Tokyo Blond Is Not Porn

Tokyo Blond is not a porn blog, about hair or even, as one pithy friend remarked, a micro beer or late 1980s glam metal band ("Dude, I just saw Skid Row and Tokyo Blond opened and played a killer set").


The purpose of this blog is to chronicle my experiences in Tokyo - poignantly, visually, irreverently - for fun.


Anybody can tag along...that is if I like you. This blog will endeavor to be entertaining and honest and frequent enough to keep those following interested including me.


Friday, October 29, 2010

Sushi Like You Mean It

So everyone told us, once we had sushi in Tokyo we would never like American sushi again.  I was dubious.  I mean I get it, but how good could it really be?

Well first off, the restaurant we went to was AMAZING!  It was called XEX (Yeah that sounds Japanese) and was situated on the 42nd floor of an office building overlooking the ginza.   As if the view wasn't enough, and it was, the restaurant itself was gorgeous.  

The hostess greets you at the elevator and escorts you down this mood lighted pathway to a big bar with an expansive view of downtown Tokyo.  The lounge was packed and smoky so we didn't pause for a photograph here. 


Hostess, lighted pathway


They literally had a zen garden in the middle of the restaurant.


This is a private dining table in the garden next to a flowering tree.
There were a lot of private rooms behind slatted sliding doors.
We know because we could hear a lot of drunken laughter.


That's our sushi master and behind him are the shimmering lights of Tokyo.
Far beneath him.
At one point during the meal a fabulous show of fireworks started to go off in the distance.
I thought Russell had arranged them just for me.
Turns out they were coming from Tokyo Disney.
It was magical.


Unlike the glass cases at American Sushi bars, this bar presented the specialties on a block of ice.
  That's some kind of shell fish, alive.


Next to the shell fish is a bowl of the bounty to be served that night.
The bar itself was wooden and so smooth.  It smelled heavenly.


Can you guess which
sake glass is whose?







We ordered a pre fixe meal and the first course was served in a covered bowl.
Hmmm. They usually serve miso soup at the end of the meal.


This was no miso soup.  It was soooooo good.
Mushrooms with sea urchin.
Like budda.


A medley of seasonal vegetables served in a bath of deliciousness.

Sashimi with radish and the customary wasabi.
Although there was nothing customary about this wasabi. 
The chef hand grated it off of the wasabi root right in front of you.
And it was not strong or pungent but flavorful and complementary.

Sashimi that literally melted in your mouth.
And that's not a chunk of butter; it's egg.

I think this is baked cod.  I love the way they dress the plate with the Japanese maple leaf.
The lemon wedge will give you an idea of the scale of this dish.
This ain't no American portion.


This was dessert, some sort of custard with mini pancakes and mango slices.
I love the silver bowl.

Ok, so they were right.  The only thing I might miss about American Sushi are the rolls. 
Other than tuna roll, I  have not encountered any rolls in sushi land.  
And I have to confess, I do like a crunchy, 
spicy spider roll, doesn't everyone?

As in America, sushi bars can be highly congenial.  People like to start up conversation.
There's always the curious inquiry over a dish, WTF is that?!, pass the soy sauce, kampai!, etc.  Well, at our little sushi bar, to my left, there sat an older gentleman with a younger gentleman.  My guess is they worked together.  They were both wearing suits (Japanese uniform) and had briefcases.  Over a few courses I recognized they were there celebrating the older man's birthday.  He was very happy about his birthday and at one point shared a card with the younger gentlemen.  When I looked over he encouraged the younger man to show the card to me.  Turns out it was a birthday card from his son who lives in Houston (Houston-why?).  It was one of those cards that plays a tune you can't get out of your head once you've opened it.  I think it was Elvis.  He was completely enamored with it, simply amazed.

Feeling magnanimous, he decided to share something else with me.  He handed a picture to the younger man and very emphatically gestured for him to share that with me as well.  I could have happily lived my whole life without seeing what he handed me.  It was a picture of him holding a shotgun, while he proudly posed with the dead carcass of a bear.  I was horrified.  The old guy was beaming.

The younger guy, sensing my horror (although I was trying to be gracious: smiling and bowing; trying not to barf) attempted to explain to me that it was actually an act of kindness the bear was shot as, due to the unusually hot summer, the bear would most likely have starved to death. 

Uh huh.

We left soon after the bear scene.



Wanna see my bear picture?





Monday, October 25, 2010

Foreign Anniversary


Russell and I celebrated our 17th anniversary in Tokyo.  It's not the first time we celebrated in another country.  We spent our ten year anniversary in Tuscany, drinking our way through the country side and gesticulating wildly - we fit right in.  But this was the first time we celebrated in a foreign county that we now live in, unless Dallas, Texas counts.  That was like a whole other country.  They even speak their own language.  Y'all!

Somebody told me there are more restaurants in Tokyo than any other city.  I believe them.  Just as I believe there are more French restaurants in Tokyo than there are in Paris.  No joke.  Lord knows you can get a better croissant in Tokyo than you can in Paris.  Come to Tokyo and I'll prove it.  Last weekend we had a cocktail with a French woman and she stated the same thing without any prompting from me.  I swear!

