(Mostly) Raw Fish

While originally becoming popular across South East Asia as a way to preserve fish in fermented rice so it would last longer, also see zabasushi below, Hanaya Yohei is generally credited as the inventor of today's Tokyo-style nigiri sushi, at the end of Japan's Edo period, circa 1850. And what would a trip to Japan be without scarfing down huge amounts of possibly their most famous export, mercury poisoning and fishing quotas be damned.

The fish sold during this time would often be salted or marinated in soy as lack of refrigeration caused the catch (mostly from Tokyo Bay) to spoil very quickly. Skip forwards a century and sushi with raw fish, roe and seafood was becoming more easily available and could be found for sale on the streets of most Japanese cities.

Come the 1980s and the west coast of America bought a charge with the introduction of fusion sushi including California rolls stuffed with all sorts of weird and wonderful things including mayo, avocado and crabsticks and spicy tuna, quickly followed by the excitement of kaiten (conveyor) belt restaurants and the ensuing sushi saturation of the 2000s where you could find boxes to takeaway in every Tescos in every town.

So here we are in 2014 and while it doesn’t look like we are going to get the hoverboards or pizzas that grow in the microwave that we were promised, you can order sushi on an iPad that is bought to your table on a robotic train; which is how we came to find ourselves at Genki Sushi for a little birthday lunch of raw fish and rice.

Of all the stops planned out on our two week itinerary sadly I think this is the one I was most looking forward to; as with the best of Japanese culture it demonstrates the perfect blend of ancient tradition with technology and it also meant I could stuff myself silly with sushi for a ridiculously small amount of Yen.

The premise is simple; on entering you are given a small electronic tag corresponding to a seat in the restaurant, on finding said seat activate the ipad that is mounted above it (thankfully there is an English option) and begin ordering your food and drink. When you have finished ‘checkout’ on the iPad then take your tag to the counter at the entrance to settle up.

Of course the real fun comes when you have placed you order. As soon as the kitchen has freshly prepared your food they load up the little robotic trains before sending them out to you via a double set of tracks that run around the restaurant like a miniature railway enthusiasts wet dream. On receiving your order, grab the food then press the flashing ‘Genki’ button to send the train back; rinse, lather, repeat.

I had been avidly watching Youtube videos on Genki etiquette (and other strange Japanese things) before our trip including one,from American video bloggers in Japan, Eric and Kyde, that showed them, on Eric’s birthday, eating at the same Shibuya branch of Genki. I decided to commemorate this auspicious coincidence on the anniversary of my birth by ordering Eric’s two favourite dishes to start, maguro (tuna) and pepper ebi (prawn) plus a special plate called ‘fatty trio’, because with a name like that how could I resist.

The tuna was good, the prawns great – they had been topped with Kewpie mayo and sprinkled with plenty of black pepper  before being blowtorched– and the fatty trio totally Genki (trans. happy, energetic or feeling well and still my favourite word of the moment).

The Ewing started with crab miso soup (189 Yen) which looked like it contained the creature from the Blue Lagoon, plus a basket three plump panko’d oysters served with a poky tartare sauce and a dish of her favourite edamame beans.

Throughout the meal we tried, amongst others, tuna mayo and creamed corn gunkan, a little odd but strangely moreish; a crispy grilled pork rib nigiri, served hot with lemon; bonito, looked great but a touch chewy; ama ebi (raw sweet shrimp) that lived up to the name; salmon roe gunkan, my nightmare but one of the Ewing's faves; and salmon with raw onions and mayo, that was highly inauthentic but a delight.

To give you a rough idea of the cost, the basic nigiri - tuna, salmon, prawn etc. - come as two pieces per plate and cost 189 Yen (about a pound) while the specials, like the fatty trio and oysters, are about 350 Yen (about two pounds). Matcha tea is free and each seat comes equipped with a hot water spigot, cups and powdered green tea so you can make and drink as much as you like through your meal. We also had a bottle of ice cold sake, come on, it was my birthday. Total damage just over 3,000 Yen or £18; yes, this place is cheap.

