John Daub: Shinjuku. Three and a half million people every day make their way through Shinjuku station making it the world's busiest. Thousands of restaurants packed around the over 200 exits. This urban maze is the city's most complicated and also the most fun, if you can find your way out. For tonight's Tokyo food adventure packed with amazing Japanese dishes. From sushi and tempura to wagyu and sake. So here we are in Shinjuku, in the part of Tokyo that simply never sleeps. Look at the lights around us! There are thousands of restaurants, bars, and cafes here which can be quite intimidating for those that are coming to Japan for the first time. Where do you go to eat? In this episdoe, I'm going to be taking a tour with the local guide to help me find the perfect places in this maze, this chaos, that is Shinjuku. This is the Shinjuku Food Adventure. Let's go! [♪ Intro music ♪] ONLY in JAPAN I've decided to take a tour, meeting my guide in East Shinjuku to get to know the area and food. This is Sho, a local guide at Magical Trip, and Shinjuku expert. We're off to the first food stop through the bright streets of East Shinjuku's most notorious neighborhood, Kabukichō. This neighborhood offers everything: nightlife, restaurants, bars, hostess clubs, game centers, karaoke. A playground for adults. I've been on a few other Magical Trip local tours around Japan. Always had pretty authentic experiences and since Sho lives here, I was looking forward to this one. Someone else leading the way and me, eating my way to the other side. It's an izakaya, Japanese style pub, with a very large menu. The inside: clean, stylish, very Japanese, which fits the food we're about to eat. There's a special foodie menu that allows you to eat a lot. We could be here all night, so I decided to get everything. This is going to be a lot of fun. The staff gets to work. You can see them preparing the food in the kitchen on all sides. I can smell the grilling unagi in the corner. One of their specialties is this: sushi. While they cooked our drinks came. Kampai! (Cheers!) Japanese getting off work almost always start off with a "nama beeru", beer cold from the tap. Then the food came...fast. It's a tour of the best of Japanese cuisine. Nigiri sushi. Can you name them all? Ah and this, vegetable tempura. Soba noodles, a taste of the countryside. Cold dipping soup made of dashi. Add the wasabi and leeks to it. Grilled tofu and shiitake mushrooms. Soft tofu with ginger and leeks. Maki sushi with vegetables and soba noodles in there. Dip it in a little soy sauce and enjoy. Unagi, char grilled fresh water eel, slathered in a tangy sauce that compliments the tender meat very well. A sophisticated miso soup. This one with beef And this, compliments of the chef. Wow this is a lot of food. Sho, I think we ordered too much. Sho: Way too much, maybe. Yeah. John: Typically all the food won't come at once. Usually it'll come course by course. But for the purpose of this video, I think it's really cool to see it all on one table. Where do you start in a course like this? Sho: Well first you got to try the big Edo sushi. John: Edo sushi from the Edo era when they were a street food served at yatai food stands in the city back when Tokyo was still called Edo in the 19th century. They're made larger to make a meal, almost like an onigiri rice ball. Rather than use rice vinegar like the smaller nigiri sushi, Edo sushi mixes red vinegar into the rice, made from sake kasu, the leftovers from the pressed rice in sake production. This makes the sushi rice a little brownish red color instead of white. So I guess I'll go in for this anago here first. This is big. Wow. Sho: And one more thing. You can put the soy sauce, I mean like soy sauce. John: Oh right. Sho: And also you can use this, uh, this chili miso. John: I tried it with soy sauce but there's a question I always wanted to ask a local. Ah, so is it common to add the wasabi into the soy sauce? Sho: I mean like you can do that but you are not supposed to do this. John: I always I always wondered about that. Sho: Well I mean if you eat a seafood bowl, you can put the wasabi into the soy sauce and mix with it and pour all over equally, but when you eat sushi, you are not supposed to do this. Cuz if you mix with wasabi into the soy sauce, the wasabi flavor and the spiciness is gone. So it's better to just put the soy sauce and grab some like a little bit wasabi onto the sushi. John: I'm always learning something new. I bet you they put wasabi under the.. Sometimes they put the wasabi on the rice so you don't need extra. Interesting. Dig into the soba noodles. With community food you can turn your chopsticks around to pick up the food from the dry ends. Dip and slurp. The air helps enhance the flavor. Tempura shrimp or "ebiten". It's of my favorites. I love tempura. Sho: We love tempura. John: Oh yeah because anything that's deep fried, you put that with an American. Together, it's perfect but you know there's always the image of Japanese food is super healthy. I don't know about tempura. Sho: Well actually like a tempura is originally from Portuguese. But like you know Japanese are like, you know, good at making it better. Tempura. Even ramen. Ramen from China. John: Tofu has flavor itself. But the soy sauce adds a little saltiness to it and the texture is an amazing contrast to the crispy tempura. Don't mind if I have one more of those for the road. You know, the diet starts tomorrow. We walk through Kabukichō towards the next place. This really is the brightest section of Tokyo, I think. All these lights also means so many restaurants, doesn't it? Sho: Yes, a lot. You know in Shinjuku ward, there are over 5,600 restaurants. John: Just around Shinjuku station, it is said that there are over 15 hundred restaurants including cafes and bars. That's a lot, but how'd it all start? Shinjuku means "new living quarters." It was a post town on the 17th century route to Nagano called "kōshū kaidō." This area opened in 1699 originally called "Naito-Shinjuku". Of course it had hotels, food, entertainment. The first stop after Nihonbashi. It's only gotten bigger and brighter over the years with Tokyo's Metropolitan government headquarters right