Fuzankan

Rating: Not great
Meal: Dinner
Price: 2500 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes: Kimchi, some small vegetable dishes, small rice, some beef, sake
English Menu: No
Smoking: Yes

Fuzankan is a small, very local yakiniku restaurant near the Kenritsudaigaku station.  When I arrived, I was alone and I asked for whatever the proprietor (an older woman) wanted to serve me.  She gave me some tasty kimchi and side vegetable dishes and a small rice, and eventually some beef to cook up.  I was going to stick around and eat more, but a large family arrived and began ordering so much that the proprietor was running around quite a bit, so I wrapped things up early.

kimchi

I will probably steer clear of this spot in the future.

Misc veg

Raw meat

Cooked meat

Nanbanchaya

Southern Barbarian Tea Shop ->

Rating: OK
Meal: Lunch
Price: 970 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes:  Dry curry rice set, hand poured coffee
English Menu: Only Drinks
Smoking: Yes

Nanbanchaya is a cafe located in the Mikasa Shopping Mall, a small alley like covered area on Blue Street.  I've walked past it a million times, each time noting the little sign indicating a few food items, but honestly I just haven't cared enough to bother as I had a pretty good idea what I was in for.  I figured it was one of these small little cafes with sandwiches and omurice and not much else to recommend it.  I was pleasantly surprised when I made the trip up the tiny stairs to find a fairly large L-shaped space, filled to the brim with an odd collection of JSDF/Anime girl mashup swag, and a kind of swanky vibe characteristic of an old kissaten (old school cafe).  It was also pretty full and I snagged one of the few remaining tables.

Dry Curry rice set

The food options weren't much better than I thought, with typical rice dishes (no omurice though!), sandwiches and spaghetti on the menu.  She offered me an English menu, but it was only drinks, and I was able to read the mostly katakana food menu just fine.  Since it was a cafe after all, I ordered a hand poured coffee as well, though I usually don't drink coffee so late in the day.  Eventually I decided to order the dry curry rice set, which came with a sunny-side up egg (new Japanese vocab for the day:  medamayaki or 目玉焼き - the kanji mean eye/egg/cooked - cute!), something I always love on my rice.

Unfortunately, my main complaint with this place is the time it takes to get your food.  I understand it's pretty much run be one lady, but expectations in Japan are pretty high for speed of service and I must have waited about 30 minutes.  No worries, I had stuff to keep me occupied, but it's good to know going in that this is a slow going place.  I should have taken a cue from the person next to me who was reading the paper with no food for about 15 minutes after I got there.

Well it was nicer than I thought it would be, and is probably the closest old school kissaten to us.  However Tsuki Cafe is closer, funkier, and the food is superior, so we'll probably stick with that one in the future.

Tamagawa

Rating: Very good
Meal: Dinner
Price: 3200 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes: Cold soba with tempura, maguro sushi, hot sake
English Menu: No
Smoking:  Not sure...I didn't see any ashtrays, but smelled smoke at one point...

Another Kenritsudaigaku station area review, Tamagawa is probably the nicest looking restaurant in the area.  It's very Japanese, serving soba and udon dishes, along with the usual sushi, tempura and various dishes on rice.  It is a nice, wide-open space and once inside you realize it's not as fancy as the outside appears.

Hot sake and free stewed daikon

I got some hot sake as it was freaking cold outside, and that was very nice.  As I ordered, I wanted to some meat, so I got the maguro sushi dish, and then realized I probably wouldn't be eating the rice, so I got a tempura cold soba set too.  This was way too much food, and each one was a meal in itself.  But it was all very good and I enjoyed it.

Maguro sushi

Cold soba and tempura set

Motsu Niku Happy

Rating: OK
Meal: Dinner
Price: 3866 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes:  Various oden dishes and the recommended yakitori, a couple of drinks
English Menu: Only drinks
Smoking: Yes

Yakitori and other stuff menu

Another Wednesday evening and I went out in the pouring rain looking for something close to try.  I recalled there was a new restaurant going in on this tiny little back alley, so I went back to see if they were done, and sure enough, Motsu Niku Happy was open for business.

Oden menu

As an izakaya there is an expectation that drinks will be had, so I ordered a couple which takes off about 1000 yen from the price above.  Other than that, what makes this place more unique is the large selection of oden they have on the menu.  They appear to be primarily an oden and yakitori joint.  Oden is a bit old fashioned and harder to find these days, at least in an actual restaurant form.  You can buy oden in packets at grocery stores, and most convenience stores have oden for sale at the cash register, but to find an actual oden restaurant is unusual.  Naturally, I had to try everything...and ended up absolutely stuffed by the end.  I should have stopped half way.

Daikon radish oden

Anyway, my overall impression of the food wasn't that high, but it is nice to have this kind of option in town, and it was a welcoming place if you want to try oden inside while sitting down.

