Father’s Day gift idea?

Posted at 9:46 pm by Patrick under Tokyo Summer Vacation

Leave it to the Japanese to come up with this product design meisterstück — a miniature beer fridge/vending machine!

For about $140, you could have this beauty, a 12-can personal fridge that vends cans only after coins have been deposited. Sounds like a great way to keep your freeloading friends’ mitts off your stash (or at least keep them honest).

I think any daddy would be very thankful for this addition the man-pit or office.

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Andrea’s cute waffle breakfast

Posted at 9:03 pm by Patrick under Tokyo Summer Vacation

Seibu’s lower floors are full of food stalls that can cater to almost any taste.

As you can see here, Andrea fell prey to the waffle stand on the way into the grocery area. Like most Japanese food we’ve seen so far, presentation matters. The waffle here is presented with small dollops of ice cream, whipped cream, a simple sugar drizzle over the waffle, and a mint spring tucked neatly on top.

As you can probably predict, Andrea liked it.

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Chimay in the middle of Tokyo!

Posted at 8:46 pm by Patrick under Tokyo Summer Vacation

I can’t believe it either — Chimay for $3 to 4 a bottle in the Seibu department store food market. While it looks tempting, I’ll be sticking to sampling the local fare, including a brew named simply “The Hop”.

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Our First Meal

Posted at 8:39 am by Andrea under Tokyo Summer Vacation

Eating in Japan can be a risky proposition, given the language barrier and the possibility of consuming some exotic yet gag-inducing sea creature. Our travel-weary bodies must have traversed half a dozen unnamed Tokyo streets and passed by multiple ambiguous restaurants before settling on a Lonely Planet recommendation: Akiyoshi.

This turned out to be a great choice. The lively cooks yelled energetically across the kitchen. (They could have been saying “Spit in the food! Hey! Yeah!” and we would never have known.) Luckily, our waitress saw our pale Anglo faces and immediately gave us an English menu. This was a stroke of luck because, as we learned, mere pictures of the food can’t save you from ordering skewered cow tongue. The restaurant is known for yakitori (basically skewered meat on rice), and it was quite tasty. The kitchen grilled up the meat and then it is placed on a hot grill/plate in front of you that runs the length of the bar (shown in picture). This was a great first experience and gave us the confidence to keep trying new things.

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Kirin Green — 70% something

Posted at 8:22 am by Patrick under Tokyo Summer Vacation

After an evening of stomping around Shinjuku in an annoying drizzle, we decided to call it a night. Since I haven’t found a beer vending machine (yet) to satisfy my malty jones, I had to settle for a more prosaic source of relief — the convenience store.

Luckily our hotel, the Metropolitan, is situated such that we have an AM-PM store around the corner. While it’s close, it’s no beer supermarket. I picked up two variants of Kirin pilsner — regular (Tanrei) and light (green label) — for some taste testing.

The green label has a decent flavor profile. The lack of body befits a 3.5% abv brew, but it had a decent malt presence and a suprising hoppiness that increased its drinkability. The Tanrei has more residual sweetness and a more blunted hop flavor. For the less flavorful tipple, you get 5.5% abv.

I don’t think the tradeoff is necessarily worth it, unless you’re financially strapped.

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