Like a hand stoking a gauntlet we pass the remaining stalls. After British farmer’s/fisherman’s/physicist’s markets touting steak and shampoo, an authentic market seems fictitious: one part expects to see tins of pineapple stolen from Spar shelves with ten pence added for the pleasure, though I may be confusing village fetes.

Grey cobblestones recline to the sway and shush of rusting leaves, the market is behind us, and now, too, is the afternoon. Striding from Mike’s gnomic apartment, at last grass is squeezed beneath my feet. I have not touched it for months. Zentrum, a thick glass door leads to a barn-like space, with ogrous tables flanked by stubborn benches under beams and balustrades the colour of Reisling. We note our neighbours drinking similar; Julia notes this is cause for a beating. The solid if sympathetic interior harks to a beer hall, beer should be drunk.

She and I order venison ragout and those ghoulish twists of wild mushroom, salads on the side, pork added by the others. Several plates arrive each, the venison rich and tufty. The sauce contains wine –the only acceptable place for it –and it is salty and bloody. For a tongue used to tossing ballerinic squeals of fish, I have to pace myself and knit in the orbiting sides. Inch thick wet pork guarded by growling crackling dominates Mike’s plate, and towering bulbs of beer stand assured like chess-pieces about the table. Hoppy, white and foggy with a diffused yellow glow, German beer tastes smooth and herbaceous. It is also drunk by all, making me question why we Brits should prop up in England a culture based about lager when such fine ales are available. I shall remedy my bias at Christmas, when, too I hope to return to Germany.

For now, however, a vanishing Munich is sired to the whoosh of ICE and limp salute of towering hops. The countryside expands, and suburbs succumb to farmhouses. The drawbridge to this most ideal of cities is raised; now begins the mission to lower it permanently. 

Mina and I have had a pumpkin, but its okay: no need to redecorate a room yet. Carrying it gently home last night, we spent hours, or at least twenty minutes, just staring at it from the sofa. We spotted it (ha!) in the gallery under the foot of Mori tower where we had spent the day surveying fish tanks and the work of the chap who designed Beijing’s Bird Nest. But it was the work of Yayoi Kusama that drew us in. I spotted (!) her work and Mina spotted (! –still funny) the printer’s proof of Pumpkin MT.  As typical net-savvy consumers, we scoured the internet for similar, but could not find; and besides, both looking at the painting, and both looking at each other, we knew it was time to commit. Not quite a ring, but to buy a piece like that is still meaningful. I was quite nervous yesterday when we bought it!

If you haven’t gathered, it, like so much of her, is dotty (the artist, not Mina) and the frame is divine. How richly it reclines upon my television. This may not be a restaurant review, but its the best food I've yet bought.

Authentic burger is a joint found by new old guy Danny, a slightly robotic Anglo-American who expresses little but designs well. He also dresses and eats well, meaning our typical trek to Wolfgang Puck (told you I’d return), is omitted from his diary. But he has proved an adept researcher and found this gem at the foot of his building. Authentic burgers are light, deeply spongy and layered with mayo and relish; almost the vegetarian of burgers, except for the beef. Fries are few, but the marginal grease-free environment and clean surfaces keeps the whole thing feeling pleasantly organic, in the most fair-trade be-sandled way.

A swift calculation deduces the avocado burger with cheese is less expensive than a cheese burger with avocado; I order one and put it in the bag, put it in the bag. There is an A5 sheet that neatly and grammatically-waywardly points to several necessary steps required for the enjoyment of your meal. A paper bag is, accordingly, vital. This is supported by a line drawing of a crab with hands for pincers, a foot-note adding that it has nothing to do with the meal. If all this sounds like a set-up of the confusions usually made by Japanese in English, well, it probably is. But while it amuses us, and while I keep earning loyalty stamps to acquire a tea-towel, so we shall continue to return. A welcome change to the norm.

