we're in Tokyo, Japan the food culture here is incredible so we're super
excited to be filming a bunch of food videos, let's get food hunting
Tokyo if
you love to eat, that word alone is enough to get you excited, in this video
we're taking you to where the locals eat we're checking out a hundred year old
institution churning out rice crackers and then we're off to an old-school
standing bar for offal skewers, liver, intestines and rectum they serve it all
get ready for some mouth-watering food I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're
Chasing a Plate, we hope you're hungry let's eat
we've come to the suburb of Asakusa to visit a shop which has been here since 1914
and they make one thing and one thing only and that is senbei or rice
crackers, let's go and see how they do it
we've picked up our senbei or our rice cracker and how they make it is
they take a rice dough and they leave it out in the sunshine for three days
before cooking it and when it comes to cooking the senbei they do it right here
in the shop so you can watch the guys cooking them over charcoal and there
seems to be two types of grill so there's one guy who's got the hot
charcoal with just a wire rack and then he's turning the senbei with a pair of
really long chopsticks and then the other guy has a senbei contraption so the
senbei are all lined up on a type of rack and then he pulls the lever which flips
the rack and the senbei over those hot charcoals and then once they're done
they get dipped into a soy sauce mixture and then that's it, this is it, the final
product and it's really hot still and has a beautiful smoky smell let's get into
it
mmmm whoa it's super hard and it's very dry but its got a really beautiful aroma
of roasted rice, so it's smoky and it's got a really strong rice flavour, mmmm
it's really really dry, the soy mixture that the rice cracker has been dipped into
it's got a really subtle, salty flavour the overwhelming flavour is that of the
rice, its really, really good
that was a great first little snack for today's video
really simple but super delicious we're now heading to our next stop
but on the way there we're passing through one of the most popular tourist
spots in Tokyo, we are in Asakusa and we are gonna head over to Sensoji temple
it's a Buddhist temple and it's the oldest in Tokyo and it is a really
really popular spot with travellers
it's a really hot day today so we decided we would grab a cold beer
we've left Asakusa and we've come to a different part of town to hunt down this
izakaya or Japanese pub which is famous for its grilled organ meats let's
go
this is a really neat izakaya it's right on a street corner so we're standing on the
footpath we've got a little table which is on some beer crates and we've got
some cold beers, crowds of workers heading home from work, all around us
smoke pouring out of the, from the grills and we've got our first snack so this is nikomi
which is a tripe and intestine so we've got some beef intestine and
some beef tripe it's in a sort of a thin oily liquid and it has some nice finely
cut spring onions on to, I've just got to get a bit of everything to start off ohhhh come here
alright tripe and intestines
mmmm
oh yea
mmmm
that is really really good sometimes intestines can be a little bit chewy and badly cooked these are
perfectly cooked they've been slowly cooked in this
liquid, so the liquid is super beefy and then the intestines go down an absolute treat
oh and there's a huge bit of tofu in there as well so a bit of
grilled tofu hiding underneath it all that is delicious I'm gonna get some
more so I've got some tofu and some intestines
mmmmm
the spring onions are super fresh so they're a
little bit crunchy, tangy and then I didn't have any tripe from that bite
but in the first bite I had tripe
and it's so soft, it's like a super soft beautiful piece of fat just off the edge
of a steak, it's what it tastes like actually it is really, really tasty
Thomas raved about this nikomi so I have got to give it a go as well and I've
just put some red pepper flakes on that alright let's get some tofu and some of that intestine
oh man, mmm, mmmm, mmmmm
that is beautiful, it doesn't look overly appealing but the flavour is sensational
the intestines are really, really tender
almost creamy in their texture and then that red pepper just adds a little bit of spice
thank you very much
and then the spring onions a real freshness that is delicious
this place is famous for this and this is tataki so it is minced pig
gristle and they've sort of shaped it onto a skewer and it's just bathing in
this sort of oily sauce and it's been sprinkled with maybe some dried spring
onion or parsley I'm not too sure and the thing is with this tataki
you're only allowed to order one per customer and they only do 120 sticks
a day so luckily we got here really early and got our order in let's give
it a taste
oh my gosh
gristle never tasted so good that is insane, it's really crunchy from the bits of
bone and the gristle but its got so much flavour it's got a beautiful pork flavour and then I think
its maybe um
Chives? Dried chives? They're giving it a beautiful sort of freshness but
man! Go for another bite
a little bit sweet, very savoury, a little bit salty this is sensational
these beers are going down a
treat in this hot weather but I want to try this dish that Sheena just had oooo
that is beautiful so it's a really, like a really lightly packed sausage
obviously without the casing, so it's packed on there like a kebab would be
really loose really easy to eat, packed with chives and they're still a little bit
crunchy actually they haven't like gone to mush they've just cooked down
and I love the crunchy bits I
think Sheena said bone she meant cartilage so there's just lovely little
bits of cartilage in there, that's sensational, I mean pig's cartilage skewer that
doesn't sound appealing but that is really really good
One rectum and....
