Have you ever tried Chicken

To many of non-vegetarians, this sounds as a stupid question. It would to me! So I thought untill recently. Till I found this restaurant in central Tokyo which presents the Chicken in it's totally different way. I am sure you have never tried Chicken "this way".

"Chicken Heart" : Sounds lame but was tasty.

Left Top: Hatsumoto - Base of Heart

Right Top: Hatsumaru - Heart with blood vessels still attached.

Left bottom: Hatsuhimo - Blood vessels from around heart

Right bottom: Hatsu - Heart

Left: Shirako - Testes. If you get a chance, let me know how was it.

Right: Chouchin - Ovaries. Only interested in eggs. Not the nest.

 Left: Megimo - Spleen. Was'nt bad.

Right: Tsubo - Preen Gland. Hmm. Do let me know.

"Chicken Eggs", before they are known to outside world as "Eggs". Most of it tasted like softly cooked egg white

Menu (although in Japanese) explains in details, location of that part in Chicken, it's taste and how it is cooked. Nice!

Here is the link for this restaurant : http://mi-mo.jp/store.php?iid=0013&tid=00000282

My rating? 4 stars out of 5. I took out one star only for comparatively slower service than usual for Japan.

Try at least once: Fish overies

This wasn't that bad. In fact my overly pampered taste buds could not register any taste at all. You may feel awkward by its slimy touch though.

This dish is offered in many places (fish may be different) as shown in this picture.

You can see the yellow bunch in the center. That's what you eat. Of course you can have the fish too and at least for me, the fish had great taste compared to ovaries. You can take out the overies  in separate dish and put some soy sauce （Shoyu - 醤油）on the top.

Name: I forgot the fish name but these are the ovaries of fish, uncooked.
Place: An Izakaya (Japanese restaurant) near Atami station.
 
I would appriciate if someone can tell me about the fish.

Try at least once: The grisly recipe

Again, I did not go asking for it. It was just there, on the menu and someone thought that we must try it. It was served right in front of me and suddenly I realized that there are heads and legs and its a LOCUST!! Gulp!!

I waited for my boss to have one and say “delicious”. My colleague in front of me won’t even look at the dish. I decided to go for it. Held one in my chopsticks. Looked for any insectile expressions and just put it inside my mouth. The outer part was kind of sweet and once I chewed on it felt like I am having a deep fried dried fish without much taste. This is not that bad, I thought. After few more bites I wasn’t feeling like I was actually eating an insect. Rest of the dinner went on discussing and persuading about eating イナゴの佃煮.

Name:   Inago no Tsukudani （イナゴの佃煮）. “Locust boiled in soy sauce”

Place:    Izakaya under the Chuo-line tracks at Kanda-station, Tokyo

And here is the recipe:

I did not bother to look for the recipe at first until I spoke about this dish with one my colleague. She was like “Oh, I used to catch locusts for my parents when I was kid!”. And that's how I got the recipe which goes somewhat like this..

• Catch the locust. Be careful not to break their legs, wings so that “final product” has fine looks. 
• The main ingredient is the sauce which is sold in retro-packs these days. It is called Tsukudani-sauce. Pour the sauce in the pan on medium heat. Make sure the pan has tight lid.
• Now comes the grisly party. Throw your “catch” under the pan, alive! and close the lid. Once the flutter has stopped, you know that it’s safe to check whether its cooked or not.

Serve as it is.

I had it once but don't have confidence to try it again.

Try at least once: Creative food

No!! This is not a blog on porXXgraphy. Don’t report this blog! Just read on.

This was one “creative serving” I had in a Izakaya at Osaka. Believe me, creativity involved in it made it much harder to eat. Otherwise ingredients are just fine when had (I mean eaten, eaten!) separately.

Name:               Itte Shimatta （いってしまった） “I came!”

Place:               One Izakaya at Jusou station, Osaka (http://r.gnavi.co.jp/k419500/)

Ingredients:       

• Hmm..let me start from the b○lls! They are made from normal cooked rice.
• The "main thing": Good roasted and buttered sausage. Looks are quite self explanatory.
• The juice: Salad dressing with "convenient look".
• And the most important part at the bottom, nicely cooked beef.

I was  quite astonished at what was lying in front of me. This restaurant was about so called creative food. But I wasn't expecting it to be THAT creative. What else is cooking in there? 

I took a sneaky look around as if we have ordered something that must not be ordered. But everything and everyone was cool and the "creative food" in front of me was being taken care of just like any other dish.

Anyway, if you want to see it yourself, you know the place now!