my little cup of sunshine: Grilled food on a cold wintry night, life's little pleasure

Nothing beats freshly grilled food
with a glass of beer or umeshu

OMG! I am behind on the SQ promotion cheap fares to Tokyo as my brain is suffering from election fatigue. Yup, every other person's status on Facebook is election related, not to mention, it's more news on tv, the internet or booklets stuffed at my doorstep. The plus point is I get to vote after so many years. Frankly, no more election news for me. Come Saturday, I am just going to get dressed, pop downstairs to the polling centre and cast my secret vote. Have already read about what to do and what not to do, cross, not tick in the box and what is a spoilt vote. Plenty of misleading posters around the neighbourhood that tells us to tick...

Back to the SQ mega cheap Singapore to Tokyo fare, it's only S$398 inclusive of tax. That is dirt cheap especially since you can see cherry blossoms around this time. But will I go? Nay. No time and that radiation problem at Fukushima that refuses to go away. I am sure the food that you consume in Tokyo is perfectly safe. Or very safe as I believe the Japanese have great respect for the food they sell and consume. Anyway, you can exposed to radiation in cities like Hong Kong and Singapore too.

Look, dirt cheap, right? At the cheapest in the past
for other airlines, it will be S$640 inclusive of tax.

But if you are going, please do visit this new favourite food haunt of mine in Tokyo. ふくはち Fukuhachi! Great food at affordable prices right smack in the middle of Shinjuku. Discovered it during my last trip to Tokyo. Super yummy.

What do I craved for while on holiday in the midst of winter in Tokyo other than a big bowl of piping hot noodles? Not sushi or tempura but a fresh batch of beautifully grilled yakitori, vegetables or whatever that is available at a Izakaya. Washed down with my drink of choice, pure heaven.

An izakaya (居酒屋) is a Japanese drinking place which also serves food to accompany the drinks. They are popular, casual places for after-work drinking. There are two kinds of izakayas. Fancy ones where you bring your date to impress her and the noisy smoky ones where you go with your friends.

Our new fav izakaya, ふくはち Fukuhachi is located midway down the Shonben Yokocho 思い出横丁入口 (Other name: Omoide Yokocho) in Shinjuku 新宿. There were so many izakayas along the lanes and with wait staff calling out to you, we were spoilt for choice. We picked Fukuhachi out of the many because the shop was crowded with happy customers, the chef looks extremely capable and the grill wasn't manned by a pretty young gal.

Shonben Yokocho or Piss Alley is two rows of hole-in-the-wall izakayas (pub cum restaurant) tucked between the Odakyu Department store and Shinjuku railway tracks. It's near Uniqlo (near the west exit of Shinjuku station outside of Odakyu store) if that is a easier direction.

The friendly ojisan chef manning his grill.

We made the right choice. The food was excellent, grilled to perfection. Halfway through the meal, I realised that this is a recommended izakaya yakitori place. There were several magazine and newspaper cuttings plastered on the rather grimy wall extolling the food at Fukuhachi. Thumbs up.

Shonben Yokocho (Piss Alley)
near Shinjuku Station

Fukuhachi is located midway
down the dingy smoky lane

Fukuhachi has been operating in Shonben Yokocho since the post war years, that is almost 60 years. The lanes where the shop is, are narrow, barely 1.5m wide. The smoky narrow lanes offer a nostalgic feel, very old Japan. Apparently in the past, the shops catered for the night life at the nearby kabukicho and golden gai. Now, you get a mix clientele. Now and then, they get tourist like me.

The female grill chef is equally competent
but I think the ojisan is better at grilling.
She looks fierce in this pic but she is
really nice and tolerated my bad Japanese.

R and the three friendly Japanese who struck a
conversation with us and bought us an appetizer

The menu is written on paper and
stuck on the wall above the counter.

A treat from a fellow customer. The three kind Japanese seated
next to us bought us the daikon and intestines stew.
Not all Japanese are aloof, they are actually friendly people.

Spinach and nameko mushrooms, stewed bamboo shoots and pork

You can order a variety of appetizers like sauteed vegetables, cold salads, etc. For grilled food, regulars like vegetables, squid, chicken and pork and some offal are available.

As usual, we ate a lot. The food was hearty and we ended the night happy. In fact, we went back twice to eat at Fukuhachi during our trip to Tokyo. There were also two western tourists who sat next to us who ordered only yakitori. Yup, they ate only grilled chicken yakitori, a lot of chicken yakitori. They were very unwilling to try anything new. I can see them grimacing out of the corner of my eye at whatever the chef recommended. I can fully understand why the grill chef treated us differently. I bet she felt somehow insulted by their food choices. The lady chef was on duty that night.

The Ojisan grilled the food on our first outing. On our second outing, the lady chef was in charge. Our third trip to the lane was on a Sunday (I think it was a public holiday too), most of the shops were closed including Fukuhachi.

Burdock with sesame and grilled green peppers (shishito)

Grilled clams (Hamaguri?).

Grilled bacon wrapped tomato.
This is extremely good at Fukuhachi. The must-try.

Negima: grilled chicken and leeks.
You can have it plain with salt or with sauce.
I prefer the lightly salted version.

Grilled shitake mushrooms and squid tentacles

From left: Burdock with sesame, grilled shisamo,
grilled chicken and leeks

Disappointed, we ate at another izakaya next to the train track which was very crowded. Let's just say, grilling food is an art. The food at the other place was bad, really bad. Dry, tough and poorly seasoned. I guess business was good at that shop as most of the shops in the vicinity were closed. Crowded doesn't always mean good.

Fukuhachi is located in Shonben Yokocho or Omoide Yokocho (the cleaned up name), a 5 mins walk from Shinjuku station. Walk from Odakyu mall, pass Uniqlo and turn right at the first side lane. There is also a quaint coffee place 但馬屋珈琲店 (no. 18) if you want coffee.