Two piece in one set
One liver and...
yes
One head meat please
okay so we have ordered another round of beers and then an array of skewers so
these are the organ meats that this place is really famous for and we've got
some teppo which is pigs rectum, reba which is pigs liver and then
kashira which is meat from the head and then with it there's a splodge of
mustard and also you can order either sauce or salt to go with it and we opted
for salt
sprinkle a bit of salt on this rectum, now I've never eaten rectum
before so I'll give it a little dunk in the mustard
its beautifully charred
mmm, whoa, mmmmm
its a little chewy
its got a sort of fattiness to it sort of slimy inside, a little bit chewy, nice and crunchy on the outside
that mustard is, is really really strong that's quite spicy like chilli sort of spicy
mustard spicy, you know hot, so a hot mustard
mmmm oooo okay, now I'm really starting to get the flavour
of the rectum, its good
really good, tastes a little bit like intestines
that is very tasty, quite chewy, I've still got quite a lot in my mouth
but not chewy in a uncomfortable way doesn't feel
like I'll just be chewing for hours and not getting anywhere it feels like I'm just chewing to
get the flavour out, that is really tasty and quite salty from that salt that
salt is very strong quite sulphur-y, it's really nice
I'm gonna give this reba or the pig's liver a go so you can see that it's sort
of a little bit charred where it's been over that hot charcoal and then there's
already salt on there but I might just add a little bit more and then swipe it
through that mustard or give it a little dab alright
mmmm, ohhhhh
that mustard went right up my nose it's really strong, that's really good, the liver
has been cooked to perfection, it's not gritty, it's really creamy it's got a
beautiful flavour, it's not overly tasting of iron if you know what I mean, sometimes liver
can taste very offal like in a bad way, this doesn't it's beautiful
it's very creamy, very rich and then the bits where it's hit that charcoal, where its had that heat from that
charcoal on it are a slightly bit crispy, that's really good
now let's have this kashira so the meat
from the head of the pork and you can see these massive fatty bits at the end and
then some nice meaty bits in the middle so once again we'll just salt that, a
little bit, I want to get some mustard on a meaty bit and a fatty bit and I want to
get the fatty bit and that meaty bit in one
mmmm
oh that mustard is insane
it's so strong, just goes straight up your nose it's really good
oh that fat is so juicy
had a little bit of a crust on the outside where it's been sitting on the charcoals
a little bit caramelised and then the inside is really juicy so it popped with juice
and the meaty bit is completely the opposite, it's very lean so it's actually
just got a beautiful meatiness to it it's not just fattiness so it's a really good
contrast when you get the bite with the fat and the meat from the head so
because it's head meat it's very soft but it's nice and lean,
ohhh that is very very tasty I love the caramelised charcoal
bits all along the outside of both bits of that as well so on the fat and the
meat you've got this burnt, caramelised, beautiful flavour, really good
that was my kind of
heaven standing on the street drinking cold beer
really delicious smoky barbecued meats, it was perfection
that was a great experience at that izakaya, we loved it, but we've got to be
totally honest it's a couple of days later we really enjoyed the beers that
went with those skewers, probably a bit too much, a little bit too much and so we never got around to
filming any more food for that video so this one's gonna be just those two
things both were awesome the izakaya was a really local spot and
that rice cracker shop was just, it was really cool to observe them making
those rice crackers so if you're in Tokyo definitely visit both of those
spots if you get a chance, thank you so much for watching remember to hit that
subscribe button lots more Tokyo food videos and then
after Tokyo we head to Indonesia so tons more food videos to come and if you're
in Tokyo check out where we are now we're on the roof of the central post
office and it has an incredible view of Tokyo Station it's really neat
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mata ne (see you!)