1. Sushi no midori

Sushi is one of the most iconic Japanese cuisine and there are many of them across the entire country. However, there is one sushi franchise that provided the strongest impression to me, that restaurant is called “Sushi no Midori”. Sushi no Midori has shops in several places around Tokyo and Aichi prefecture, they even opened two restaurant outlets in Hong Kong as well. The shop we visited are located in the fourth floor of Shibuya Mark City, right opposite the JR Shibuya Station.

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What really caught many people’s eyes is the incredible freshness of the fishes and other ingredients. You can literally taste the natural sweetness in the raw fish, if you are having the fatty tuna or salmon belly, it will melt in your mouth, leaving only a small tint of the smell of the sea. I would recommend the kaisen-don, the seafood bowl, which you are given the luxury of their best raw fish and in large amount as well. Even their uni, the sea urchins, taste so incredibly fresh and sweet, there isn’t a smallest scent of fishiness in it, proving that the chefs are highly skilled and understand the ingredient fully to bring out the natural taste.

One of the most exquisite and delicious sushi in this restaurant, it has to be the premium eel sushi. The eel is shining with the oily glaze and sauce, the fragrance of the BBQ-ed eel slowly enters your nose, stimulating your desire to eat it. Upon putting the eel sushi in your mouth, the tenderness, the freshness and the sweetness of the eel fused into something, along with the rice, into something you can never imagine,

Address:

1-12-3, Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku, 

Tokyo Mark City East 4F

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2. Afuri

Ramen, one of the most competitive dish in Japan if not THE most competitive dish. Walking down the street and you would be able to spot at least five different ramen shops. In order to stand out from one another, some shops have special kind of ramen instead of the typical pork-based soup ramen, Afuri is exactly that kind of shop. The outlet that we visited is located in Sangenja-ya, not very far away from Shibuya.

Restaurants being spread all over Japan, Afuri’s signature is their Yuzu soup. It is chicken based broth, simmered with yuzu and accompanied with tangy noodle, egg, beetroot and cha-shu. Customers can pick either the shio (salt) or shoyu (Japanese soy sauce) flavour, I picked shio flavour as salt is the best kind of condiment to already delicious ramen. Upon my ramen being served, the fragrance of yuzu emitting out of the soup elevated my soul, all fatigues immediately being lifted away. The perfect combination of the yuzu, chicken broth and salt provided a less oily but strong taste. The noodles are also being handled well enough to retain the tanginess but not overly hard.

Seeing that they also serve roasted pork belly rice and smelling the incredible smell of it, I couldn’t hold onto it and ordered one serving and I wasn’t disappointed by it. The pork fat and the meat itself melts in your mouth, it is in chunk, so children will have no problem enjoying it. The shredded radish gives you a fresh taste and washes away the oily taste that may stay in your mouth.

Address:

2-12-11 Sangenja-ya

Setagaya-ku,Tokyo

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3. Mutekiya

Let us go to another Ramen restaurant that serves the completely opposite and perfected the pork-based broth, Mutekiya. Surprisingly, Mutekiya has only one shop in Ikubukuro, they stated in their website and other medium that any other “Mutekiyas” are not related to them and this is their only registered shop.

Mutekiya are friendly to tourists and foreigners as well, they even have a list of suggested items if you visit the restaurant for the first time. Despite not my first visit, I still ordered the most popular and my favourite in their menu, “Mutekiya Ramen Nikutama”. This bowl of ramen comes with thick but soft roasted pork, boiled eggs and bamboo shoots. It is not exaggerating that I say thick, the roast pork slices are really thick, but not tough. The taste of pork-based broth has never been so good, it is extremely thick and not oily even if you drink it to the last drop. The noodles are satisfyingly tangy, you will be craving for more. The gyoza that they serve are some of the best that I have ever tasted as well.

