The surface scratching for today was supposed to be this little bistro that I walked past last week, down in Kyobashi (on one of those “go somewhere that the map doesn’t yet include” days). Well, contrary to the business card, they’re closed. More cruising around ensued, during which time I got fixated on pasta, and Gustavino happened. Just a pleasant little Italian place on the south side of Yaesu – and it happens to have good scores on Tabelog, which I think showed in the cooking.

Things were surprisingly busy inside, considering it was already after 1, with a lot of people rotating through the counter. With all the offices in the area, they must get busy at night. That ham-clamp on the counter is a bit too new and unused-looking. They’ve gotta get a pig leg in and get the grease flowing.

Lunch menus are limited to 3 pastas and one soup (minestrone, actually, which reminds me of this time I was at l’Unico in Balmain (part of Sydney’s tough inner-west) and saw an old Australian guy trying to get a young Chinese girl to go to bed with him on vague promises that he’d help her get a visa. He was sitting way too close to her, on the same side of a 4-person table. That was creepy in itself, but he was also ordering for her. For some reason I’ve never forgotten how he disregarded the menu and asked the waiter “Do you have a minestrone soup?” Maybe the creepiness and redundancy fixed it in my mind. And in case you’re wondering, I only said that Balmain is ‘part of Sydney’s tough inner-west’ because I was thinking of a capsule biography I read one time in a travel article where the writer mentioned that the subject had grown up in the ‘tough housing projects on Tokyo’s east side’. A good example of the power of cliche to bite one in the ass; the toughest thing about those ‘projects’ is that they’re a little far from the station.). By the way, small salad. And mediocre house-made bread. On a board.

I ordered the octopus ragu just to show the skeptical waiter that I could read the menu. No, I lie, I wanted to eat octopus in cream sauce. This was very tasty, although I think I might just have been in the mood for cream sauce on penne without realizing it. You can see that the octopus is largely ‘butsu’, i.e., ‘funny bits’ like diced-up suckers. This gives it texture, but I think also lets them save the meatier part for dinner. Spinach completes the scene.

What’s happening in Shinbashi around quitting time? I mean this semi-rhetorically, because if you have to ask, you don’t know. But the big plaza with the steam engine outside the ‘Crow Forest’ entrance on the west side of the station is quite the scene in the early evening. Part of why it’s so startling is that it’s big, open and chaotic. In contrast to the ‘scramble’ intersections like Hachiko in Shibuya, people aren’t really walking in particular paths. In a sense, I’m also startled that it was so startling – am I too used to rules and order?

A short, confusing walk gets you to the small alleys in the southwest quadrant of the neighborhood, where real fortitude (or a recommendation from Et-chan) is required to pull open most of the doors, including Ishii’s. It’s not as intimidating as going up the stairs and picking the right tiny door that corresponds to the Fish Research Center sign though; Mr. Ishii has nice frontage and a quality sign, and that kinda lets you know it’s going to be a friendly place, even as it tips you off that it may not be cheap. In case you’re wondering, it’s the lit sign high up on the wall on the left side. Not the brighter one underneath.

Inside you’ll find some welcoming signs, like lots of wood, lots of bottles, a packed fridge, and a master eager to practice his English (so you could go here with no Japanese skill, but you’d be very reliant on him). You’d also find something I love to see in izakayas, a big screen TV. In this case, it was playing a loop of photos that the master had taken on visits to sake breweries. Changing every 2 seconds or so, the loop was probably 2 hours long, give or take – we saw it start to repeat, but it took a looooong time. This is a guy who loves his sake. 

This is a guy who loves his sake. Did I already say that? There were a bunch of brands on here that I had never heard of, and I think any sake lover must love that. 

While we started with these individual 120-ml glasses of different varieties, I quickly convinced Woodsworth that we should be drinking out of the 180ml ‘pitchers’, for which you get to choose your own little cup and then share the taste. The bottle pictured here was Asamayama sparkling nigori; after the elaborate opening ceremony featuring a needle to let out the excess pressure in a controlled way, we were pressured into drinking some. Just one glass though.

Since I complained about the pricing at Nekoya earlier this month, I should mention that the prices on this sake and food are in line with the pricing there. But the food is a bit more elaborate, there’s a greatly-reduced reliance on cats as a decorative motif, and the master is a good deal less cute. On balance, the comparison is balanced. Why not try both places and see for yourself? Why not invite me? Actually don’t. I’ve had enough sake for this month.

Food-wise, the highlights were really the fish and the smoked items. Here’s the fish, which deserves its own picture due to the elaborate serving platters (seemingly hewn from living rock.) Do be careful -these are not cheap either, but they sure were good.

And finally we have the obligatory ‘everything else we ate’ shot (time goes quick, so this is over 4 hours).  Clockwise: dried, toasted skate wing; very good satsuma-age, not sure what was in it but it was steps above the usual; smoked egg, terrific! as long as you like smoked and egg; boiled fish, a disappointment because it was done in a sort of dry style and was less sweet, fatty and falling-apart than I like my nitsuke; smoked scallop, kinda beastly looking and too dried out from smoking (but cf earlier comment about smoke); yuba sashimi; salmon toba, very fatty and very grilled, quite crisp.

CNN would have you believe Ippou is a ‘sushi and sake’ specialist, which is just not correct. Did I miss the ‘sushi’ section of the very normal izakaya menu? At least the ‘sake’ part is correct, with a big list and a lot of interesting items thrown in. Many more of them would have been unknown to me, had they not also featured on the menu the night before; these places seem to share the same sake sensibility (and pricing, which is much less justified for Ippou).

Let the record show that they were, unsurprisingly, out of the Juyondai jungin that featured on the menu, and boo on that. But yay for featuring one of my favorites, Amabuki, also in a jungin mode, and for leaving the bottle with me to finish since there was only half a glass left. Pouring yourself a glass out of an isshobin is always fun, especially when the other staff members, not privy to the deal, look at you like ‘errrrrrr?’

In keeping with the atmoshpere, the fish was a bit rough and ready (seriously. We can go back to the Shinbashi place any time you want.) The standout was the lightly-grilled…hmmm, I’ve forgotten if it was flying fish or scabbard fish. Probably the latter. Either way, the searing makes it taste more complex, and it was chewy in a good way.

Typically I’m not one to order boiled flounder (or fluke, whatever) – the skin is disturbing to me. This was pretty good, and you can’t go wrong with copious ginger.

Aaaaand, you know it’s becoming autumn because sanma is all over menus as of about 2 weeks ago. It seems extra good this year, or maybe I just forgot what it was like. That’s what seasonal eating is all about – when you don’t eat something for 9 months, it’s exciting to get back to it (I know, you can get sanma in the supermarket any day of the year, but restrain yourself, OK?). One tip – eat carefully. These guys aren’t gutted before cooking, and if you dig into the brown stuff through an inadvertent chopstick thrust, I think you’ll regret it. Otherwise, you should be happy.

Satsuma age is a specialty here too – described on the menu as ‘fluffy’, it lived up to that billing and more. Always nice to see a place describe something as their specialty and then find it to be worthy of the praise. Much like the fish – looking back, they did have a nice selection and decent cooking.

There you go. If I lived on the west side, and especially if I was lucky enough to live in Ebisu, I could see this becoming a regular stop. It’s the kind of place where patience would be rewarded with occasional brilliance.