Of course, all of this jiggery pokery may alarm the purist but for this price the sushi, certainly for these two Gajin, was unbeatable value and tasty, too. Halfway through our meal, probably corresponding to the ridiculous amount I had been ordering, I got to play rock, paper, scissors with the animated girl who popped up on my ipad. Defeating her meant a 10% off token for our next visit. How could we resist?

 

Before we went back we made time for a flying visit to Genki’s even cheaper brother, Uoebi, a few streets away in Shibuya. Uoebi’s basic plates come in at 100 Yen, plus tax, a laughably small amount of money that would blow 90% of the sushi here out the water. The premise of the restaurant is the same, although the layout isn’t maze-like as in Genki, but configured as rows of seats with parallel tracks running from the kitchen along each wall.

The menu is pretty similar and the food just as good.  One different item they did offer (alongside battered chicken gristle, which I declined) was cheeseburger sushi, an abomination of an idea that actually tasted pretty damn fabulous. They also had unagi (broiled eel with a sweet sauce) and toro (tuna belly) for 189 Yen a piece. At that price, how could I say no.

There was also minced tuna with green onions and salt; crab brain gunkan for the Ewing; Pacific sauray (an autumn specialty); scallop sashimi; a trio of tuna ranging from lean to fatty; and pepper salmon which was good but not quite up to the dizzy heights of the shrimp.

Our last visit to Genki saw me trying out some of the non-raw options with rolled chicken breast stuffed with perilla leaves and deep fried (crispy, sweet and sour) and huge chunks of tuna coated in a tempura batter (a delight, but in need of an extra bit of lubrication to help them down. Where’s the mayo when you need it?).

I also had my favourite dish from the first visit, sweet shrimp topped with burnt leeks and Kewpie, but this time with raw scallop and then, because it was so good, with boiled octopus too. The scallop version was possibly the single most delicious thing I put in my mouth on the whole trip; the combination of soft, sweet, bitter and crispy being unbeatable. The salmon with spicy red oil and shredded raw leeks was also rather good.

There’s also a dessert menu available, although I can only comment on the slices of fresh pineapple, which made a welcome relief after all the fat and salt and were mercifully cheap compared to most Japanese fruit we encountered. Luckily the Ewing was far more up to the job and managed during her two visits the sweet potato cheesecake, the chestnut sponge cake and the green tea pudding, pictured. On our visit to Ueobi a group of four young American backpackers put away 16 bowls of cake and ice cream between them, which I had a sneaking amount of admiration for.

Kyoto, lying inland, doesn't share the same nigiri history as Tokyo. What it does, however specialize in, is sabazushi. Saba (mackerel) was originally bought to Kyoto over the so-called Saba Kaido, the "Mackerel Highway" between Kyoto and the fishing port of Obama in Fukui. To preserve them, the fillets of mackerel are lightly salted, then vinegared, before being pressed with sushi rice in a wooden mould before traditionally being wrapped in kelp.

To try the zabazushi we went for an early dinner at Izuju, which is handily located opposite the Yasaka Shrine. Inside is pretty tiny - the sushi being made at the front, leading through to five tables in the middle and a small kitchen out the back - but the traditional decor (the restaurant is nearly 100 tears old), with its curved wooden walls and sliding doors, is well worth checking out.

As well as the saba zushi they also offer inari pockets; deep fried tofu skin (another Kyoto specialty) stuffed with sushi rice and simmered vegetables. We chose a set which included the mackerel and tofu alongside hako (literally box) sushi which, quelle surprise, is pressed in box shaped moulds, and maki (roll) sushi.

Shortly after our beautiful platter of sushi was delivered to our table the chef quickly raced after the waitress jabbing his finger at something on the menu and gesticulating at us. While I politely nodded while carrying on attempting to eat my food  the Ewing  was more astute, noticing the warning 'please remove kelp before eating' and saving me the ignominy of battling my way through the tough and stringy band of seaweed that was wrapped around the mackerel.

The fish was god (nb, on retrospect I don't think it quite reached those lauded heights), although they recommend it without soy and overall I found it a little lacking next to my favourite nigiri sushi. The maki was beautiful, stuffed with strange shaped mushrooms and rolled omelette, something which also turned up in the hako. Other options for the box sushi include prawns and pike eel, that look like beautiful mosaics.

