Cravings Satiated

In the UK I often went on a Sunday for Yum Cha. I adored Yum Cha. Really adored it. Since coming to Tokyo, the only time I've had Yum Cha is back last August when I went to Hong Kong.

My cravings had been getting really bad recently though and, in a fit of junkies desperation, I felt the only way to get rid of my cravings was by giving into them.

Hence three friends and I trotted off to Yokohama this morning to pay dues to my cravings. We went to Daichinro Shinkan on Chuka-gai Odori (143 Yamashita Cho - not that you can actually see any numbers anywhere), which had been recommended to me, and which I totally recommend in turn.

After a little wait, we went upstairs to the restaurant. I was expecting a trolley restaurant, but it wasn't. Dangerously though it was a two-hour tabehodai (tabehodai = stuff your face until your sick). And we really went for it. And the food just flowed and flowed and we just kept on ordering. At times we forgot to talk and just muttered appreciative grunts and moans. Fuck me, it was good!

And washed down with a few beers.

To say we were jointly in agony after this experience would be an understatement. The belly pain produced by our eyes-bigger-than-belly-fuck-this-menu-looks-amazing-and-we-gotta-get-our-moneys-worth attitued was something we paid for in BIG groans of pain as we all waddled out of the restaurant and through the streets of Yokohama and down to Yamashita Park where we collapsed and where I saw the final race in the Dragon Boat races that had been taking place the last couple of days. My friends were collapsed on the grass, groaning.

Thanks to a particularly loud and annoying loud speaker near us with the disembodied voices of two bints screeching out nonsense from somewhere (the tower with the speakers had no people in, as my friend discovered when she wandered over to tell them to hush up) we decided to waddle further away.

After a while of waddling later, and a lot more groaning about our bellies, we popped over to the attractions side of Yokohama (it wasn't a first visit for any of us and it was a beautiful day so we just thought: what the heck) and went on the big wheel, then waddled off for some coffees before waddling onto the train and heading back to Shibuya where we waddled into The Dubliners (Irish pub, if you didn't guess) for some quiet drinks. Unfortunately, the testosterone was running rampant and a large table of drunken lads were shouting, rather loudly, at a wrestling game on the TV in there. We had one drink and found ourselves ordering potato skins and dips, and humous and pitta bread, against the better judgments of our stomachs. The humous was seriously disappointing. I think they forgot to add the tahini and the garlic, and I am still on a mission to find edible and decent humous in Tokyo.

Anyway, the lads were generating so much noise we left and headed to The Hub (English pub) in Shinjuku for a drink before somehow finding ourselves drinking and singing in a karaoke can. Donno how that happened.

All in all, an extremely fun day, with good company, good food, enough booze and a hell of a lot of laughter!