During a recent trip to Denver, Colorado, I decided for the first time in my life to use Frontier Airlines, a small regional U.S. air carrier. One of the nice benefits of flying Frontier, is that they have small T.V.’s in the seat backs of every seat, and you can watch live television from many, many different channels. As fate would have it, exactly during my flight time Japan’s World Cup soccer team was facing off against Denmark in pool play. What a stroke of luck I thought, as I watched intently this very important match for Japan. And then BOOM!!!!! - Lightning struck in the form of this:
And then BOOM!!!!! – Lightning struck again!!!!
I will never forget that Frontier flight. Of course Japan went on to win 3-1 and thus qualified for the knockout stage. Well done Japan!!!
In the U.S., there is kind of a famous saying that goes, “It tastes like chicken”. You use this saying when you encounter any type of meat that has a neutral taste and you cannot describe it any other way. The reason is the taste of plain chicken, without any sauces or spicing is a neutral tasting meat. It doesn’t really have too much of any specific flavor. Do you get it?
So the background of this post is this. I do not watch much T.V., with the exception of sports of course! However, one T.V. show that I like is “Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations”. It is a 1 hour show where Mr. Bourdain goes to various places in the world to describe some key elements of a country or regions cuisine. He always has the assistance of a local, who helps him find the “cool spots”! He did one most excellent show on Osaka, and another fantastic one on Tokyo. It was in the Tokyo show, where there was a segment of him visiting a small local restaurant that specialized in chicken. The restaurant was appropriately called “Toriki”, which in Japanese means chicken. So I watched this show and thought hey I like chicken and that looks like a cool place to go to. I want to find it and try it!!! Here is a video on the Toriki segment on “No Reservations”.
During a conversation with a couple of our Tokyo office staff, I asked them about this place. To my shock, they said they know it, and in fact they go there somewhat frequently. So we made plans to visit on my next trip to Japan.
So we made it over to Toriki, which I must say would be a bit challenging for me to reach on my own, as it is not on one of the main line trains. That being said, it is still a very short hop from Shinagawa station if you know the train system well enough. Toriki is a small place, and we had a really nice dinner there with many different parts of the chicken. I even tried the “chicken sashimi” which in the U.S. would probably cause a restaurant to be shut down by health inspectors! It was fantastic, but my most favorite dish was the “house special” chicken called "Tataki" which came with a piquant, green colored sauce that you pour over the chicken. It can be seen in the video above. Wonderful stuff, and I want to go back to this place again!!!
Years ago I was lucky to visit the Japanese city of Nikko for some sightseeing. Nikko is a city approximately 90 miles to the north of Tokyo, but it is really much more than that. Initially built around temples during the 8th century, Nikko today is most famous for the shrine “Nikko-Tosho-gu” which was completed in 1617. This shrine is dedicated to the founder of the famous Tokugawa Shogunate – Tokugawa Ieyasu, and his remains are kept here. This makes this place very special in the history of Japan, as it represents a very spiritual place for the Edo period of Tokugawa rule.
There are incredible buildings at Nikko, with extremely detailed hand carvings that are painted in bright colors. I can’t imagine the time it must have taken to make all of these carvings. Unfortunately our time at Nikko was limited, and we did not get to walk up to the grave of Ieyasu. Maybe some other time!?
Nikko-Tosho-gu is a very special place, and I recommend visiting it if you get the chance. It can be reached by train (of course!).