My favourite, surprisingly, was the inari pockets which featured a sweet tofu layer stuffed with a lemony rice and some strange little seeds that looked a little like cumin, but had a far more subtle, nutty flavour.

As well as a beautiful dinner we also got this beautiful view of the Yasaka Shrine, under a harvest moon, as we left the restaurant. This was followed by a nightime DIY tour of the back streets of the Kyoto, ably guided by the Ewing, that included the Gion district and the Potochino. A fglorious and beguiling city that deserves to be on any traveller's must see list.

Being the world’s biggest fish eaters, some 80kg each per year, and with only twenty four hours in the day to fit it all in, you know fish is going to feature in some way at the breakfast table. Alongside miso soup, traditionally with a bonito based stock, and the ever present rice there is often a pick‘n’mix of rolled omelette, pickles, natto (fermented soya beans) and salted fish.

I had seen a poster in the window of Matsuya, a famous Japanese chain of restaurants, while we were walking around Kyoto, but somehow the feat of making it back there before 11 am seemed beyond us. Thankfully I found a branch near the post office in Shinjuku, a five minute walk from our hotel, and we made it there for 10.50 on our penultimate morning.

Like many casual places the vending machine is king and all meals are ordered and paid for before you are seated. Helpful pictures helped us locate the breakfast set meals and we both chose the salmon collar- beef gyudon and fried sausage and eggs are also available – for 450 Yen (£2.50).

After sitting down at the horseshoe shaped counter and handing tickets over top the waitress several more baffling choices of additional extras quickly followed, although the laminated picture cards helped a little, and five minutes later our meals were in front of us.

If you haven’t yet had your eyes opened to the delights of slated salmon in the morning, I can highly recommend it, what I would struggle to recommend however was the hulking great block of tofu, supplemented with yet more fish in the form of bonito flakes, that came as my chosen side dish. No one deserves to eat that much tofu, especially before midday.

My pale and wobbling block of coagulated soya was nothing compared to the Ewing’s choice of grated yam, which turned up looking a little like American style grits but with the texture of ectoplasm. The other options included natto, a fermented soya bean that’s equally slimy and also smells like an unwashed gym kit. An eastern Marmite, perhaps?

Trying to watch the Ewing battle with the yam and a pair of chopsticks (alongside her stringently tasting every one of the five mystery condiments on the bench) was probably the highlight of my meal. I would also like to thank her for not only eating all the yam but also 93% of my tofu.

We also had time for a late night fishy interlude at another popular chain restaurant, Yoshino. Yoshino are most well known for their beef gyudon, a sort of thinly sliced beef and onion mix that’s simmered in dashi stock and served on rice. Due to BSE found in US cattle at the beginning of the century Yoshina stopped their beef imports and so couldn’t find enough short plate (the cut needed) to make their gyudon bowls for the first time since the first restaurant opened in 1899.

Despite the introduction of pork bowls (butadon) instead, the public’s love didn’t waiver. As the years went by beef bowls were reintroduced for special occasion, such as 2006’s one day the ‘beef bowl revival festival’ and occasionally during limited serving times, but it wasn’t until 2008 that the guydon was permanently back on the menu around the clock (most restaurants are open 24 hours).

Back to the fish and the Ewing went for their unagi bowl, served with pickles and miso soup. At 700 yen (£4.20) for one eel fillet on rice and sides, this represented an extravagant blow out (multiple eel fillets are also available but we were running out of the cold hard cash, at least  until we could find an international ATM, and so showed some restraint) but was worth every penny.

I had to try the mythical gyudon, served in a set with a side of corn salad and sesame dressing for a frankly laughable 350 Yen (2.20). Many around me were eating theirs with a raw egg stirred in, but I just went for lashing of beni shōga (pink pickled ginger) and a dash of soy. Despite its rather average appearance I suddenly understood the appeal of queuing up for this stuff during the dark days of the beef shortage, it truly was supreme and one of the few dishes from the trip I really long for since being back home. Forget another ramen restaurant, the Big smoke needs beef bowls!

A blog about fish (and, it seems, gyudon) wouldn't be complete without the jewel in Japan’s crown, Tsujiki fish market. This place is legendary, and for a reason. Every year it handles over 600,000 tonnes of seafood or 1 in every 5 fish caught. While you can find over 480 types of fish, tuna is king with the most expensive specimen selling for over a million US dollars.