here. We're now down there in Kabukichō, a notorious area that has undergone big renovations over the last several years offering many new attractions. For a first timer coming to Japan, I think walking around here, it is really hard to find a restaurant in particular. Unless you know exactly before we even come here where to go, to pick one out of a thousand? That's why we need a local guide, I would say. Ah here. Both: Wagyu John: Can you guess what's on the menu here? And I was very pleased to see the beef tracking number right at the door. I think when you go to any yakiniku restaurant, in fact any Japanese wagyu beef steak place around the world, you should be able to see this number. This is the the 10-digit number that is uh connected with the database that allows you to track where that wagyu was born and where it was processed. All of that should be front and center so you always know what you're getting and we found it right at the front when you first enter the restaurant. Very good sign. This is not just any brand of wagyu either. It's Kagoshima kuroge wagyu from south Kyūshū. The champion at the wagyu Olympics held every five years. Kagoshima now the reigning champ more than once. They take it pretty seriously here. I believe it's on par with Kobe beef so you're getting an amazing meal. The marbling on this A5 graded beef is incredible. Kampai! (Cheers!) The chef brings out four cuts and a plate of vegetables so you don't have to eat just meat here. Although you can if you want to. Sho: So like on the tour the reason why we take the yakiniku place I want I want... I mean, we want the guest try best wagyu in Shinjuku. So that's why we pick this place. John: And it didn't take long before it was on the grill. Wagyu beef can be eaten in so many ways: shabu shabu, sukiyaki, steak, raw as sushi. As an accent in dishes like curry rice. Although a little pricey, it's worth trying when in Japan. The marbling giving each bite extraordinary tenderness. Eat slowly. About 120 grams is usually my limit. This salt plate is pretty cool. And some wasabi for a little bite. Some "horumon", offal, or organ meat. This is part of the intestines. I recommend trying it once. It's popular in Shinjuku and the oils really build up a flame. A little crunch with the fats adding a light oily chew. Sho: Two places already. The first one is sushi and the second one was wagyu yakiniku. And tonight we are going to end it up the sake tasting. Let's go! Well like here in Japan, it's very common and going out for drinking with colleagues and even boss and even client after work. John: A lot of work gets done after work. Sho: And also like west side of Shinjuku there's office area a lot of like um the buildings and something, so after work they come to Kabukichō for drinking with colleagues or boss or clients. John: It's a lot of fun and I think when you go out to drink and you eat in this region you, this area, you're shoulder to shoulder with people that just got off of work. It's kind of an interesting experience, isn't it? Sho: It is it is.. really good. John: All walks of life in Shinjuku. Sho: Businessman, students, tourists, local people. Any kinds. John: I guess it's one of the attractions or you to come here? Sho: Exactly, exactly and this is the place to get to know new people and, uh you know, drinking and know talk to like, you know, some new friends, I mean strangers, the tourist. I think this is a good place to make a friend I guess. John: I think alcohol might play a big part in that because as I noticed when Japanese drink they also get really friendly. You make a lot of friends here. We went under the tracks to the old historic side of the city. An old alley that defies Father Time, preserving its Shōwa era roots of post-war Tōkyō. The shacks of Omoide Yokocho or Memory Lane is a living museum of close quarter eating bars with character that depends as much on the owner as the food. Sho knows a super local drinking spot for great sake. Sho: So this is our last place. We're going here called Kikuya. And underground. John: The basement. Sho: The basement yeah, so we going basement. John: Into the dungeons of old Shinjuku where magic happens in little shot sized glasses. Wow I love these small, little, out of the way bars. This place has Japanese sake from around the country. Many labels I've never heard of before which made things really exciting. The first sake called Koegiku from Saga prefecture in Kyūshū is unique. It's white, cloudy. Wait, what? The next one? We just got here. Wow so because it's it's kind of fresh, there's a little bit of bubbles in there? Sho: Yes. John: It's still alive kind of. Sho: Exactly. John: So it's a raw sake. Sho: Raw sake. John: Ah it's still sweet. I like that. It's a little bit of a natural sweetness. Sho: You can see like something in here. John: Oh yeah, there's some things floating in there. Sho: This is a rice and the koji and a lot of stuff. John: Don't talk. Drink or fall behind because the third one... This Kyōto sake is red like brandy. I heard it was an ancient recipe. Sake tasting can really challenge your palette like wine. Wow. Sweet. It's got almost something in between sake and umeshu to me. Sho: That's right. Actually I like this. John: I do like it very much. Oh one of the fun things about drinking sake quite often is the glass that it comes in. Look at that. This one is so smooth isn't it, dangerous. We sipped quite a bit. It's fun to try new sake. Take notes and compare when traveling, but sometimes you only have to go as far as Shinjuku, an old post town to get the riches of the country's cuisine. What an amazing foodie adventure. Thank you to Magical Trip for planning this with a local guide who can also help you prepare the rest of your trip by giving you recommendations. Sho told me of a ramen place just down the street for one last meal. Local guides like Sho really do introduce you to hidden gems that aren't in any guide book. There are a ton of other tours to check out with local guides on Magical Trip. Feel like you're going out with friends. If you liked it check out another adventure on ONLY in JAPAN as I take it every single corner of this amazing country. Mata ne! (See you again!)
