Dark Alley Sushi
It took a while for the tens of thousands of fans to make their way out of the stadium. I had a restaurant picked out I wanted to try, but it was in the same general direction as a major transit hub.. This is where a lot of people were headed, so it took me a while to pull free from the crowds
Eventually I was able to go in a different direction and ended up following my trusty google maps until I got to this dark alley, well out of the way of the hustle & bustle of the strip of restaurants and bars nearby...
I was looking for a well rated sushi restaurant. This did not at all look like a place where I would find such a thing.. and yet google maps was insistent that a very good sushi restaurant was here.
The last time this happened to me I had to look around and eventually found an elevator. In this case I was a bit suspicious because I expected a grand entrance for such a good restaurant and not a dimly lit back alley... That sign also looks more like a construction sign and not a "Welcome to our restaurant!" sign
It also did not match the name of the restaurant in any way that I could see
So I walked by this once or twice and eventually ended back here and figured.. I might as well go in and see if it's inside
This did not look very inviting, but I was hungry.
I walked into the elevator and looked on the buttons for a name I could try to match to the restaurant name I could see on my phone. I can't remember what happened next, but eventually I ended up on the right floor. The elevator opened and things were a bit more presentable inside... I walked out and forward a bit and turned to the right. I saw a restaurant setting with a very nice bar in the back, nice decor throughout, a well dressed waiter/chef/sort of person, and maybe 7-10 people sitting at various tables over food and drink.
When I turned that corner and walked in the room it was like the record scratch thing happened and everyone looked at me.
I sat at the bar and negotiated with the chef type guy who was also sort of the waiter and bartender. I call him chef, because I am pretty sure I saw him cutting up fish.. And either way, all I knew at the time was that he was the guy to talk to. And he did not speak a word of English, nor did anybody else who seemed to want to help. And I spoke no Japanese at all, aside from being able to (badly) say hello, thank you, and goodbye
He ended up finding a menu for me that had one side of english translations of all the fish. I looked at it and instead showed him a translation on my phone (from English to Japanese) that said: "Please serve me your recommendation".. or something similar. Then I tried to explain that I was trying to also get some sort of a sample of different types of sushi and maybe some other things.
The man smiled and went back in the kitchen, probably bowing at some point in the process. I got a beer and waited for my food, and eventually I got this:
The third one from the left is sea urchin, which I would not recommend. It wasn't that horrible, but it wasn't very good. I didn't like the octopus either, I think it's the 5th one from the left. Everything else was delicious though, and very fresh. There's some salmon there, and probably some tuna, and several I can't identify
Eventually it occurred to me that maybe the dark alley and construction sign welcoming people to the restaurant might have been set up that way as a way to not draw in any tourists.. But I was treated very well inside the restaurant by everyone, and people were maybe surprised for me to walk in, but after that I felt like the special guest of the evening. It could have been all in my head, but I felt like I had a great evening, and tried to thank my host as such before leaving