Access to the tuna auctions has been restricted to tourists since a charmingly inebriated Brit licked the head of a frozen tuna and another tourist turned up naked in a wooden handcart used for making deliveries, but that doesn't stop hundreds of people queuing up from three o'clock every morning for a chance to pick up one of the 120 fluorescent tabards that allow you to see some action live for yourself.

Sadly we weren't one of the lucky few - to be fair we were still deep in a slumber as the hypnotic bell ringing and frantic nodding and shouting began, and didn't arrive until a far more civilised hour. If you want to see a slice of the fascinating action in full flow and cant get to the Chuo District anytime soon try YouTube, where you can also see the sheer size of some of the magnificent fish that are up for grabs.

Although we missed the main action the market was still a swarming mass of activity come mid-morning. While many of the fish had been bought and sold we still saw endless barrels of eels, buckets of fish heads and piles of crushed ice topped with everything from the finest fillets to brains and fins. Electric band saws hummed as they made light work of huge hunks of frozen tuna but, even at that time of the day, watch out for the fleet of motorised vehicles that whizz up and down through the impossibly narrow walkways at a demon speed. This is the most cutthroat I saw the placid Japanese throughout my visit; these guys won't stop for anyone.

Following on in the Japanese tradition, and despite all the blood and guts, everything remained relatively spotless. Oddly the market itself didn't smell at all fishy, with the strongest piscine whiff coming when we got off the metro and were walking through the underground station. With most the catch being sold we had the opportunity to see the grand cleaning down process - wear old clothes if your worried about being hosed down as you wonder through - which is far more fascinating than you may think, alongside some wonderful displays of knife sharpening. 

After the buzz of the market we moved to the out warren of streets, which by this point on a Saturday afternoon were postively thronging with people.Top sushi joints around the market, and there are a few, include Daiwa Sushi and Sushidai which, with only one small counter in each, often have crouds of three otr four hours plus. While I don't mind a wait for my lunch, breakfast seemed like a long way away so we picked the slightly less daunting queue outside Sushi Zanmai's flagship branch. A quick wait and we were soon seated at their upstairs counter for lunch.

As time goes on I realise more and more that, despite all the endless varieties of fish and seafood in the sea, my heart really belongs to tuna. I'm far from a fussy eater, and enjoy most types of sushi, but there are always a few that come and crash the party. Crunchy fish roe leaves me cold, sea urchin makes me shudder, surf clams are often like chewing gum and raw oysters, what ever anyone says about 'growing to like them', are awful.

The Ewing indulged her love for the weird and wonderful by choosing their second set, a mixture of assorted fish and crustaceans. Alongside a huge strip of unagi and a ginat prawn, complete with eyes on stalks, there was tuna, squid wrapped in perilla, sea urchin, crab with a topping of crab brains, salmon roe, chines chives and tamago.

While my wife went with her crazy underwater pick'n'mix ere I was free indulge my love of maguro with the special tuna set; maki rolls, blow torched tuna, freshly minced tuna gunkan and a selection of akami, chutoro and otoro, of which my favourite was probably the middle. Not too fatty, not too lean, just right. 

In fact it was all perfect; nothing squidgy, crunchy, slimy or bitter; nothing that popped unexpectedly as you bit in to it, and nothing that wriggled or writhed. It just like my own imagining of my favourite scene in Home Alone (that's fast becoming a theme on the blog) where Kevin orders the cheese and tomato pizza. The king of the sea, all for me, and my perfect plate of (mostly) raw fish.

Using My Noodle, Japanese Style

Any trip to Japan wouldn’t be complete without an obligatory boiled bone and carb-fest, and with over 4,000 ramen shops in Tokyo alone I knew we wouldn't be short of choice. Add in udon, soba and even instant (on average a Japanese person will eat 40 packs a year), and the Ewing and I were facing a fortnight of serious slurping. 

The best noodles of the trip, ergo possibly ever, were the first bowl we ate - discounting the, very good, green tea soba offered up by Lufthansa on the flight over - at Shinjuku noodle bar Fuunji. It was perfect noodle eating situation; we had woken up (very) hung-over from excessive sweet potato soychu drinking the night before and the howling wind and pounding rain from the tail of typhoon Phanfone looked set to continue for another day.

