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I needed coffee and breakfast this morning, and there happens to be a branch of
Komeda's Coffee (コメダ珈琲店) not too far from our hotel, so we strolled over in the other direction towards Tokyo Dome so we could check out that neighborhood. I have, in fact, never been to Tokyo Dome myself or Korakuen (後楽園), so that was kinda new for me.
Handmade egg dog (手作りたまごドッグ) - seeing that I still haven't gotten myself an egg
sando after 5 days, I decided to order this up. Interesting to see that they've put ketchup on the bread. Loved it.
Once again I decided to have a cup of
Sophia, their single-origin coffee from Brazil.
We met up with Geruhage and Tomo-chan for lunch at
Ogawaya (大川や), a well-regarded place for soba in the Kagurazaka (神楽坂) neighborhood. We were there reasonably early so didn't have to wait too long for seats.
Tamagoyaki (玉子焼) - apparently this isn't always available, so we were pretty lucky.
This was pretty fluffy and delicious.
Conger eel tempura (穴子天ぷら) - this was the "topping" I chose to go with my soba. Not as good as the conger eel
tempura I had last night, of course, but still decent. Served with
tempura of
shishito pepper (獅子唐辛子), lotus root, and
shiitake.
Cold soba (せいろ) - served on a traditional woven mat used for steaming.
I do love dipping cold noodles into the special soba sauce (蕎麦つゆ).
Foursheets had a bowl of hot duck soba, with came with some mushrooms that looked like
daikoku shimeji (大黒しめじ). The duck was very tender and still pink in the middle. The broth came with the beautiful fragrance of yuzu.
It's customary to pour some soba soup into the cup with the leftover soba sauce and drink it together, but we took some of Foursheet's duck broth and added that in, too. The result was pretty nice.
Having satiated our hunger, we stopped by
Akha Ama Coffee for a cup so we could chat a little. I decided to get myself a glass of
Thai style iced coffee.
Foursheets wanted to pay a visit to
Gotokuji (豪徳寺), one of the temples where
maneki-neko (招き猫) was supposed to have originated. This takes us into the residential area of Tokyo, not too far from where I spent my adolescent years.
There's an area next to the
Maneki-neko Hall (招猫殿) where people can dedicate
maneki-neko statues to give thanks for having wishes granted.
It's interesting to walk through this area and see the thousands of cat figurines here, in varyng sizes. Interesting to note that these cat figurines are not holding the gold coins that are found on most
maneki-neko. This is because these cats do not help to beckon wealth, but rather good fortune. And if that good fortune happens to lead to wealth, then all the better.
Unfortunately for us, I didn't do any homework before coming today, so it was regrettable that we arrived some 15 minutes after the temple office selling the cat figurines had closed. Foursheets was unable to purchase a figurine from the temple...
The silver lining, though, was getting to see the beautiful
koyo (紅葉) on the temple grounds.
We had a relatively light lunch, and dinner tonight would be late, so I stopped by the
Denny's across from Gotokuji Station for a quick bite. I haven't had a parfait in Japan for a long time, so this
chestnut mini parfait (栗のちょこっとパルフェ) seemed perfect for the moment.
A final stop before getting back to our hotel was a whirlwind tour of
Shimokitazawa (下北沢), a neighborhood I'd long heard about but seem to have no memory of visiting, other than perhaps a dinner with a friend decades ago. It seemed interesting, but wind was picking up by now and we didn't feel like hanging around outdoors. So off to the hotel we go...
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