I did try to go on line and get some fun facts.  I need Conrad (a very resourceful friend of mine, full of inane facts and strong opinions). I couldn't find stats comparing international cities but I did find out that Japan has 3,891 McDonalds, second only to that hamburger super power: the United States with, 13,491 as of 1/23/10.

All of this is a mildly entertaining lead in to our anniversary dinner, celebrated at, you guessed it, a French restaurant in Tokyo called L'Auberge de I'lll which I found in the 2010 Michelin guide for Tokyo.  Making a reservation in Tokyo was challenging given the fact I speak very little, scratch that, almost no Japanese.  

For a nano second I was thrilled to discover they have OpenTable.com in Tokyo.  But the Japanese site was in Japanese (go figure) and you can't make a reservation from the U.S. site for a foreign restaurant.  When I wrote the site they just replied "OpenTable Japan is not offered in English at this time. " No shit.  Hello!!! Huge missed opportunity.  I gotta believe, and I know there are stats on this, people who eat out a lot are more inclined to travel internationally.  Geez, my head is swirling with the opportunities here.

So back to dinner.  We took a cab to the restaurant.  Side bar: one very odd thing about Tokyo you would not expect is,  the cab drivers never know how to get to where you're going.  Yes, of course, they all have the most up to date GPS but there are no addresses.  It's crazy!  I guess it's not their fault, most buildings don't have addresses on them so it's close to impossible to try to get somewhere.  We've adopted the DAHO technique (Dial and Hand Over).  We dial the place we're trying to go to and hand over the phone to the driver.  This technique has proven to work 99.7% of the time.  I have a chart if you're interested.  

They were waiting for us at the restaurant.  



No joke. See all these guys.  They're not loiterers.  I don't think loitering is allowed in Tokyo.
They work for the restaurant and they're waiting to greet us.  I feel important.


They ushered us into the parlor.  

This is a much nicer place to wait than in some bar where they try to jack up your tab 
while you "wait for your table to be prepared" a la American restaurants.

View from the top of the staircase looking down into the dinging room.
Wow!

I had to descend these steps.   As Russell and I were the only gaijin couple in the restaurant and I was wearing a bright blue dress - everyone was looking at us.
Why did I wear six inch stiletto heels?

This is the fabulous flower arrangement I would have taken out if I hadn't made it down the staircase.


Really this is not a picture of my cleavage - it's a picture of what the restaurant looks like behind me.

The happy, drunk couple.

Yes, my friends that is the nectar of the gods.  
We drink one bottle of this every year on our anniversary.
My favorite.

This was a multi-course meal, like twelve courses or something.
We forgot to take pictures of each course - sorry.  I'm an amateur all right?!
In addition to the regularly scheduled dessert they also gave us this special 
commemorative dessert wishing us a happy anniversary.  

Nice.










Sunday, October 24, 2010

Let's Get Ready to Royal!!!!

For our anniversary we decided to go royal.  So we visited the Imperial Palace and Gardens.

Russell and I have been married 17 years.  I know because he tells me.  And the funny thing is...I still like him... a lot.  I mean after 17 years of course you love your spouse but to still like him, now that's really something.  He's still the first person I want to tell if something wonderful or deplorable happens. And that's nice.

So yeah, the Imperial Palace and Gardens.  Technically we only caught a glimpse of the palace.  It's really only open twice a year: New Year's Day and the Emperor's birthday (Dec 23), twice in one week. Whoa.   But the gardens are impressive; the only place I've been in Tokyo (so far) where there is actually wide open spaces.


Right off the train we see these giant fish under the bridge.  I mean you can't tell from this picture but they're huge.  What have they been feeding them?  Tourists?


I'm thinking a moat for my next house.


Ok, so how do you get in this boat - jump?


Entrance to the grounds.


This is the largest boulevard I've seen in Tokyo, an army could march through this.
Oh right, they probably have.

I need an ornate lamp like this for my backyard.

Ok so all the tourist guides say the thing to do is to visit the Higashi Gyoen
 (East Garden).
So we did and it was beautiful.



Yes, that's a big ass spider. Scary.

Every where you look the view is planned.

and beautiful.

Lovely little bridge.



With Koi waiting for snacks.
Hey, this looks just like that famous painting by what's his name.

Ok, this is a postcard right here.


And this too.


This is a guest house - can I stay?  

Designated smoking area. 






This is one for my wallet.


I love the ancient moat framed by the 20th century buildings.
You think the original designer had this in mind?

There was an event going on at one of the structures on the grounds.
Everyone came in traditional garb. 
Including us - we wore the dumpy American uniform: jeans, tennis shoes and a baseball cap.

We stopped to picnic in the wide open spaces.  Which is awesome except when you're trying to hide the bottle of wine you brought to go along with lunch.  

Can somebody help me get out of this bubble?

 


We think this is the palace.



Hey! There are swans.

Pretty parting shot.

Across the street from the Imperial Palace and gardens is this totally modern 
water sculpture area, complete with a cafe. 




This clam actually sprays water but I didn't catch it.







Looks like a nice place to eat.


After all the walking around it was time for a pre-dinner cocktail.
The building with the white top on the right is the famous Penninsula Hotel.
Oh yes, it will be mine.