Luckily my obsessive researching on Google maps had paid off and after a quick mid-morning powernap we grabbed our brollies and braved the inclement conditions to find some of the best Tsukamen noodles in town.

Fuunji, like many of the restaurants in Tokyo, has a vending machine ordering system; great to avoid those awkward ordering conversations, less great when all the buttons are in Japanese. Again, thanks to Google, I knew which one to press (the top right for the tsukamen with all the toppings) although somehow breaking the machine when trying to order wasn’t part of the plan.

Thankfully the staff were far too polite to dwell on this, so while one chef took our order verbally while another stripped reams of stuck paper from the bowels of the machine accompanied by the soundtrack of a beeping warning alarm, all while smiling beatifically at us.

Any awkwardness was soon forgotten (or at least replaced with a new sort of awkward as we tried to convey the strands of starch to our mouths) when the food arrived. This truly was noodle nirvana, a sort of other-worldly pinnacle for which I feel fairly confident now other noodles can never reach.

Tsukamen means dipping noodle, and the noodles at Fuunji are served cold to accompany a bowl of the most unctuous nectar that has passed my lips. Made from long boiling of chicken and fish the resultant broth is rich and creamy and mined with pieces of wobbly pork belly and a perfectly boiled egg - the exterior darkened by its soy marinade and an interior of gooey burnished gold.

In order to make sure not a drop is wasted, jugs of dashi stock are available on the counter, along with iced water, to lengthen the precious liquid so it can be drunk as soup. And that’s it; no salads or sides or fancy cocktails, no desert trolley or cheese and port. Just the finest experience I have had since the joy of coming home from school as a child and finding my mum had bought me and my sister a much lusted after chicken and mushroom Pot Noodle each (of course, that’s before I tasted it...).

Ramen is not something to be lingered over and despite being the first in the counter quickly filled and emptied next to us as a stream of salary men (and women) sat, slurped and said sayonara as we struggled to scarf down our scran as quickly as the locals while attempting not to wear most of it in the process.

Finally, the Ewing speared her final piece of slippery nitro egg and we rose, dazed by the glories of so much chicken fat so early in the day, made our goodbyes and squeezed our way past to the umbrella stand to prepare for the onslaught outside. But on opening the noren curtain we discovered that, rather like ourselves, things had changed for the better and there were finally blue skies overhead. The magical powers a bowl of soup possesses.

If you’re stuck in a railway station back in dear old Blighty, the best you can hope for is a curling M&S sarnie and a scalding cup of scummy dishwater chain store coffee. Thankfully before rail travel in Japan there is a variety of far more tempting sustenance, and Kyoto and Tokyo stations even have their very own Ramen Koji, or ramen ‘streets’.

These ramen streets are great for tourists and locals alike, as they showcase seven (Kyoto) and eight (Tokyo) regional noodle styles all in on handy location. As with most things in Japan, the real trouble is finding them, with the Kyoto Ramen Street most easily accessed through the small lift on the left hand side of the 2nd floor of the Isetan department store that’s attached to the station. After squashing in with an assortment of other noodle lovers ride up to the 10 floor, where you’ll find a sign - unhelpfully all in Japanese, helpfully with pictures - detailing the different types of ramen on offer.

On our first visit we were tempted by the sign advertising Masutani ‘A Kyoto favourite since 1948’. As with most noodle shops, payment is by the vending machines outside the shop; we both chose the most expensive ramen, at a whole 1,000 Yen a bowl (£6) and threw caution to the wind with a frosty Ashahi each, 500 Yen, and a dish of pickled radish to nibble on to start at 100 Yen.

After collecting our tickets the waitress showed us to seats on the counter where we could, just about, see the chefs labouring under a fug of steamy pots of boiling pigskin and pasta. Moments later and our bowls were in front of us.

Much is made of the rapidity of which the Japanese eat their noodles. It is claimed that the optimum amount of time to eat a bowl of ramen, to stop the noodles growing fat and claggy in the soup, is seven minutes. Couple this with the fact that most ramen are served at boiling temperature and you can see why slurping is not just encouraged, but essential.

