Shinjuku has it all: shops, nightlife, business, parks, charming back-alleys and of course Matsuya, the restaurant chain which provides typical Japanese breakfasts for little money. If you like me, get the recommendation to go to Matsuya be aware that the restaurant itself has its name only spelled in Japanese characters. So you would have to look out for a yellow sign with 松屋 written on it.
Shinjuku Station
When eating at Matsuya in the early morning (I always went around 7 am because my rhythm was still distorted from the jet-lag) you will be surrounded by masses of Japanese business folks having a quick lunch before heading to work. Talking about quick lunch my impression was that in Japan the restaurant experience at most places is rather speedy. People order their food before they even sat down on their seat, receive their food latest 4,5 minutes later and stand up to pay at the counter the instance they are done eating.
Matsuya Food Order Machine
Matsuya Food Order
Matsuya Standard Breakfast
Once again I copied what the guy before me ordered and then sat at the counter across him as I had no clue what to expect. It turns out I got rice, Miso soup, pickled vegetables, dried seeweed, beef and a RAW egg. I would’ve been utterly lost without imitating this guys morning ritual as I had no idea how I was supposed to eat the raw egg. Here are the steps I followed:
- Break the seaweed into the Miso soup;
- Scramble raw egg in separate bowl until it is a homogeneous none slimy liquid;
- Only drain the meat sauce from the beef into the egg and stir a bit;
- Pour the beef into the egg sauce and then pour all of it over the rice;
- Finally add the pickled vegetables on the rice.
I really got to appreciate this even though it required some initial adjustment to eat a breakfast which resembled a smaller portion of a regular lunch or dinner to me. However, when possible I ate repeated to eat this kind of breakfast instead of Western classics like bakery or cereals which where often offered at the Hostels. One it day it backfired though as my thought was, this time let’s try a different side instead of beef. Boy was I disappointed when I got some weird white slimy foam-like alien cream called tororo. It turns out it’s some Chinese yam which I would not recommend as it is rather tasteless.
Ramen
Ramen Order Sheet
So for lunch I decided to get some real Ramen. I only tried Ramen once before here in Stockholm at Ai Ramen which has been super delicious but I was curious to see what the Japanese version of it tastes like. So I got Ichiran Ramen recommended from the Hostel staff. Let me tell you was this an incredible eating experience. The Ramen itself, it tasted great and looked pretty as you can see for yourself on the pictures above. However the setting of the restaurant was on another level. I had to queue 45 minutes to get inside, not table yet. Then you get an order sheet as you can see above to describe precisely how you want your Ramen. As mentioned in a previous post, if you go to a Ramen place you can choose Ramen…and that’s it! I was really lucky that they had English order sheets as I was not aware of all the possibilities I would get to specify my Ramen experience in detail. Kudos to the chef who is able to cook pasta with 6 different levels of “noodles’ texture”.
Table at Ichiran
The funniest part though is, that everyone sits on a counter with shutters left and right to have the full private Ramen slurping experience. It is getting loud I promise you. Furthermore, once you received your food through the open whole in front of you they let down bamboo blinds. Thus you are sitting isolated with your food. If you want to order extra noodles or a dessert, I did both, you can fill out the extra order sheet on you table or like I did pre-order it directly from the beginning which makes you end up with those 2 little trays you can see on the picture above. The green one for my Macha dessert and the red/orange one for extra noodles. The trick is then to place either of them precisely on this little square in front of the blinds and press a small order button. But see for yourself what happens next:
After the afternoon activities, which involved a lot napping and some sightseeing which I’ll explain at a later point, I went out again to get some real Sake at a place with locals that as it turned out tried to fill me up.
Shinjuku at night
The area I chose for this was a narrow street behind Shinjuku station as I was told that it is one of the oldest streets in town and holds lots of typical back-alley bars serving fantastic local food. Even if you don’t find the place directly you will at least see all the smoke. It’s typical for those kind of places to grill a lot of meat and fish on open fire, always borderline on setting the whole place on fire. I ordered what was recommended to me, a stew and lots of different grilled skewers. Of course I did not miss out on the Sake either. Although I got some weird comments if I would really like such a strong drink to my meal. So I did the only appropriate thing and order a beer…additionally to the Sake.
Sake
Stew
Skewers
I even met a nice couple next to me on the counter and we had a good chat about German and Japanese football eventhough they spoke barely any English and most of the talk was them trying to make me buy more Sake and ordering Shōchū for me as I didn’t do the latter myself. Typically enough they were not drinking either of the two but had Highball, a long-drink involving mediocre Japanese Whisky and soda, served on the rocks.
BBQ Japanese-style
the bar
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