A couple weekends ago, I was exploring the Asagaya area in search of a Nepali shop that a friend had told me about. (I was in search of chapati and spices.) Along that route, I noticed an old restaurant that served teishoku (Japanese set meals) for as little as 660 yen, so I decided to pop in on the way back home.
I’ve been to a few such teishoku places while in Tokyo, and I’ve never been disappointed. It was delicious, well-flavored food. And, it was just as though it has been home cooked. (In fact, in practicality, it was home cooked because it was clear that they lived in the apartment just above the restaurant.)
I ordered the ginger pork meal, and my friend got the mapo tofu meal. Perfection.
Both meals came with a fried egg, daikon pickles, and a little bit of fried spaghetti. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they used curry spice in their spagetti! Tasted like an Indian dish.
While we were eating, their grandchildren came running through the door, soon followed by their parents. It was nice to see such a family-oriented restaurant.
Places like this may be a little inaccessible to many foreigners, as everything is written in Japanese, and one might not even realize it’s a restaurant, in the first place. In old teishoku spots such as these, they don’t give you a menu, and the dishes are all written on little yellow pieces of paper pasted around the walls (like the one on the front door in the photo above). If you can read katakana, however, it’s not too hard to work out. If you can, I highly recommend it! It’s not about the food, but the whole experience!
Elle's Room 