Authentic, Akasaka 2-18-19, 03 3505 8584

Though it was a while since we had a lecture on brain formation and properties, I will use it to excuse the protracted beginnings to this quiet fizzle of opinion. Actually opening the door to the cubicle in my mind, I can read my scrawled notes and cast my eyes now to the fleet of fat koi swarming about my discarded Pringle. We had just been to a 700 year old bamboo forest in Kamakura and broached the rope to descend to waters nearby. Mina tried putting in her feet, but the watery riot put her off. We ate chicken and sun-dried tomato sandwiches smeared with pesto, but they are not the subject of this column, not least because I prepped them.

Dust the seat of our trousers, and let’s tumble up the hill. Passing the temple’s threshold, so I imagined that one day I would have a garden to brush by before entering my house. A cat lounges as I glance through occasional sprigs; soon a sign to an English garden beckons. It is hot, and long, low steps slouch upwards to a driveway where a middle-aged woman lies tits up on a bench, asleep in the afternoon sun. It is quiet and the smothered harrumph of another couple descending a steeper path vanishes in the tranquility of this green valley, and in the heat our paces slow with the ascent to the hill-top cafe.

I was, to be honest, thrilled to find a cream tea parlour, and even better that it was so bloody good, that the scones were floury and slightly scented by the raisins nestling within. The blackcurrant jam, something I pathetically tend to avoid, homemade also, and the tea a rich Assam, coloured white with green in reflection of my grandmother’s similar brews. A sturdy bare table forced legs to crumple, but I was happy to stretch the elastic by which Tokyo binds me.

We noticed the ring as we left, but I mention it now as my abiding memory, that an engagement ring wrapped in diamonds had been left on the side for its owner to reclaim. Had that not been there, I would have sooner been aware of the rods of coins also left unchecked next to the till. Apart from this telling relay of the country we are in, everything else was most welcomely English.

These were my thoughts, partly gathered by Mina as we channelled through the wiry lanes linking chicken to pork to BBQ to eel. Our first stop was an awning, a carrier-bag draping over thin frame to avert the deluge. I was still steeped in sweat however, owing to my sighting a black gut of cloud linger above the spires of Shinjuku as I left the office. Splats like roaches on a windscreen pressed shirt to skin as I fidgeted at the crossing, desperate for the green man, and I ran the rest to the station. By the time I met Mina some stops later, the worst had passed leaving nothing but fingers of water gripping each step as we ascended Shimbashi plaza. Take note of the stationary train wantonly parked as you’ll need it for directions later. Presently, however, you’ll recall I have a bag over my head.

Not really knowing the area, it was a masterstroke of luck: our first bar had just received sanma, a slender mackerel, nice and oily and now in season. A great way to start, but spotting a pause in the drops we paid, took our chances and ran across the park to lucky number two, which served horse, something I had not eaten for a while. I’d forgotten what a pleasure it is, like a damp ballerina flopped upon your tongue. Coming from the fridge, each stamp-sized piece was raw and cool and permeated with myriad micro-stalactites of fat reaching through the red. It seems a little ghoulish to whip up garlic and ginger to accompany in soy sauce, but it’s a wonderful combination. While there we also saw that the chap alongside appeared to be eating mini-Jersey’s with dwarfs: turned out to be chicken bum and garlic shoots. Needless to say that got tacked onto the bill too.

At this point, my centenary was in decent swing, and happy to be spending it with Mina. We chatted about home, and, er, the joys of strip clubs (discovered she’s game) and buoyantly lumbered through the remaining grid of lanterns and landlines. After ten minutes, however, we stammered confronted by a sheer white wall marking the going-ons of a construction site and the insensitive glare of Pronto’s careless serifs. An Advent calendar of doors, openings and archways swung from all sides, yet there was a quiet glow coming from our feet, a small lantern set at the bottom of steps and an innocuous curtain.

