胡同麺家 だん亭 (Dan-Tei), Myoden, Ichikawa;

We decided to go local a few weekends ago and had dinner at  Dan-Tei last night, which is probably our favorite Chinese restaurant in Japan.  The food is great and the restaurant is only 2 minutes from our apartment.  You can't beat that.  The cooks are really Chinese here and no Japanese is spoken in the kitchen.  Having Chinese cooks doesn't ensure good food though.  As much as I love Ma Ma and Yeh Yeh, I did not love their food growing up.  Anyhoo, not only is the food great, you get large portions too.  Dan-Tei was an izakaya (Japanese pub) at one point and the dark wood paneling and tables, decorative stones as well as the floor seating still remain.  Whenever overseas people visit us, we always bring them to Dan-Tei.  Accordingly, Ryan, Mom, Uncle Jim and Auntie Lil all have had the chance to experience Ichikawa city fine Chinese dining.

Japanese Chinese food is a bit different than its American and Canadian counterpart.  This is largely due to the fact that unlike the U.S. and Canada, most of the Chinese in Japan are Mandarin.  The Chinese in North America are largely Cantonese, especially in the many Chinatowns (although this demographic is rapidly changing).    It was Cantonese labor that helped build the railroads in the late 1800's after all.  That said, Cantonese food differs from Mandarin food.  Cantonese food is heavier with darker sauces it seems.    Growing up in a Cantonese-American family, I became accustomed to shrimp with dark lobster sauce, dark gravy egg foo yung, brown fried rice, crunchy lo-mein noodles and brown chow-fun noodles.   Well I can't find these items in Japan.  The Chinese food here is really light and tends to be more spicy with a  Szechuan influence.  When we want to get the Chinese food I am accustomed too, I usually joke that we need to hop on a flight to Hong Kong.

Dan-Tei serves traditionally Japanese Chinese food but I love it anyway.   Unlike when family members are here, we went pretty light this meal, only ordering a few items.  We ordered Cantonese-style sweet and sour pork (by chance, they cater to my preference!), shrimp with chili sauce, chin jya ros (similar to moo shu pork) for our entrees and fried sesame balls for dessert.

The Cantonese-style sweet and sour pork is my favorite item on the menu.  The pork is very lightly breaded and has the sweeter heavy orange sweet and sour sauce I love.  You get four or five large chunks of pork.  There's no pineapple here, instead they add sweet Japanese potatoes.  Onion wedges and green peppers nicely blend with the sauce.   There is a black vinegar sweet and sour pork on the menu too, which is a more traditional Japanese Chinese dish.

I never had shrimp with chili sauce until I came to Japan.  It's a Japanese Chinese essential at Chinese restaurants here in Japan.  What exactly is shrimp with chili sauce?  Well, it's a wonderful concoction of shrimp, onions and sweet & spicy orange chili sauce.  Dan-Tei does it well.  Usually the shrimp are smaller in Japanese Chinese menu items than those in the U.S. or Canada.  The Dan-Tei shrimp are bit larger than most of the Chinese restaurants here and are perfectly cooked.  They have that crisp snap when you bite into them.

Wifey got the chin gya ros  (neither of us can actually remember the name, we think it was something like this).  It was very similar to mushu pork sans the plum sauce.  We got an abundant amount of cooked strips of pork marinated in a sweet sauce.  Sliced onions and cucumber strips rounded out this one.  The wraps were cooked and a little more like tortillas than the wraps in mushu pork.

We ordered the large rice.  It really was pretty large.

Finally, the daughters ordered fried sesame balls to complete our dinner.  Yummy!

Everything here is delicious and this dinner was no different.  I give Dan-Tei five gyozas out of five gyozas.  Not only is it extremely convenient for us, the food is abolustely delicious and you get large portions for a restaurant in Japan.  If you have a chance to go out to Myoden on the Tozai line, be sure to eat at Dan-Tei!

Chinrai 珍来 Ramen, Urayasu

Well, it's been a long hiatus since my last post.  To be honest, I just got caught up with work.  I have a bit of free time now, so let the reviews and good times roll!