Address:

Japan, 1-17-1 Tokyo, Toshima

Minami Ikkebukuro

4. Ajikura

If you are looking for something to fulfil your carnivorous desire, the best food will be BBQ meat. There is one special restaurant in the back alley of Shibuya, surrounded by clubs and love hotels. This restaurant is called Lorem Ipsom, located just right below Bar Armageddon. We came across this restaurant by pure luck, attracted by the smell of BBQ meat and charcoal, we entered the restaurant and immediately noticed the first unique feature of the place. Most of the employees are South East Asians, some of them came from Bangladesh and some even come from India, all of them are fluent in Japanese and English too, so there will not be a problem if you are a foreigner who does not speak Japanese.

The variation of Kobe beef, pork meat and chicken meat, we decided to go for the A3 Kobe beef, pork collar and pork belly meat, and this was a decision well made. The meat was served up, and it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The oil pattern on the beef is extremely balanced and it even glimmers when the light hit the meat, the pork belly and collar meat seemed normal when it was served. When the meat was placed on the BBQ mesh, that was when the magic happened, incredibly fragrant smell rushes through your nose to your brain. When you put the meat into your mouth, the deliciousness of the meat immediately made me rethink life itself. Accompanied by the Japanese highball, nothing can be compared with this BBQ meat.

Address:

10-10 Maruyamachō, Shibuya-ku, 

Tōkyō-to 150-0044, Japan

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However, with that many kind of cuisines operating on a small island, there isn’t guaranteed quality or taste for all cuisines and it is especially hard when you are operating a small shop with huge influx of hungry customers. There is this one casual dining place at New Taipei City that serves incredibly fresh and tasty Japanese style seafood don, or seafood bowl. This dining place is called 二男料理(pinyin: Er Nan Liao Li). Unfortunately, they do not have an English name, so we will refer 二男料理as it is in Mandarin.

二男料理is seated in the middle of New Taipei City, twenty minutes away from Banqiao station. Many people might miss it if they are not aware, this restaurant sits right between many motor and auto shops, unless you are trying to look for food in the middle of motor oils. However, even if you visit the area during the lunch hour, you will see a line of hungry people lining outside this one small restaurant. There are so many people that you have to take a queue number and expect to wait for a while before you have a seat. You have to make your order while you’re queuing, unfortunately there are no pictures on the ordering slip nor there are any language other than Mandarin, so you might have a little trouble to know what’s what on the slip. Worry not, the friendly staff will help you to understand what’s on the menu. 二男料理serves mainly Japanese seafood items such as seafood don, various raw fish sushi and several other kinds of gunkansushi(sushi wrapped with seaweed with various topping). My personal favourite and highly recommended by me is the 二男丼and their aburi salmon sushi.

Look at the size of the bowl, look at that prawn! All these at the price of 620NT$, you can’t find anything this good at this price. The freshness of the seafood is unbelievable, it’s so fresh that you can taste the subtle sweetness in the fish and prawn, you might just taste the sea itself. The prawns are extremely firm to bite, but not hard. The salmon melts in the mouth and the maguro has that sweetness upon landing on your tongue. There is really nothing to complain about the seafood don, if there is one, probably that I can’t have enough of them.

The aburi salmon sushi, in fact all other sushi, are prepared and made in front of the customers. You can see the chefs handling the rice and the fishes, after a perfect nigiri sushi is formed, the chef will then uses kitchen blowtorch and lightly fry the salmon on the top. The fat in the salmon fish will melt slightly and a fragrance will emit out from the fish. You put it in your mouth and it will immediately melts in it, the flavour of the vinegar rice and the salmon combine and form a heavenly taste. If you are a fan of ginger or wasabi, it will even further enhance the flavour.

There are a lot more seafood to choose and enjoy in the menu, but too bad that my stomach can’t take in that much food. I spent less than 1000NT$, which roughly translate less than $50SGD for a whole meal of seafood that probably worth more than that. This is one restaurant I will always return to whenever I visit Taiwan.

You can get to 二男料理by taking bus 307 from Banqiao bus station, which is located right next to Banqiao train station. Alight at Banqiao Motor Vehicle Office, 7 stops later, then continue walk forward and you will reach 二男料理in no time.

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