A chorus of hurrahs and welcomes resonate before I even mount the last step to see the tiny room of bar and tatami. Everyone is smiling, and as we take two of the five bar-chairs, the man next to us, whom we find is called Kaji, leans over and mentions ‘you have found a good place’. Everyone is happy, and conversation flicks like wildfire between the patrons, a laugh, a crack, a recommendation and a ‘where’re you from’. It’s the kind of place where each person lends to the atmosphere of the room rather than stiffly subscribe to the linen of commerce. It’s the kind of place we adore –and I could hardly believe my luck as they announced horse their speciality too, straight from Kumamoto for which it is renown (Bonus: if you Google Mount Aso, you’ll see where these steeds are reared). Despite my earlier mouthfuls we jumped at the chance: it has been over a year since I last nibbled nape, white lilos of fat the size of a trimmed ten-pound stamp. And served as a platter no less! And yet such was the atmosphere I almost don’t want to dwell on the food: I felt new again, like when I first arrived in Japan and everything was fresh and everyone welcoming. I generally hesitate to so fully embrace such fleeting moments of serendipity, but it was genuine at Yoshi Yoshi, so obvious that they enjoyed our company as much as we enjoyed theirs. There was no insincere exchange of cards, merely one another sharing dishes and stories.

‘I have no money, but I’m on TV offering advice on money!’ confided one of finances wrinkled personalities to Mina, eliciting a wonderful scream as the sublime sake was reawakened. I tried to buy a bottle, but it cannot be bought, it was that rare. So we had to make the most of the opportunity to drink it all there. Yet I could not ignore the homemade plum-wine sleeping in a glass vat in front. Kaji, who had secured the wine, once more ordered a glass for us while the marbled eccentricities of his colleague stumbled from tatami to my shoulders, providing a box of éclairs. Bliss!

It seems trite to compare Yoshi Yoshi to Cheers, but such was the conviviality surging through each bite and laugh. As our names were flicked across the room when new people arrived, the neat black table on the tatami became a pivot as guests rotated to make room for more, changing places with those at the satin-smooth bar to converse, ridicule and delight. I want to keep typing and extend the memories, to not stop so that night can remain infinite and the smiles never diminishing. We could not have chosen a better place for the 100^th entry of No Tomatoes. I can’t wait to take Dad and Edward.

Directions: From Shimbashi Plaza go straight down the street between Pronto and Hirota, and you’ll come across triangle with Ajitoku on the first floor; turn left and you’ll see the sign for Yoshi Yoshi.

Keen-readers/Mum may recall the Cave recently written here. It follows then that the gaol-themed Lock Up appeals too to Satomi, and marks the fork where I, no we, no less, for Mina concurs, must part in dinner dining. I’m struggling for words. Perhaps the rubber square set into the floor, and metronomic electrocuted-dummy will better convey the shitty beginnings to this night, though I think what I said at the time was ‘wouldn’t be awesome if the food was great’. It wasn’t, and had the trough not been dug by the Cave last week, Lock Up would be a strong contender for detailing a new low.

Actually, it was okay. Simple, banal, tacky –but acceptable, still. Until I spotted a cockroach planted inches in front, courting my napkin. It is times like this that one may gauge the measure of a man, the one who might, in the face of injustice, the elderly seat occupied by youth, say ‘hang on’ and make motions to correct. Thus it was that I clambered onto the torso next to me (thankfully Mina), while she drew the lethal, or at least hostile blow with a beer mat. A Gallic snigger traversed the low table, till I observed the brown bug scuttling to his elbow. Stefan imitated my recommended action and again it was the girlfriend who sorted the matter out.

Needless to say, that put me off, and though I took some extra nibbles from the army of crap on the table, I could not get out of my mind the question: ‘how close is a cockroach to me now?’ All of which shunted me into Mina, who resignedly requested that my body be removed from her seat after 20 minutes of imposition. Stefan seemed not to care, and slumped back to duty: jesting and ignoring the empty glasses of others.