The true Japanese slurp is not executed through poor technique, bad etiquette or even to show appreciation to the chef; instead the clump of piping hot noodles are lifted from the broth by chopsticks and then drawn into the mouth on a noisy raft of cooling air. Done properly the slurp magically cools the cargo from incendiary to just Very Very Hot. It’s also great fun to join in with the chorus of greedy sucking noises that make every noodle joint sound like a chorus bullfrogs has descended each dinnertime.

These ramen, described on the website as, ‘a bit strong-tasting soy sauce and high-quality back fat blended into the simple soup based on carcass… with rather thin straight noodle,’ were no exception with the murky layer of porky oil serving to keep even more of the heat in. 

Despite not being much of a looker, the taste was rather good. The broth was unctuous and fatty without being cloying and the soy added seasoning and a little sweetness. Juicy slices of chashu and shredded nagi were present and correct and The Ewing also appreciated not one but two gooey-yolked eggs as I covertly shifted my nitamago to her bowl.

We like it so much we decided to go back for a quick dinner before catching the train back to Tokyo. This time we chose Kitataka Bannai, which are famed for their Kitakata-style noodles.

Kitatkata, as all good ramen fiend will know, is a town in northern Honshu known for its love of dough strands submerged in broth. 

With an estimated population of 49,857 there are over 120 ramen shops in the city, or one shop for every 416 people. Ramen has such prominence in the region that locally, the word soba usually refers to ramen, and not to actual soba which is referred to as nihon soba (‘Japanese soba’), (thanks Wikipedia), and the locals love it so much that many eat Asa-Rah (morning ramen) for breakfast.

Kitakata ramen features thick, flat and curly noodles served in pork and niboshi (sardine) based, shoyu (soy) flavoured soup. Bannai Shokudo ramen is described on the website as 'a fantastic marriage of Soy sauce and salt based soup, in which umami of just pork bone was plainly and simply extracted, and rather thick hand-rubbing firm noodle!' Who could fail to be excited.

The home-made roast pork, toro uma char siu, is prepared in the restaurant every day, and comprises the only topping on their number one chashu pork ramen. Normally thick, sweet fatty slices of pig would also top my number one ramen, but, after a day at Nishiki food market I scaled back a bit with the Kitakata ramen, which also features shredded Japanese leek alongside the slabs of meat.

As you can see from the picture, this was a far lighter soup than the one we had tackled the previous night. Usually I would favour the thick, funky pig-enriched broth, but this slightly sweet, salty soy-based number was delicate while still being imbibed with a deep fishy, porky flavour. Even better the small portion, pictured, came in at 6oo Yen (£3.60) which left plenty of money for train beers on the Shinkansen back to Tokyo.

We enjoyed ramen alley in kyoto so much that we decided to hit the original, in Toyo station, when we go back (actually this may be a small fib; I wanted to go there to buy oddly flavoured and impossible difficult to find Japanese Kit Kats, and the shop that sold them was directly opposite Raman Alley…).

The most famous, and popular, of the eight Tokyo offering is Rokurinsha, known for their tsukamen. After the offerings at Fuunji, I didn’t want to besmirch my magnificent memories of dipping noodles so we went in search of something a little different.

Which is how we ended up at Tonari, whose specialty is steaming bowls of tantanmen, or Chinese style ramen. Thoughtfully they provide paper aprons, which were also offered to the couple that were sat next to us, although I’m not sure if this was to protect their spotless white shirts before returning to work or make the Gajin next them feel slightly less socially awkward.

We both chose a set, my was the super-duper Toyo station special of tantanmen with a whole nitrotamago and a juicy slice of pork belly accompanied by a fearsome (not that fearsome, but hot for Japanese standards) dish of spicy chilli oil and a side of kara age which, rather remiss of me, was the first of the whole trip.

Here's the Tonari style tanmen, described on their sign as 'salty pork bone soup and voluminous wide noodles topped with eight types of sauteed vegetables - including Japanese mustard spinach, bean sprouts, Chinese cabbage and garlic chives - boiled fish cake, squid tentacles and pork.' 

This was about as healthy as ramen gets – if we ignore the (probably) astronomical sodium levels, pig-infused broth and great curl of cured meat on top – with the thicket of veg and chewy curly noodles going down very well, and very noisily, on what was turning into a rather dull and dreary autumn afternoon.

