa is exactly same as it is at Hataka. For those of you who are accustomed with Tokyo style Aginomoto or Soy Source based favor soup, its real Hakata style taste may be felt too less salty. If you walk straight through a street between two Takashimaya buildings and turn left at the forth corner, you will find this ramen shop on that corner.

Ayu Ramen

2006-04-27T21:07:00.000-07:00

Ayu sometimes means Ayumi Hamasaki, Japanese famous pop star. But this ramen is not made with that Ayu but Ayu-fish. This Ramen shop
is located at a backstreet of Futako tamagawa opposite side of the Sento, public bath. This small Ramen shop serves you a soup and noodle dish with a special recipe. Its soup is made with a mixture of many kinds of herbs and its extra thin noodle is boiled deliberately for the Japanese-Al Dente taste. On the top of it, Ayu Ramen comes with a half body of charcoal burned Ayu. While there are a lot of Ayu Ramen shops in Japan, this Ayu Ramen shop has its own originallity. If you can finish noodle first, try to order Onigiri, a rice ball, and put it in the soup to enjoy the flavor of the soup as a second round. Futakotamagawa area is nearby Tama river and you can alos fish Ayu if you have the right equipment and its know-how.

Pizzeria Torattoria Messina

2006-04-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

This pizzeria reminded me a lot of pizzerias everywhere in Italy. If you walk straight through a street between two Takashimaya buildings and turn left at the third corner, you will never miss yellow Italian designed sign of this pizzeria. You would better try Neapolitan style pizza with a slight arrangement for a taste of Japanese. I actually ordered a piece of Margarita. And I found that its taste was almost perfect except that the dough was too soft. But you should remember that you shouldn’t expect the crispiness from any Japanese-Western foods.

what's new

2006-04-27T07:39:00.000-07:00

This is actually first time for me to create a blog. What I would like to pick up in this blog is all about usufull information for daily life in Setagaya, especially around Kinuta area.

Basically almost all the information I would like to share with you may be already available at http://www.nikotama-kun.jp/. But this site is all in Japanese.

What I would like to do is not translate the contents but actually experience some of them and introduce it to you. Although I made the title of this blog what's new, I would have to pick up old shops and restraunt information. But it is all new to me anyway because I started live in this area only from two years ago.