Hunting for Sakura Blossoms
After enjoying an unexpected explosion of cherry blossoms our first day in Tokyo (at Shinjuku Gyoen, still my favorite cherry blossom viewing place in the world), we were met with disappointment at the Meguro Cherry Blossom Festival, a mere 18-minute walk from our hotel in Ebisu.
The festival was still on and the weather was perfect (despite missing blossoms!). We munched on free Häagen-Dazs ice cream sandwiches, watched a beautiful dance performance, and Bryan even got to try out a Japanese firefighter uniform.
Lunch at Wagyumafia Republic
For lunch, we used our Wagyumafia membership (which we bought in Hong Kong) to try out a one day only pop-up collaboration between Wagyumafia X Teruzushi X Nakasho. Lunch would come in the form of a “don” (over rice). We could pick between eel only or half eel half beef ("UNA-GYU"), and three sizes: small, medium, and large (2, 3, or 4 slices of eel, respectively).
I went with small (which was plenty), and Bryan went with medium.
We noticed they staggered the seating times, ensuring that they could freshly prepare each party’s eel. We noticed a new party arriving roughly once every 15 minutes or so.
The eel was delicious, extremely tender, soft, with a great flavorful sauce. At JPY11000 or the small and JPY22000 for the medium (roughly USD73, USD149 respectively), this was certainly the most expensive unagi-don I’d ever had in my life (and that’s taking into account the unusually good exchange rate right now).
The unagi is from the waters of Kansai. The beef is Wagyumafia’s famous Omi Wagyu beef cooked with onions (fantastic, by the way).
Hand-ground Sansho Pepper
The chef pointed at a spice container and said, “Sansho pepper. You can eat with the unagi.”
“You recommend?” We asked.
”Yes, my favorite!.”
Bryan sprinkled some on his eel. “It’s green!” He said.
Before you knew it, Bryan was dumping copious amounts of this pepper on everything: his eel, his wagyu beef, his rice.
”It’s really good. I like it.”
The chef saw how much pepper Bryan was eating. “You like it?”
We loved it. The flavor reminded us of Sichuan Peppercorns, but less chili spice and mostly just the numbing part. It was fantastic. Bryan ended up using up the whole container and we had to ask for more . . . .
Later, we overheard the chef explaining to someone else, “this pepper is very hard to come by. We hand grind it ourselves. If you were to buy it, it would be 150 EUROS for this container.”
We later inquired whether we could buy some. After checking with someone in charge, they came back and said, “yes, we can sell you the pepper.”
It was indeed pricy, but Bryan was addicted to this delicious green powder. They let us buy 3 small “envelopes” of the stuff (which they cobbled together with a vacuum sealer and what they had in the kitchen). At USD$30 a bag, it is probably one of the most expensive spices we’ve ever bought.
We did find a cheap USD$5 bottle of green sansho from House brand at the Seibu underground supermarket the following day. It will be interesting to compare them, if nothing else to see if we were tricked into buying this crazy expensive powder. I’m even tempted to buy dried sansho peppers from Japan and grinding my own. It really is so tasty!
Wagyumafia Republic
3-13-6, 4F Akasaka Kokusai Amano Bldg
Akasaka
