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.

Ikspiari (TDR's Downtown Disney), Maihama, Japan

I had a chance to visit Ikspiari this weekend, which is the Tokyo Disney Resort’s answer to the Downtown Disneys at the Disney World Resort and the Disneyland Resort.  Ikspiari definitely has the Disney feel (although, like the rest of TDR, it is owned and operated by another company via a license from Disney) with its themed shopping areas and music.  Ikspiari features some shops/restaurants familiar to Americans such as Gap, Godiva, Starbucks, Rainforest Café and T.G.I.Fridays, and of course, has many Japanese stores such as Shinseido music, Monsoon Café and Lupica Tea.  Like its Downtown Disney brethren, Ikspiari has a multi-theater cinema.  Here are some Ikspiari pictures for your perusal. 

For our lunch, we decided to dine at the food court at Ikspirari, which features about nine restaurants, and you can eat everything in the food court from Italian to British pub to Japanese fare.  Here is a sampling of the restaurants’ food:

We went for udon and ramen.  Here are some pictures of the ramen shop as a well as one of the food court itself.  

Our group ordered plain udon with tempura chikuwa, tempura pumpkin and inari from the udon restaurant, and tonkotsu and shio ramen from the ramen shop.  As you can see from this picture, we greedily wolfed down our food. 

Our lunch totaled about 3,000 yen which is about 35 dollars U.S., not bad compared to the rest of the restaurants at Ikspiari.  Rainforest Café is particularly expensive here in Japan.  To be honest, the food was nothing too spectacular, and the speed we ate was mostly due to us being really hungry.  I personally find udon rather consistent from place to place, having a clean flavor and light broth.  My ramen, the tonkotsu ramen, was particularly garlicky and a little too salty.  The ramen noodles had a chow mein quality to them and I prefer thicker noodles.  As a result, I give our noodles three slurps out of five slurps.  

One note, like most food courts in Japan, there is limited seating space at Ikspiari's food court.  Accordingly, since lunch and dinner at Ikspiari’s food court are quite busy, it is best to eat a little before or after the meal rush.

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.