When I went to Japan in 2007, I didn’t have a clue where and what I was eating. Basically what we did was just walk around, select one by our noses and then having no clue what so ever if the restaurant had some type of specialty or something. It will remain a challenge for me to actually know what I’m ordering (a) if the menu’s do not contain pictures, (b) are not available in English and (c) if the staff looks at me sheepishly when it comes to using English. Thanks god I’m not a picky eater. So, to prevent this and to get the maximum out of the experience of eating in Japan, a little research is required. I’ll end up with a list of about 30 restaurants, somewhat scheduled to my day plans where I actually know what I’m going to be eating!! Sometimes however, it is better not to know. LOL. It’s good to know that you’ll be going into a restaurant that serves Okinawan specialties, or Hokkaido specialties or whatever. You seriously can’t tell if you can’t read and/or know little about what dishes come from where.

I downloaded an enormous heap of VVV6 to kind of assist me on that, in a fun way. Any restaurant that has been on that show for the past year has a small chance I’m dropping by to have the same dishes as V6. I got all the restaurants I could decipher and find on maps in a separate document, and this I’m now starting to map to my “Guide to good noms in Japan“, I mean, The Tokyo Restaurant Guide for dummies gaijin! Thanks to that show I know a hell of a lot more about Japanese food.

XD! YamaGoldfish just wrote about nabe! I actually put one in the guide specifically. I know it’s more of a winter dish, but they’ll just have to serve me that one in spring.

I also seem to have found a crab restaurant. I believe they call it “ka~ni”. In dutch that sounds more like (kannie, or “can’t do”). I love crab <3.

In any case, that’ll be the last step in “what to see, do and eat”. A lot of hours went in there, hope they were worth it.

What is it?
Basically Shabu Shabu is boiling thin strips of meat or even fish in different kinds of broths.

On to: good places to eat Shabu Shabu by VVV6!

District: Ginza 銀座
Shop name: Matsusaka　松阪
Specialty: Yakiniku, Shabu Shabu
Address:
5-10-13 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 〒 104-0061 Building B1 Oriental rice mill
〒104-0061 東京都中央区銀座5-10-13 東洋精米機ビルB1
Shown on VVV6:
Sirloin, 4500 Yen. It’s visible on the bottom half of he menu.

District: Gotanda (Shinagawa) 五反田
Shop name: I hear “Hidekyuu”, couldn’t match the Kanji name with what I heard but I found the two Kanji anyways (kyuu shuu).　秀久
Specialty: Manzai no buta shabu
Address:
Nishi-Gotanda, Shinagawa-ku 〒 141-0031 Tokyo, 1-30-4 Re Building 1 2F
〒141-0031 東京都品川区西五反田1-30-4 Ｒｅビル1 2F
Shown on VVV6:
Manzai no buta shabu, 2700 yen. Click “Shabu set selected”.

District: Tsukiji　築地
Shop name: Kaihou-kan, ‘kan’ ~ sounded like kawa. Aka Tsukiji Kaiho-hall.　築地 海宝館
Specialty: Sushi
Address:
4-13-7 Tsukiji Chuo-ku, Tokyo 〒 104-0045
〒104-0045 東京都中央区築地4-13-7
Shown on VVV6:
Sushi assortment, 1680 yen.
Shabu Shabu Funamori, 2625 yen (tuna sashimi and broth, e.a.).

Ranking:

1. Matsusaka
2. Hidekyuu
3. Kaiho-kan

Toma’s guest @ VVV6 has also been added.

The theme was ‘omurice’.

I totally dig his haircut xD.

Download here
(to be added to the master post later)

*sniff* I miss it.

So Enjoy!

Megaupload download link [full episode].

Apparently the girl on the left was a fan. He gave her a gift. Panties. lol. “Say you got a matching one?”, she should have said that haha. You should see Junichi Okada when he gave it to her, he was so doing his best to cover up his face.

:smile:

Best face ever lol.