Last night I had to stop at Seiyu to do some Easter Bunny shopping and was just looking for a quick bite to eat.  Japan is a great place in that regard since so many salarymen want to eat quickly and head home or back to the office.  I decided to go to 珍来, a place I had seen for years but never tried.  For your information, the  珍来 is easy to find as it's right across from the Urayasu Starbucks.  Here's what it looks like at night:

This 珍来 shop is themed like a 昭和 (Showa) era ramen shop, which would be the 50's and 60's in Japan.  For those who don't know, Japan has two calendars, one based on the western calendar that we are all familiar with and one based on the reign of a given emperor.  Once the particular emperor's reign is over, the year starts again at 0, but with the new name of the emperor's reign in front.  For example 昭和 Showa 54 would be the 54th year of the 昭和 emperor (this would be 1979 on the western calendar).

Since this 珍来 is 昭和 themed, various 50's and 60's posters are on the wall.  Like these:

 Some Sinatra-looking Japanese dude.

Sure this dude is happy.  All he has to do is look down for a great view of some impressive perky curves.

What impressed me about the artwork was it was actually painted on the wall.  Really looked like actual posters to me.  I guess painting them made maintenance much easier.  Now on to the review...

I didn't get the ramen because I had ramen for lunch on the day I went to 珍来． Being Chinese, I decided to go for the fried rice and my favorite of favorites, gyoza.  Here is what the fried rice looked like:

The fried rice was pretty average.  600 yen and fast.  I got soup with it too.  I really like the heavier, darker American Cantonese style fried rice that I had grown up on better than what they have here in Japan, a lighter more Mandarin version of fried rice.  I think my grandfather put a little peanut butter and molasses in the fried rice at our restaurant in the Chicago area.  The gyoza were good:

 
They were larger than the average gyoza and their shells were soft and a bit crunchy.  The garlic and pork came together nicely.  300 yen will get you 5 of them.

All in all, I think I'll try 珍来 again for the ramen next time since 珍来 is known for its ramen.  As for the fried rice, I'll give it 3 rice bowls out of 5 rice bowls.  I'll give the gyoza 4 dumplings out of 5 dumplings.

Thanks for patiently waiting over a month for my latest post and please come again.

油そば Abura Soba; Shinjuku, Tokyo (various locations throught the Kanto Region)

 While wandering around Shinjuku, the noodle craving hit me hard.  Luckily, Shinjuku is a good place to be when you want noodles with many, many noodle shops.  Abura Soba is right across from the Sega Game center on the west side of Shinjuku station, not far from the post office and the Yodobashi Camera branches.  Like Yodobashi Camera with a game branch, camera branch, toys branch, computer branch, etc., Abura Soba has various branches in the west side devoted to different types of noodles.  I chose my favorite, tsukemen.  Tsukemen is cold noodles (or hot, as Abura Soba offers) that are to be dipped in the broth.

I ordered the large size for about 1000 yen.  The noodles were absolutely delicious and I will definitely go back.  The noodles were a bit hard and chewy, just how I like them.  The broth was a winner too, slightly vinegary with a thick consistency and hearty meaty (actual fish) taste.

Feel free to slurp and make a mess as this sign says that they will give you a paper apron to protect your clothing, if you ask.  I give Abura Soba's tsukemen five slurps out of five slurps.

Namja Town Part 2; Ikebukero, Tokyo

When Mom and cousin were in for the holidays, we brought them to Namja Town to enjoy Ice Cream City, Desert Kingdom and Gyoza Stadium.  For a rundown of a previous Namja Town trip, please see my post here. 

We ended going on the day before New Year's Eve.  To our delight, it wasn't overly crowded.  We commandered a table and ordered our gyoza from the Gyoza Stadium and... waited a real long time.  In somewhat typical Japanese fashion, the folks at each of the gyoza stands are not running things in the most efficient manner.  Each stand has maybe two-three workers, one taking orders and well, the other two, cooking batches of gyoza- one at a time.  As a result, each stand takes 20 minutes or so to make their gyoza.  So if a typical family wants to try gyoza from 3 different stands, it will probably take an hour.  These folks have to realize that faster gyoza cooking means more gyoza sold.  It's just simple economics.  I saw numerous occasions where people looked at a long line and decided not to order.  Oh well...  McDonalds can't teach efficiency to everyone.

So this time, we got lots of gyoza.  A warning here, the gyoza at Gyoza Stadium are not cheap.  The food below cost us at least 4,500 yen (about 50 dollars).  Not cheap and not really enough to make us full.  But it is fun and when family is in, fun takes priority over value (and patience waiting).