Back to the experience. Well for a start I was happy Mina should meet Charlene in case our meanderings take us to Paris (which would do wonders for the food aspect, however minimal, of this blog) and I was pleased to meet her boyfriend Alessandre, but chances are should you visit, you won’t see them. Instead you might wonder how you would see anyone, for as desserts were ordered and appeared, staggered, all bulbs extinguished and a strobe instead illuminated our ice-cream (I scream –geddit?). Painfully, torturously, a scene was enacted in the wormhole connecting our cell (forgot to mention that) to the others in the Scooby-Doo interior design. Interns and teenagers dressed in masks and gloves ran to the sound of sirens, chased fortuitously by girls in cop outfits each badged Officer Naughty. But not even that could cause a stir, and seated in my corner, I tried not to think about the heat, nor the stifling air, the fact I was hemmed in by ten others and that there was, possibly, a cockroach inspecting my left ankle.

Satomi, as you may recall, relies more on Google than taste, though it must be said Nico seldom gives her time to satisfy both. With scant hours to go on a Friday afternoon, he decided a table for seven is what’s in order. Naturally, in any other city you would be left with, well, leftovers: a chubby chef in a greasy shirt running an out-of town diner; fine for the hangover breakfast, but hardly the venue for supper, nor those employed by Louis Vuitton, for such was the case with Charlene, a friend of Nico’s who had studied with him.

When an invitation to a post-dinner party requests ‘wear white’, one can probably assume who won’t be attending by identifying those in black. Such was Satomi as she made a stand against socialising each night as she accompanied Nico in hosting his friend. I think, however, she was also dressing for our restaurant, which had the unique, um, selling-point of being ‘like a cave!’. Mina had briefly mentioned this as one of the options for Nico’s birthday last weekend, and why she suggested potluck at her’s instead. And so she remained last night, leaving me to quickly stifle my ridiculing as I realised this was actually normal and reasonable for Satomi, though I did warn that it would make excellent fodder for my blog.

A cave, one would expect, is usually underground; imagine my surprise and poorly hidden sneer as she revealed it was located on a fourth floor. But then I’ve been in Tokyo too long to think it would be genuine. As the elevator opened (my god it smelled awful, like a fishmonger’s washing pile), it wasn’t quite the end of the world: there were one or two gold trinkets and the ‘caves’ were instead knobbled head-high partitions that robbed the room of space, but at least ensured privacy. No plastics bats, though I wouldn’t put it beyond the menu to serve them.

Yet for three brief moments as those trinkets fluttered above my expectations, I thought it could be okay, just standard Jap isekaya fare. But when the tray of popcorn arrived with small, shrivelled beans, I almost pitied Satomi, yet couldn’t help but smile as, once Nico had gulped sorely, he declared it delicious and kissed her temple. I wasn’t going to disagree, and hoped that the fish-egg spaghetti I almost gagged on wouldn’t be noticed in its new position: as far away as possible. Frankly, it was terrible. You may notice that many restaurants have those plastic models of the menu: this tasted like that, reheated. It’s a cheap analogy, but it really had that chemical taste, as though those tiny orange ova had spent the past three months in plastic containers at the back of the fridge.

There wasn’t anything I enjoyed; even the salad was screwed by using cabbage leaves in place of lettuce, as dry as an old man’s dead skin with luminous mayo. I didn’t touch the octopus rings, ran a mile from the onion salad –literally, onion shredded, piled, and caked with flakes of urine-smelling prawns –and recoiled to my corner when the beef-avocado gratin arrived. Honestly, how can you put nuggets of avocado, scrapes of old boots and carrots into a ramekin, cover with cheese, and bake. You must be mad: it is as though three dishes were on the go, the cook, either confused or a drunk, putting the wrong ingredients in each dish. It was vile; it was vomit –something confirmed when I observed the impressively-sprayed bathroom. Normally something like that would put me off and make me wretch myself, but having been conditioned by the food going in, someone else’s coming out didn’t seem quite so bad. I just can’t believe Satomi ordered it twice.

