Fun Time Friday Tokyo

Today's main agenda - a visit to Kappabashi-dori. This is the restaurant supply shopping district in Tokyo. Block after block of ceramic shops, cooking utensils, uniforms, furniture, knives and of course plastic food! I felt like a kid in a candy store...

We had lunch at an onomiyaki restaurant nearby. It had a great old and authentic atmosphere. The basic premise of the style of food they serve in this kind of restaurant is that you order a set of ingredients (for instance pork belly, cabbage, leeks, ginger) and they bring it to you in a bowl with some eggy batter in the bottom. You mix it all together and then griddle it right at your table. The pancakes get glazed with a thick sauce and then sprinkled with dry seaweed flakes. Delicious and fun!

On to our next meal....

We at a restaurant called Gonpachi. It was apparently Quentin Tarantino's inspiration for the restaurant scene in Kill Bill. It was definitely very fun and hip. The food was mostly grilled skewers - everything from stuffed shitakes to bacon wrapped tomatoes and duck with wasabi. We finished the meal off with these gorgeous grilled mackerel.

We had a super great time - 3 hours of eating, drinking and fun dining companions!

Next stop on our Friday night on the town - that's right, you guessed it - KARAOKE!!!

It was amazing! Turns out that Tom is a 'Gold Member' of the club in Shibuya that we went to (Shidax), so we got a room on the VIP level, and we didn't have to wait in the line...

Humm.....just where is Katie's other hand?

The experience was vastly different than the karaoke experience in the states...we had our own cushy room (with at least some sound proofing), there was a phone to order up round after round of drinks and a song book that was about 4 inches thick! We really rocked out, in fact they called several times to let us know that our time was up, but we kept asking to extend it!