Akihabara

Last week my housemate came to Tokyo to visit.  He'd been to Tokyo once before, but only for a couple of days.  I can't imagine why, but somehow we ended up in Akihabara.  It puzzles me.  I mean, it's not like we're from a super techie electronics centered area that's known for geekyness or anything. 

At any rate, we met and scouted the area for food and a particular furniture and design store called Yamigawa Livina (<- not a typo).  We found the store first and settled on a curry place for lunch.  We ordered our curries from the ticket machine and a couple of patrons were nice enough to change seats so we could have seats next to each other.  After lunch we doubled back to the store and visited many floors of really interesting and sometimes even comfortable furniture (excuse me "high profile lifestyle products").  Then of course we set off looking for electronics and games, discovering a healthy smattering of manga and adult entertainment along the way.

To top it off?  A kushiage restaurant we discovered while looking for yakitori.  Kushiage is similar to yakitori in that it is food on small sticks.  However kushiage is not grilled but deep fried.  We were seated at the bar by the host, who without saying a word to us, proceeded to tell the chefs that we would need somebody who spoke English (our gaijin appearance also meant we didn't get heads on our shrimp as the Japanese patrons did).  A tray was set before each of us and before we could even wonder where the menus were, food was placed on the tray.  One stick at a time was placed on our trays and we were told what it was and which of four sauces to use.  Each piece was different, and each was fantastic.  

We were so distracted by the food that we didn't question how the chef knew what to give us or when to stop until about 20 pieces in when we starting to get pretty full.  We speculated about it for another five glorious sticks before deciding that he was just going to feed us until we burst.  When we asked him to stop the chef joked that we were only half way through the entire list of possibilities (there were 40) and gave us a hard time for giving up so soon.  I later asked what was normal at a place like that.  The answer?  14 or 15 sticks.

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