Pasta for me was linguine with a kidney-ish meat sauce and small wet patches of parmesan dust. They forgot the large size I ordered, and reasonably if their large falls short of my appetite, they knock the extra Y100 off. The staff are friendly, and with Vadim in our trio, happy to chat in Italian with him. I don’t go quite as frequently as before when Fabian and Nico were still around, and have subsequently found a super Italian buffet in Arc Hills. Should I continue failing to splurged or be splurged for dinner I may write about that too.

To approach more quietly, one walks in the direction of Ping Pong’s, but don’t turn right after the bridge, take the next left and walk under Hibiya-sen for eight minutes. It’s somewhere along there, though as Mack has moved on, forget about shouting for directions -you wouldn’t want to wake this peaceful neighbourhood anyway. Despite its proximity to nowhere, people still cram the rafters of this attic room, cigarette smoke circling the bike frames that hang like metal skeletons of outsized bats. More surprising was meeting a girl I’d once had a random picnic with on Hampstead Heath. Flashes of white teeth see-sawed with petty flirtations that were I single would have mistaken for attraction. She was a friend of Nathalie’s, someone who I would love to come out and visit, not least so we could go to bike bar.

This time, however, it is Peter who is visiting. Having emptied my wallet in Ping Pong’s too recently with Oriol, I avoided a repeat and clankered up the black steel fire escape that leads to Mack’s dorm.

Three paragraphs so far is quite a lot when the sum of my recollections of that night is avoiding the cherry in my drink, Mina taking it instead. Peter probably had a Mule, or maybe a Sour also; whatever, it was fantastic, looking like a slightly creamy, curdled lemon, with three razor-edged cubes of ice and apparently a delicious cherry, probably worth a shot on its own –at least that’s how my olive tasted after an earlier Martini. There may have been some whisky in there too. We had seconds and then thirds around the corner, but as that came with a hefty cover charge, I prefer to lay what memories I have with Mack, whoever he is.

Before one eats here, one has to cook. There is a heavy black iron dome centred on the table beneath which there is fire, above which there is a lump of fat. Other food came and went, and by the end of the meal the fat had slid into the surrounding gutter. Peter and I ate the two pieces that remained once the vegetation had disappeared, leaving me as I write this to sadly muse that Mina missed out on a sublime morsel. It is normally here that I would inject a peaky metaphor, the hah-ed and brushed finger-nails of my witty repartee to evoke its ingestion, but the best I can do is compare it to pork scratchings, except tasting sweeter, not too sickly, with mirror-like depth. However, to align scratching-to-scratching does the lamb a great injustice, for the bit of bleater equates more accurately to a hundered swine patches, it really was that intense.

We were already pretty impressed by this restaurant on the canal next to Combine. Having frequented this secluded path for the past couple of years, it seemed due to eat and not always booze up with French architects and leer at the staff. And lamb is so seldom found in Tokyo, that why wouldn’t one? I think Peter is discovering that not just fish is left uncooked in Japan, the lamb that we began with a simple carpaccio with chives and soy sauce. Again, insert simile here, something along the lines of seal skin and Nivea and kittens –and beef actually; it was bloody red, if mercifully not bleeding. The rest of the meal’s meats also arrived freshly torn from a little glib bounder, but here we used our heated dome to singe the shards, allowing each to enjoy to our preferred rareness.

Back to those plants, whenever I see bean-sprouts I see a redacted idea, a superior ingredient that has been blacked-out in the menu: a sprout alone never seems worthy enough to be first choice. That still stands, despite the dribble of fat brandishing them: how wonderful it would have been had some thuggish courgettes appeared to sponge the juices instead. With that wry observation I shall leave that there and try to find the words to describe the drinks at the bar that came next. Strong might be one of them…