Toriki, Shinagawa

the famous yakitori shop with the red lantern.

Our first nite in Tokyo....dinner was scheduled at the suburb area in Shinagawa. Since everyone got there on their own at the stipulated time.....JS & Monkey and decided to be adventurous and took the subway with 2 different connections.

JS: "Let's take the shinkansen to Shinagawa."
Monkey: "U gotta be kidding me? that would be less than 3 minutes ride for the kind of money paid.......anyway the shinkansen station is very very far from the yakitori place."

after catching the city metro to the end of the line, we hopped into another rail service and arrived at a tiny stop called Hatanaodai...got off....flipped open our phone and checked bearing...okie right behind KFC.

JS rolled his eyes and said: "How befitting...a yakitori *grilled chicken* near to KFC....this is a chicken town!!!!"
Monkey: "Calm down JS, I am sure there's other things for u to eat."
but I was wrong....

When we arrived...the rest of the gang were ady dunking in appetizers and dousing sake merrily celebrating LIFE :))))

J&J James came out to get us into this lil tuck shop and we were greeted with chef-owner Kunio Aihara holding up his chicken proudly!!!! It ain't no free range bird here. To keep the prices low, chef managed to source good quality young chicken fr his trusted bird farmers. *do u call them bird farmers??*

Appetizer of nato and raw egg yolk with freshly cut japanese leeks. I'm not a fan of nato bcoz of its flavour and texture but the guys said this was good.

One of the famous dish here is the grilled chicken drumstick.

Chef doesn't pre-prepare his meat by skewering them into sticks - oh well most of the time....instead he will just kept on dissecting whole bird right in front of you into parts and lay them onto the electric griller right smack in front of it. Instead of using charcoal griller, his electric version still produce yummylicious chicken. Well that explains why there isn't much smoke inside this tuck shop!!!

Grilled chicken gizzard

There were also some parts grilled and served on its skewer

I have no idea which part of the chicken innards are these :P just slightly salted with sea salt.

We ordered a homemade toufu for Mr. JS :P
It was seriously good, just drizzle with some soy sauce

More innards....I think the intestines or stomach part of the chicken?

More yummy grilled chicken with homemade sauce

my favourite gotta be the chicken skin :D:D:D

House salad was refreshing and crunchy - with slices of chicken as well. Poor JS >.<

so plates after plates of food just kept arriving and we drank 13 bottles of sake :P

God of Eatery aka GOE and Yiks who just landed from Hokkaido....describing the excitement and torturous time they had in their cycling expedition. I think they mistakenly joined the professional expedition, it sounded really tough.

another house speciality of Chef Aihara was this lightly seared on the outside and raw on the inside chicken meat. I've eaten raw chicken sashimi before but this time around, Monkey didn't take the risk for she's about to climb mount Fuji in a few days time!!!

Apparently in Japan, there's more ppl that died from raw chicken due to salmonella than from eating fugu. Shocking statistics hmmm?

I lurve my meat burnt like this!!! yummmsss

Monkey: "JS this is so so so yummy!!!"
JS: "-_-" yesssss I can see that........"

Joanna decided that she's much more kawaii after all the sake!!!! while GOE looked drained from all the days of cycling, all 472km in Hokkaido...LOL...and it was kinda uphill workout due to the mountainous terrain. 

While Chili and Champagne King looked so casual and chillax, prollie ain't enuff of cycling for he cycles to work everyday anyway.

GOE: "I wanna go home and see my baby."

GOE is now a man-tai, and took a year off sabbatical to chill and enjoy life. This is the way to go man. So more cycling adventures coming ur way :))))

Mr. J&J James was planning how to get up to Mount Fuji after all the cycling. I have no idea how did this mean machine do it but HE DID and conquered Mount Fuji a few days after that. Oh the 3 of us did it bcoz of him so he was the man behind our mountain expedition.

I remembered, halfway through the climb, he asked J&J Jelina many many times...."Why are we doing this?"
Monkey >.<" self inflicted torture!!!

Joanna enjoying her yummy finger lickin good chicken wings, while listening to all of their Hokkaido stories. Yea I must admit it was such a lovely dinner in the company of good friends, good adventures stories, great food and extremely smooth sake!!!

