Miso Hungry...still!

Unbelievably, after all the food at lunch, we were still hungry for dinner. At two different places. In 24 hours, we managed to eat our way around Tokyo the way Godzilla ravages a city. Rindah, my cousin's girlfriend and our trip labrador -- she ate a crepe and a sweet potato while we were in Harajuku and still had room for dinner (we are not sure how she stays slim, either).

We returned to the Shinjuku alley where most restaurants were spilling over with patrons the night before. This alley may be what is referred as "Piss Alley", but I can assure you that it wasn't piss-like there. Tucked along the alley were narrow restaurants serving up bowls of ramen, skewers of yakitori or robata-ya with meats and veggies on the grill.



My brother was on a mission to satiate his hunger with ramen, so we snaked our way through the crowd of salary man, office ladies and blue-collar workers, parked ourselves at the counter, and then realized we needed to order. In Japanese. We all agreed on the familiar "shoyu ramen". Luckily, Norv has a knack for languages and ordered ramen, beers and gyoza for us. Satisfying, yes, but we still were hungry enough to check out a robata-ya up the alley, where we noshed on skewers of mushrooms, shishito peppers, bacon-wrapped shishito peppers as well as grilled beef and chicken. Naturally, anything wrapped with bacon is delicious, so this was a favorite as well as the meaty grilled mushrooms.

I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find this place outside of the Shinjuku station and Odakyu Department store, but I don't think I can articulate the directions that well to anyone: head towards the brightly colored buildings outside of the Shinjuku station, in the direction of the Kabuki-cho area, pass by the fortune tellers and hang right and a sharp left at a alley. I think I would have lost you at the brightly colored buildings.