I spent the day trolling around Nakameguro and Daikanyama with my Canon and Nikon hanging from my neck. I walked along the meguro river in Nakameguro into Aobadai where I had a delicious lunch set at Aoya.
Aoya is located in a sweet Showa era house tucked away from the street with a lovely narrow garden path to it's wooden sliding door. The only way you know it's there is by a tiny lantern at the entrance. I was really fortunate that the young man who seated me spoke English so he explained the three options on the lunch set after showing me to the counter where I took a seat and I could watch them prepare the meal. The restaurant prepares Kyoto based food, and my choices where a one-plate Kaseki style dish with lots of veggies and a fish, a curry bowl, or a Korean inspired tofu spicy stew. I went with the Korean tofu stew and it was delicious. All the meals come with side dishes, mine had a bowl of 5 grain rice and a salad.
After my meal I headed out and walked some more around Nakameguro, I went to stop in at Nill style/Bonill cafe which is on the corner from Aoya but they were closed, it's one of my favorite stores/cafe.
Then I trekked up a very steep hill into Daikanyama where I saw the Egyptian embassy which is a very strange sight in the middle of Tokyo with all it's gold and Egyptian sphinxes and such. I walked a little fer onto the side streets filled with tiny stores and I went shopping for socks at Kutsushitaya where they carry all the Tabio socks which are made in Japan. I scored, they had 60% off all the winter socks! Then I went into CA4LA (pronounced Kashira), a hats-only store hoping to replace some of my older winter knit hats from here, but alas they were onto spring.
Next stop, Chez Luis, a patisserie, where I had me a sit-down with a cup of tea and a yummy custard filled pastry.
Time to head back to the apartment to relax for a bit before heading out for the evening. On the way back I stopped at the cutest looking take-out window from the restaurant Mahakala which seems to serve squid and chicken dishes including okonomiyaki and chicken sashimi, but the take-out window has a refrigerator filled with yummy puddings and custards in adorable containers. I picked up a matcha flavored pudding for after dinner.
Went home relaxed, then got ready to head over to the Taproom, a beerhall with twenty-something beers on tap, including a really good imperial stout which is what I had, I paired that with a nakameguro burger which was very seasoned and had onion rings inside. They definitely need to learn to make their fries better, they were steak-cut potatoes that were limp and wet with grease, yuck, left those alone. I sketched while I was there, not many people to sketch since it was early only 7pm, but there were interesting faces around including a lot of gaijin (foreigners). Around 8pm I strolled back to my place had my pudding and got to bed by 10pm, I know lame but I'm still jet-lagged.
AOYA 1-15-10 Aobadai, Nakameguro, Tokyo
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