Japanese have learnt to work in such a small space. Hence organisation and work flow is truly important. Underneath the chopping board were chilling unit where chef stored all his whole chicken, which he will dissect on his wooden chopping board, before placing them onto the electric grilled next to him, Behind him were pots and pots of chicken stocks boiling for the welcome soup. It was yummzzzz.

After dinner, the guys pushed their luggage outta the tiny space. For they are heading straight to the airport to catch their flight home...so from 8 of us....it's now down to 6 to continue our food adventure in Tokyo.

One pic for remembrance fr the iPhone. Amazing great no fuss yakitoris. If you don't mind the journey out of city to the suburb area this is kinda hole in the wall place. Chef Aihara has put himself on the map....especially when Anthony Bourdain came for a visit and it was also shown in "No Reservations"

and poor JS with nothing to eat, coz everything was served, there's no other grill meat at Toriki apart from chicken. So Monkey brought him to our favourite burger joint - Freshness Burger for his dinner and me more beer and onion rings time. They even have a snacks set menu of beer with chips, onion rings, fried cheese etc. Yums yums

His burger looked really good too.....I was so tempted to take a bite but didn't wanna steal a hungry man's food....for a hungry man is an angry man u know?

Toriki
3-11-13 Hatanodai,
Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo,
Japan.
Tel: 03.3785.8472
Closed: Sundays, Mondays and Public Holidays
from 5pm till midnite

Hashida Sushi, Tokyo

The lil mansion/house of the famed Hashida Sushi

When we touched down in Narita that wet rainy morning, it was really early.....like 7am in the morning. Yawn yawn yawn and Monkey hugging her tummy happily after her nasi lemak and teh tarik onboard Malaysia Airlines....*now will be known as Malaysia Airlines Berhad*

So for the first time we took a bus to downtown Ginza all thanks to J&J Jelina who taught us how to stretch our dollar *in this case Japanese Yen*.....she was in horror when she found out that we have been taxi-ing our way from airport to hotels all these years....

Monkey grinned : "Pls don't look at me...it's my overly pampered housemate whom must be chauffered around."

The bus service was not only super duper cheap and efficient...but extremely clean!!! but most of all....there's a porter who will tag all your luggage bag before giving you your tag copy...and he will load all of it underneath the bus's storage. When u arrive at ur destination, just surrender ur tag and he will unload all ur bags again.....so basically this is as good as a cab!!!!

Thanks to J&J Jelina we can have more pieces of premium sushi. WAHAHAHAHAHA. Savings on transport will surely go to food and wines.

So after checking into Peninsula and them into Mandarin Oriental...the 4 of us congregated at Tsukiji market, thinking of slurping down some bowls of noodles or beef rice. But the queue and the influx of PRC tourists....oh my gawd....why is there so many of them?

True enuff, the ladies agreed let's shoot over to Hashida Sushi!!!! and we were so eppy that Mr. JS allowed that to happen for he's a man who will stick by schedule. Afterall we were already at Tsukiji why not Tsukiji??? anyway Hashida sushi is just nearby, we can alwiz come back to show for his cooking ingredients. Definitely not for food for now, as the food quality no doubt is good here at the market, but there won't be any ambience to enjoy everything in a rush plus JS hates to queue!!! He gets priority lane all the time from banking to customer service and even immigrations. So how do u make a man like that to queue???

We arrived really really early and Hashida Sushi won't be open till 11.30am....the four of us stood outside at 10.30am staring at each other if we should start queue-ing up!!!! LOL Singaporeans and Msians love to queue up!!! but we definitely can't beat the Japanese in this. They are the Master!!! the Sensei for the Art of calm and zen undisrupted queue-ing technique. *haiyeak karate chop chop chop*

Since they don't take reservations for lunch so it's kinda first come first served basis. We then decided to explore the neighbourhood.

Yes I have to agree, women lurve shopping.....they won't let the one and only stall that was opened for business at that hour off. But summer fruits such as peaches were all looking good and irresistible and so we bought some.