So here are the gyoza we got:

Chick gyoza- these were your standard pork filling gyoza but were shaped like little chickies.  Pretty standard, but fun to eat.

 

Piggy gyoza- Pretty disappointing.  These guys were 5 bucks for 2, so the 4 above cost us about 10 bucks (800 yen).  The taste wasn't so bad, standard pork filling, but they aren't a fraction as cute as the picture on the menu.  It looks as if the workers haphazardly threw the piggy parts on these guys.  Give me my 10 bucks and 20 minutes back!

 

Juicy gyoza- These guys are shaped in way that holds in the juices, like little pots.  Pork filling here, but nice and juicy.  These guys were winners.

 

Steel pan gyoza- Yummy, yummy, yummy!!!  These little guys are packed in a tiny steel pan and fried until they are crispy on the bottom.  Pork as usual, but chockful of garlic.  Lovers stay away, but these guys are super yummy.

Maruman gyoza!!!  Read about them in my previous Namja Town post.  Yummy bread-like pockets of pork.  Good as they are, White Gyoza is better and much cheaper. 

Last but not least, pepper cheese gyoza-  there guys were the champions of the group.  Everyone liked these guys the best.  Cheese and pepper are so untypical when one has gyoza.  The cheese wasn't too heavy and the pepper wasn't too spicy.  As I type, I want them oh so much!!!  Thanks for reading and please go to Namja Town!!!

White Gyoza ホワイト餃子, Kameari, Tokyo

Knowing that I am a gyoza fan, a good friend of mine, Dana, recommended White Gyoza to me.  We had just been talking about my visit to Namja Town in Ikebukero to enjoy Gyoza Stadium.  White Gyoza specializes in fried bread-like gyoza, much like the Maruman gyoza I had at Gyoza Stadium.

If you head out to the Kameari White Gyoza, please pay attention to the map on the website as the restaurant is about a 7-minute walk from the station.  According to Dana, you can see it from the Joban line train if you are headed towards Tokyo from Kashiwa.  That said, there are multiple White Gyoza branches throughout Tokyo and Chiba so if you don't live near Kameari, there is a chance that you can find one near you.  Here's what the Kameari branch looks like at night:

For those of you who know what gyoza look like, it might be hard to believe that the White Gyoza are actually gyoza.  They look more like little dinner rolls than actual gyoza!  Inside each White Gyoza is pure yumminess.  The outside is slightly crunchy and the inside is moist and pipping hot with savory pork filling.

Yum yum.  We ordered 20 gyoza, white rice and beers.  As you can tell from the menu below, our meal didn't set us back too much, only about 2000 yen for the both of us.

Yep, we were thoroughly full.  I definitely want to do it again.  I give White Gyoza an enthusiastic five pot stickers out of five pot stickers for the yumminess and value.

Namco Namja Town, Ikebukero, Tokyo

This weekend, I had a chance to visit the mini-theme park, Namja Town, located in Sunshine City in Ikebukero.   What a pretty cool experience.  Before law school, I had lived in nearby Myogadani and now regret not visiting this cool little theme park in the early 2000's.  Well, what is Namja Town?  Namja Town is comprised of four lands, Gyoza Stadium, Ice Cream City, Dessert Kingdom and Ghost Town.   Within each of the lands are restaurants, attractions, games and shops.  General admission is 300 yen, and like carnivals, the attractions and games each require an additional fee, paid in the official currency of Namja Town, the Namja.  20 Namja equals 200 yen.  However, I believe that there is a day pass that'll get you into most of the attractions for 3,500 yen.

Here is a breakdown of the three lands we visited (we ran out of time and didn't get to Ghost Town):

Gyoza Stadium

Gyozas for dinner at a Chinese restaurant- great.  A whole themed land for gyozas?  Even better.  Well, to start, if you don't know what a gyoza (餃子) is, let me explain.  Gyoza are little meat dumplings from China.  Americans know them as pot stickers. 

Within Gyoza Stadium, there are 12 different gyoza shops, and the assortment seems never ending- kimchi gyoza, shouronpo gyoza, mentai mayo gyoza, cheese gyoza, fried shrimp gyoza, steamed gyoza, thin gyoza, ball gyoza, pizza gyoza and so on. 

