Kabuki-cho, Tokyo

The folllowing night we took some advice from Frommers and went to the Hayashi restaurant in the Kabuki-cho district. This section of Tokyo is what you imagine Tokyo looks like, with highrises, neon, and huge crowds of people in the streets.

Hayashi offers Robatayaki cuisine, which is traditional Japanese farmhouse cooking. The restaurant was very rustic and the woman who ran the place was dressed in a traditional kimono. The restaurant was on the bottom floor of a building in a very unlikely place - the red light district. Amidst all of the bright lights, gentlemen's clubs and arcades, it was like stepping through a doorway to the past.

The walls were plywood and we sat on benches around a small fire pit with a small pile of charcoal in the center. Around us hung old Japanese fishing implements and right over the fire pit was an iron hook decorated by a bronze fish, a symbol of a blessed hearth.
Our hostess placed a wire grate over the pit and brought out several small courses of food on skewers. The food included some unusual items, such as chicken liver, an unusual type of mushroom (which our host called a potato), and a full prawn which I was made to eat whole, head and all. It actually wasn't bad. Anna accidentally tried a pepper which she nearly choked on. She said it was too spicy, and our hostess laughed as if Anna was making a joke. Apparently, that kind of pepper is not supposed to be that spicy.

For desert we were given a block of radish covered in a sweet sauce, and it had a soft, unradish-like consistency. It was a great experience and we felt like we were able to get another taste of traditional Japanese culture.

Our hostess was facinated with the iPhone and we took some pictures with her after dinner. She was very nice, and if we come back I'd like to make it back to that little restaurant.

After dinner, we had drinks in the 20th floor bar of our hotel. There's something about the city lights of Tokyo that makes everything, especially having drinks, seem very hip and trendy. I think we've discovered why people live in cities. -Scott