Ox tail oden

Pork liver, tongue and enoki mushroom yakitori

Chicken cartilage, thigh meat, and pork with negi

Intestines of some kind oden

Fried tofu, more beef and tofu oden

Ali Baba

Rating: Very good
Meal: Lunch for 2
Price: 3500 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes: Chicken korma, dal fry, samosa chaat salad, rice, naan
English Menu:  Yes
Smoking: Yes

The more traditional menu

It was a long weekend so we used our Monday holiday to do all of our car registration stuff in Yokohama, which is just down the road from Ikea.  After the car stuff was taken care of, we were driving to Ikea when I spotted a mediterranean/indian looking restaurant called Ali Baba.  I had seen it once before but it had been closed.  This time it was open, so we started hunting for a parking spot.  This is the biggest drawback to the place...there is no parking anywhere near it!  We eventually found a gravel lot behind a warehouse that looked sufficiently undisturbed such that we might get away with parking there for lunch.

Samosa Chaat Salad

When we sat down, we were handed the lunch special menu which was disappointingly generically Indian, along with an odd selection of Thai dishes.  I was worried we were in for the typical Nepali Indian interpretation, which is so bland.  I asked the server where they were from and he said Pakistan!  So I asked for the Pakistani menu and was given a different, much more interesting piece of laminated paper to look at.

Korma, dal fry, and tasty veg

We started ordering and were very pleasantly surprised, especially at the flavors in korma and dal fry.  My wife really liked the interesting samosa chaat salad too.  The naan was, sadly, still sweet, and there weren't any interesting breads on the menu other than something that turned out to be a sweet version of the naan.  It was a ton of food and we were both well stuffed by the end.  The only reason it doesn't get an Excellent is the lack of good bread.

A sweet bread that I didn't really care for

I told my wife she no longer has to trick me into going to Ikea, I'll go just to eat here again!

Eiryu

Rating: Very good
Meal: Lunch for 2
Price: 2120 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes:  Fried rice, stir fried meat and veg, gyoza
English Menu:No
Smoking: Yes

Well this was a surprise!  My wife and I walked down to Kenritsudaigaku station to try out a new restaurant and we picked an unassuming local Chinese restaurant named Eriyu.  We expected nothing special, and we ordered some typical items off of the all Japanese menu.

We were really impressed!  All the items we ordered were unusually flavorful, and the stir fried meat and veg had a lovely charred flavor to it.

This is why I keep trying places even though they look like the same old, same old...you never know what you'll find!

Rooms Cafe

Rating: Very good
Meal: Dinner
Price: 3800 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes: avocado tempura, beef miso wine dish, sausage and cheese on eggplant, couple of drinks
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: Yes

Last week we I checked out a new spot called Rooms Cafe near me.  It's set up to be a comfy cafe style izakaya.  The proprietor speaks good English and we had a good chat.  They have worked really hard on their English menu, though it does need a few corrections (spell check isn't always your friend!).  Mainly:  Bucket = Baguette

Tempura avocado

As an izakaya-like place I ordered some drinks to go along, which would significantly reduce the overall price above.  The dishes I ordered were both surprisingly good, with  beef braised in miso and red wine being a real winner, while the baked eggplant rounds with sausage and cheese were just darn tasty.  The avocado tempura was just so so...I really need to stop ordering it.  Turns out I love just plain avocado.

Beef in red wine and miso sauce

A nice surprise and a spot I'll probably bring my wife back to, I hope they stay in business. 

Eggplant with sausage and cheese

Toromugi

Rating: OK
Meal: Dinner for 2
Price: 2500 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Miso katsu set, karaage and vegetable set
English Menu: No
Smoking: No

Up at More's City our favorite omu-rice spot Pommes has been replaced by a new restaurant named Toromugi.  It is a somewhat generic Japanese food place with some katsu, sashimi, nabe, and other random dishes.  Kind of like Ootoya.  Anyway, my wife had some time and accompanied me on my weekly quest to find a new restaurant and I knew a replacement for Pommes was in the offing, so we checked it out.

Miso katsu

The name of the place has "toro" in it, which is I believe a reference tororo, a sticky, goopy, slimy paste made by grating mountain yam.  It's not my favorite.  Mugitoro is made by pouring tororo over cooked wheat, so I'm guessing the name Toromugi is a play on that.  In any case, virtually every set meal comes with mugitoro as an optional side.  We did not participate.

Karaage and vegetable set

The sets also come with a choice of 3 types of rice, most of which have cooked wheat (mugi) added.  I went for the miso katsu, which was ok, if small.  The miso soup was underwhelming.  My wife's dish was a mix of a (very few) pieces of fried chicken (karaage) and some vegetables.  Neither of us was terribly impressed and would probably rather go to Wako if we were hankering for some fried deliciousness.