Japan continued

Salted cod-roe, or Alaskan Pollock roe, is called mentaiko in Japan. You see mentaiko stuffed inside onigiri, swirled into creamy pasta sauces, smeared between two shiso leaves and tempura’d, stuffed into mochi and deep-fried, and in eki-ben (train station bento) found in its whole - on top of a bed of rice and pickled vegetables. In Ebisu - where we avoided the frequently search resulted ‘Halal Ramen Honolulu’ and before an unfortunate listening bar, we had it alongside a tempura moriawase, with some hot-udon in hot broth.

Udon Yamacho Ebisu

Ebisu - in Shibuya City, has a few of the many ‘designer’ public toilets dotted around the capital.

It had the feeling of being a much less in-your-face Golden Gai, a subtler expression of the Tokyo Aesthetic - the same moody izakayas, vending machines, and miscellaneously parked motorcycles - just fewer, and more thoughtfully arranged. An Ikebana as opposed to a frenzied bouquet.

In the Roppongi Hills, we found a slightly less popular branch of Tsujihan and queued briefly for a seat at the U-shaped counter. The English instructions on the menu explain the variations available on the kaisen-don - which comes with crab, ikura, sea urchin, minced salmon/tuna, and cubed sashimi, over a bowl of rice. Once two-thirds of the bowl have been eaten, dashi is poured into the bowl - a spectacularly filling, and cartoonishly perfect Japanese meal. Outside, at a salary-man bar, a woman was serenading a suited group with some country j-rock. A wasian child watched, curiously. Loud Singaporeans discussed the merits of this branch being less busy than the Nihonbashi branch. I didn’t read the instructions properly; to leave a piece or two of sashimi to blanch in the dashi-top up. I wondered if the itamae noticed, he probably notices it all the time.

Outside of Arashiyama's bamboo forest, the touristiest food-street in Kyoto, I finally saw some baumkuchen, particularly, Kyo Baum - a matcha-flavoured version of the German spit cake - the rings to resemble the cross-section of a bamboo rather than a spruce.

If Issey Miyake designed a take-out tea-bottle holder, at Ippodo Tea.