Chipotle in Japan? Not Quite

Photo by Dylan Boroczi

More than anything else, when I talk to expats about how they’re adjusting to their new home — whether it’s here or the 5 months I spent in France — the things they miss are almost always food. People who have long gotten used to Japanese “squatter” toilets and ritualized social structures, who know keigo as well as English and love everything about Japanese cuisine, still have those one or two beloved items that they would sell their soul to eat again. In Paris, it was almost impossible to get a taco, and all of the Californians I knew were going into withdrawal. In Tokyo, my boyfriend is pining for American-style pizza, which is nonexistent here. And both of us miss Chipotle.

Akiba Karee-kan

I had to post this — it’s a segment that a Japanese TV show did last spring on Akiba Karee-kan, one of the restaurants I wrote about in this post! It gives you a look at the place, not to mention their food (including a little bit on how nan is made). It also gives some sample prices. Enjoy the silliness that is television in Japan after the jump.

Samosa: One Kitchen, Two Restaurants

Late one night last a couple weeks ago, we stopped in a tiny little Indian restaurant called Samosa in the shadow of the JR train tracks by Kanda Station. I’m not sure you could even call it a restaurant — it consisted of a kitchen, a counter, and about six stools. We made our picks from the menu on the wall, told the cooks, and took a seat. Pretty good curry (I went with the stand-by yasai karee) and delicious nan. But we had realized as we were waiting for our food that on the other side of the kitchen was a window, and on the other side of the window was a full restaurant. So when we decided to go back for dinner last night, we circled around the block and found the other entrance.

It was much nicer than the other side — but unfortunately, as we learned upon opening our menu, it had prices to match. While we had paid around ¥700 or ¥800 for a curry-and-nan set at the counter, the curries alone cost over ¥1,000 here and the nan was extra. And the food was coming out of the same kitchen. I was further disappointed when I ordered the aloo baigan and ended up not liking it much at all; it just had an overpowering taste of coconut and something else that overshadowed the actual ingredients. Mitch said his chicken butter vindaloo was fine, though we both agreed that our dishes were a bit heavy on the oil. As I said, though, the food was coming from the same kitchen as the previous time we ate there, so it was either because of the particular things we ordered or maybe the cook who was working. Either way, I wasn’t happy that we ended up paying nearly ¥4,000 for virtually the same dinner we’d eaten for about a third of that. It all depends on whether your priority is price or atmosphere and service. For us, the next time we decide to eat at Samosa, it will definitely be on the budget side.

The locations we visited were Samosa Kanda Station and Quick Kitchen Kanda Station — which, as I’ve said, were two spaces on either side of the same kitchen (click here for my map). The “Quick Kitchen” space is literally under the train bridge, while the door to the full restaurant is on one of the streets that run along the train line. Other locations are listed on their website: http://www.samosa.co.jp

Freshness Burger

Freshness Burger is sort of a chic, organic-coffee-brewing version of a fast food joint. You may be wondering why I’m writing about a burger chain on a vegetarian blog,  but surprisingly, they have two vegetarian options: the tofu burger and the mushroom burger. I opted for tofu, and while it was decent (due more to the tasty sauce than the very plain slab of tofu), it was VERY light. It wasn’t just mine, either; my boyfriend’s real hamburger was just as small and un-filling. Granted, we were starving at the time, but I would still say that this is a place better visited for a glorified snack than an actual meal.

Burgers ¥320 to ¥420, onion rings and home-cut fries starting at ¥200, and various other sides and desserts.

Salvatore Cuomo

Photo from Salvatore Cuomo

The Italian chain Salvatore Cuomo is everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I mean there were three within a mile-or-so-long stretch of the main drag near our hotel, and a quick look at their website shows there are over two dozen in the Tokyo area. It’s moderately priced: we paid ¥4,000 for lunch, that being ¥1,500 each for the pizza set and ¥500 each for a latté afterwards. The margherita pizza was very good, as was the coffee, but unfortunately the rest of the set was a salad with tuna on top and a cup of vegetable soup made with chicken stock. Still, I was able to eat around the tuna without too much trouble, and if you’re willing to eat meat-stock broths (which I’m not), I don’t think there were any actual pieces of meat in the soup. They also had one or two vegetarian pizzas besides the margherita, and they may have more during the full dinner service.

Not quite a vegetarian paradise, but good food — and while there hasn’t been a shortage of Italian restaurants in the areas I’ve been so far, Salvatore is certainly nice to have as an easy-to-find fallback.