Hunting Down Dinner in Shibuya, Tokyo

A local friend took me to an izakaya called Zaraku in Shibuya tonight. We ordered a number of items, including a Hakata motsunabe that turned out to be the highlight of the evening with its deliciously fatty bits of intestines spiked with a touch of dried chili peppers, all simmering in a rich tonkotsu broth. The basashi above wasn't as tasty as I remembered the stuff being, but that might just be because my memory has gotten a bit warped over the years. Either way, this place totally hit the spot and was a good start to the evening.



I still needed a bit more food though, so we hunted a bit more around Shibuya. I wanted to find a place that locals went to, and we ended up at some place called Tokyo Gaku Yumeyatai (I'm not sure how local it really was in the end, seeing how they brought us an English menu later). We got a few skewers to go with our drinks, while that thing in the foreground was some kind of beef stomach thing. One of these days it'd be interesting to check out one of those little 5-seater places in the alleyway behind Zaraku, although presumably they only cater to regular customers.



Now, this gyudon above wasn't exactly from Shibuya - it was just something that I grabbed on my way back to the hotel, as I still needed a bit more food. So I stopped at this outlet of Nakau, the last of the four big gyudon chains in Japan that I hadn't tried yet. I couldn't really tell much of a difference, although it was nice to be able to sprinkle some sansho on it. For future reference, these guys also seem to be serving udon.