Feeling like it was high time for an afternoon snack, we hiked across the Shinjuku station to find this small street by the beautiful name of Piss Alley (seriously). Once inside, we were drawn to our mysterious snack destination—this is the entire restaurant:
Apparently they don’t get a lot of US tourists here, but they are still ready for us: when you duck inside and look suspiciously American, the chef barks out loudly, “Eel only!!!” and expects you to scamper off in a fright back to McDonalds where you belong.
But “eel only” sounded great to us, so we cautiously lowered our heads and sidled in. Inside were perhaps six red bar stools in front of a grimy counter behind which a fairly grimy guy feverously worked a charcoal grill loaded with eel skewers. And nothing but eel skewers 😀 Turns out they did serve drinks, we somehow motioned and gestured enough that an enormous beer showed up to be shared between the two of us. The cook also poured us a “shochu” which is traditionally over-poured so it slops over into a saucer, then you add a small amount of plum liquor to it for flavor. It was quite fun to try, and the skewers were surprisingly delicious, honestly the entire experience was an absolute hoot! The other two patrons chatted us up a bit, proud of their English I guess, and we learned one of them had aspirations to become a kale farmer.
By this point of the trip, we were both already feeling deeply immersed in a very foreign culture, what with the subway rides, the fish market, the uni, all the sake, not to mention the sights & skewers of Piss Alley… I checked the local time, did the math, and had to do a double-take: we’d only been here 22 hours thus far!
Tune in next time for Part III of Day I 😀
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