With all the choices, this time we chose the ball (丸満) gyoza.  We were not disappointed.  The ball gyoza had a slightly crunchy outside with an almost pizza crust feel to them.  The pork filling was juicy and well-seasoned.  They were pretty hot on the inside, so please carefully eat them.  4 set us back 480 yen. 

Gyoza Stadium is themed like Showa Era Japan (although it lasted from the late 20's to the late 80's, the 50's is particularly known as Showa) with black and white televisions, 50's movies ads and candy stores reminiscent of the 50's.  There were 4 attractions in Gyoza Stadium, 2 of which were tours, and 2 of which were shooting games.  We did not go on any of them. 

Ice Cream City

Above Gyoza Stadium lies Ice Cream City.  As the name implies, it is a city where you can buy innumerable types of ice cream. 

Gelato, Turkish ice cream, soft serve ice cream, container ice cream, Coldstone-like ice cream and Taiwanese shaved ice cream are all here. 

We were tempted by the container ice cream place with over 300 varieties (eel, beef tongue and wasabi included), but ended up just going with the soft serve ice cream. 

Our group chose six great flavors- ramune, Japanese grape, chestnut, vanilla, green tea and wasabi.  The cones were 350 yen a piece and the 4 flavor sampler was 580 yen.  They were all delicious.  Next time, I'll try the Turkish ice cream.

Ice Cream City is themed like a futuristic metropolis and features a large game center and a laser tag arena.

Dessert Kingdom

You can get gyoza at Gyoza Stadium and ice cream at Ice Cream City.   That said, it is no surprise that Dessert Kingdom features desserts, cakes, crepes and puddings of all shapes and sizes.  Thoroughly sweets-full after visiting Ice Cream City, we did not enjoy any of the beautiful desserts.   We did ride the wooden carousel (20 Namja each) though and enjoyed walking through the Italian-themed streets of Dessert Kingdom.  Along the streets of Dessert Kingdom are numerable fortune tellers, fate games and future indicators.  I have a pretty good feeling that Dessert Kingdom is good place to bring a date and ask the fortunes about your future together!

As stated earlier, we were not able to visit Ghost Town.  We quickly passed through it though, after using the elevator and it seemed pretty scary.   Next time.

Next time sums it up about Namja Town.  Next time we will go to Ghost Town.  Next time we will try the fried shrimp gyoza.  Next time we will get the Turkish ice cream.  I can't wait until next time...

Guangzhou Ichiba 広州市場, Shinjuku, Tokyo

Well, you want a review of a hole in the wall with good food?  Then, I got one for you.  Note that I'm not actually sure what the Japanese reading of the restaurant's name is, so I'll go with the Chinese reading of it.   This noodle shop is located closest to the West exit of Shinjuku station and is within sight of the big Shinjuku post office, on the same street.  Yodabashi Camera branches are all close to this one.

To start, the restaurant is not the cleanest, and well, it really felt like I was in Chinatown in Chicago rather than anywhere in Japan.  I think that is a good sign food-wise.  There are only about 12 seats at this one, so you might have to wait a bit.  I ordered the shrimp wanton men set, which includes fried gyoza.  This one set me back 1020 yen, which is about 12 dollars.  After I ordered, I realized that I could choose the flavor of the soup that holds the noodles and the dumplings.  They didn't offer a choice to me, perhaps because I quickly put my headphones back on after I ordered.  I ended up with the thickest soup, which was quite flavorful (I could imagine the pork simmering for hours on end to create the thick broth).  As Rachel Ray would say, yum-o!!!

The noodles were very thick too, much like tsukemen noodles.  There were three wantons and I saved them for last.  Unlike the wantons that I am accustomed to such as those from Hong Kong Cafe on Algonquin Road near Schaumburg, these were like shrimp gyoza.  Maybe because Japanese are more familiar with these kinds of dumplings?  Regardless, they were very yummy.

The gyoza were literally out of this world.  I never had such light gyoza, in fact they almost had a meringue-like feel to them.  I probably could have eaten 50 of them if I could afford to, but unfortunately, only five came with my set.  I really liked the gyoza here because they were so unique.

All in all, I give Guangzhou Ichiba four dumplings out of four dumplings for the shrimp wanton men and the gyoza.  When in Shinjuku, I'll definitely be back.