Have just discovered this what will become a favourite eating place for me in Tokyo, not that there aren’t many udon-tempura set places around, or even much better ones (I’m too beginner at Japanese cooking to know).
However I know sweet loveliness when I meet it and this place is one of the sweetest and loveliest I’ve been to recently. And it’s a skip and a jump away from my little hotel. And for ¥590 you can’t go wrong.
Kakiage #かき揚げ is a mixture of vegetables and seafood fried, here served on steamed rice, and this set meal came with cold udon noodles, a miso dipping broth, and on the counter of this standing-only place were dishes of wasabi (quite good quality too, surprisingly for the price), #Umeboshi #梅干 plums, scallions, and pepper.
Soon as I walked in the lady guided me through the menu, showed me which button to press on the vending machine used only to pay for things, then came and showed me exactly how it should be eaten: stir wasabi and scallions into the dipping broth, then dip the cold noodles with chopsticks into the broth, then slurped them into your mouth. She stayed with me until I’d got it right. It felt very much little a countryside friendliness like I thought I felt at the @yawatahama_marmalade_festival @marmaladeawards in May, no big city brusqueness to it. Now I’m not travelling expecting local cooks to be performing sweetheart grandmothers (the stuff of Netflix documentaries) but it is touching when it happens. I’m definitely returning.