"JS can we have some cute bear buns???"
JS: "No....don't spoil ur appetite."

"But....but...it's an hour away and I am hungry~~~~~"
JS: "No. and that's final."
Monkey :(((((
Sayonara Bear Bun....JS read me too well. I wasn't hungry. I just wanna have a bite of something as adorable as u. And he knew that after one bite, I will pass u back to him, and he will end up finish u up. This hungry trick doesn't work anymore, I gotta think of something new soon.

It started to drizzle again and after 40 minutes, the ladies said we should all get back to the restaurant!!!! and Joanna was carrying her Hermes bag...I would have wrapped it with plastic bag!!!

J&J Jelina, Monkey and Joanna

U must be wondering wat happened to the rest of the group? They were still cycling in Hokkaido.

When we arrived, there's another 15 more minutes to opening....seeing that it's drizzling the owner opened the door for us to be seated inside. Woohoooo~~~~~

Master Sushi Chef Tokio Hashida....Hatch's beloved daddy. If u are familiar with Kenjiro Hashida who helmed Hashida sushi in Singapore...this is his dad whom he has apprenticed with.

so good to see the old man, whom was hospitalised just a few weeks earlier. But he's now all back at work looking serious as alwiz!!!

our brunch of awesome sushi.....as fresh as u could get when the restaurant has got such good supplier whom supplied the best cuts to the restaurant.

the cuts are really thick with not too much of vinaigrette rice. U don't wanna fill ur stomach with too much of rice. Sushis has got many school of thoughts in Japan, here it's the Tokyo style with no sauce on top - unlike Osakan, they lurve their sweet sauce on top of every piece of sushi.

Not a matter of which is more superior, but of preference. Just how do u like ur sushi :)))

Me want more toro and toro maki here u come...come to momma!!!!
I'm a simple gal :))) I lurve it simple and not extremely fancy...but then sometimes I like my food fancy. How contradicting *JS rolled his eyes*

JS: "U r definitely not simple ok?"
Monkey: "Yes JS u have got good taste, that's why u chose me!!!!"
further eyes rolling action by JS

Monkey: "If u continue to do that, it's gonna get stucked in that eye sockets of yours."
JS GAH!!! "This woman is impossible!!!"

the best part of abalone - which also happened to be the ugliest. Its prized liver for that bitterness.

paired really well with Sake. I can't remember how many bottles we had :P

 JS called this "Death by Uni"!!!
The boys called it the Uni Tower!!!
Wah can I just skip the prawn and tamago and have 3 pieces of Uni Tower?

tee hee hee

Then we were handed a mobile phone by the daughter of Master Sushi chef. it was Hatch/Chef Kenjiro Hashida all the way from Singapore. He was surprised that we were in Tokyo and did not notify him, for he could have arranged some form of "reservation" at his daddy's restaurant. :)))))

oh yums....
the style of sushi here is really rustic and authentic. If u are looking for something modern then please go somewhere else. Even the long wooden counter was shipped here all the way from Hokkaido for the Hashida family has their roots back in Hokkaido.

No menu here, just go omakase or special for the day. Soon as we were stuffing and popping pieces of sushi into our mouth, by 12pm there were no more seats and already a queue formed outside. The crowd here is really locals for it's such a hole in the wall!!!

Look at all the eppy eppy faces after our first meal fix. Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh

JS: "Ok now no more taxi, all walk to Tsukiji Market with me to burn off those calories."
The ladies -__-"

We crossed over the steel bridge and Tsukiji market can be seen on the right side. This is the dock where ships come and go...loading and unloading million tonnes of tuna and freshly caught produce from the sea.

despite the numerous visits to Tsukiji market, one can never get bored...

Monkey outside the toilets!!! LOL

the famous and yet dangerous vehicle moving boxes and crates of fish around. These drivers are ferocious and they hate tourists so please stay away from them for we were regarded as obstacles and put their productivity 30% lower as they beep beep their way through the market in this.

Read bout our previous visit to Hashida Sushi *here*

Hashida Sushi
3-8-11, Kachidoki, Chuo-ku,
Tokyo, Japan.
Tel: +81 3 3533 0341