The karaage was everything I hoped, with its blistered and gossamer thin carapace giving way to hot, juicy, slightly greasy chook that went very well with an extra slick of the chili oil and a large bottle (three quid) of ice cold Asahi.

The Ewing picking the rather restrained regular bowl, which came with the same thatch of toppings, less the bacon and egg (of which I was happy to share the latter.) Her set was accompanied by some very good, perfectly squirty within, pork and veg gyoza.

A very nice pit stop, and certainly worth a punt if you are wanting to top up your 5 a day, or ever tire of the richer, saltier Tokyo Shoyu or creamy tonkotsu style broths (yes, I know, unlikely…).

Of all the (Eastern-style) noodles, udon may just be my favourite. Big, fat, wiggly strands of wheat, they are the noodles that put London’s Koya on the map, as well as being great when stir fried (especially with lots of pork and shredded ginger).

A tip provided by this great Serious Eats article (they also mention Fuunji) was Shinjuku’s Mentsu Dan, an informal canteen style noodle and tempura restaurant tucked away in the streets north of the JR station, which is where we found ourselves after a busy day shrine-hopping.

The noodles are handmade daily and the various preparations - hot hold, dipping, soup etc. – are posted on pictures (helpfully colour co-ordinated red and blue) on the window outside. Not much trusting our Japanese skills we took a couple of pictures to show the chef, but were thankfully saved when a rather lovely young lady stepped in to help us.

I chose the 'bukake' (or splashed) noodles. Yes, to those with a knowledge of 'adult' films this may sound slightly alarming, as a friend on twitter pointed out, but on trying a mouthful of these its hard to not be moan like a leading lady (don't worry, I restrained myself).

Apart from the superlative noodles I also loved the slender purple, pickled aubergines and the crunchy carrot and radish with sesame. The tempura were a little less successful, mainly owing to the fact that anything that's been immersed in the fryer needs to be eaten pronto lest it turns into a greasy sponge; a fate which sadly befell the green spiky thing (cabbage?) that looked so beguiling, but shattered into oily shards on eating.

That said, the potato croquette was good, as was the slice of kabutcha squash and the butterflied sardine the Ewing picked seemed to disappear pretty quickly. The Ewing's noodle choice, the classic cold udon served with a dipping sauce, was also spot on, if pretty tricky to eat, but that paled into insignificance when compared to the egg custard she had picked up from the cabinet for desert that was later attacked with nothing but chopsticks....

A special mention to our savaviour at the noodle ordering counter; not only did she explain our choices to us – both cold preparations, to highlight the bite noodles – she also went to get us drinks of iced water after we had sat down and even offered to take a picture for us before she and her friend left (despite arriving as we did, they had eaten their meal and had a chat and a post-noodle cigarette while, needless to say, our food was still barely touched, with more of it on the floor and the table than in us).

Our last night in Japan started like the beginning of our trip, with a deadly typhoon. Being Brits, and made of sterner stuff than letting a little category four cyclone dampen our spirits, we went for a rather wet and windy walk around Shinjuku before ending up - cold, tired and bedraggled - at the handmade soba restaurant in the mini shopping complex in the basement of our hotel. 

Our last Japanese meal mirrored our two first as the Ewing chose soba noodles and I had a bowl of comforting kare raisu, with carrots, pork and sweet potatoes, for a frankly unbeatable 280 Yen (£1.60). We also pushed the boat out with two giant tempura prawns, almost a bank-breaker at a whole 120 Yen (72p) each, and gloriously hot and crisp from the fryer.

The soba were equally good, made on the premises and accompanied by a distinctly autumnal melange of aubergine and squash in a thin dashi and mirin based broth. Soba are a noodle I sometimes struggle to like, seeming so, well, parsimonious next to their bigger, louder cousins, but these were restrained and nutty with a lovely, delicate bite.

As if there was any doubt that these were enjoyed I’ll leave you with this picture of the Ewing, eyes firmly down and, despite more than passable chopstick skills, more soba on the table than on the zaru tray. Proving that after two magical, intoxicating, challenging, exhilarating weeks, you can never tire of the novelty of noodles.