Sake-Stomach-Soup
(Tokyo. Day 3. Part 1.)
11:30 am was lobby call for a good friend’s incredible magazine (Burn Magazine)… I awoke to Corey’s what’s app text (the greatest invention for over-seas band members; thank you As I Lay Dying for showing us this glorious app) asking, at about 11:00 am “You awake?"
Anyone that knows me, knows that I usually require a minimum of an hour to be ready for something (I am not sure what the heck takes so damn long… but it just does); so I leapt out of bed a felt a harsh "SWISSSHHHH” in my stomach. Booze soup. It hit my stomach like a cannon ball in the gut; whilst dropping down a roller-coaster; while drinking hot gravy. Not good.
We rushed to the nearest convenience store, grabbed food, prepped for the day in record time, and it was on to press. Today was a hard day… Corey and I looked pretty beat up - eyes watery, carrying that “don’t-let-the-cab-driver-hit-the-breaks-too-hard-go-splat” look on our faces. And Koji? Our super hard working friend at RR Japan… after dropping me off at the Yoshi-noya; waking from 2 hours of sleep to get his kids up and ready for school; into work to get some stuff done; then picking us both up for the longest day of the promo-trip. 2 hours of sleep. No food. And he rocked it. This man is a machine. Me and C? Not so much…
We pulled it together and rocked the press- some super fun Young Guitar instructional DVD shoots, and other great bits.
We had to stick to a lot of take away (which, with traditional Japanese food is pretty hard to find outside Onigiri and Gyu-don (we opted for the gyu-don (beef and onions, grilled, thrown over rice - usually eaten with a raw egg on top (which… for two food/booze hung-over metalboys with last night’s Jaeger and Shochu still arguing internally… not today…).
After the final day’s work - dinner time. The three of us all started to gleam a hint of optimism at the knowledge of the upcoming feast-feat.
Gompachi is a place I’ve been to a few times in the past; I’m not 100% clear on the style it’d be classified as - but my guess is slightly more upscale Izakaya joint.
(These places are near impossible for iPhone photos… don’t fret, Jon Paul Douglass (www.enthusiasmisnothing.com) is currently helping me figure out what “real-man’s” camera to buy for my food adventures (soon!!!).
Our diners included: Koji, Corey, Myself, and (!!!!) members from Dir En Grey: Kaoru and Die, and some of their management and publicity team accompanied as well. We’ve had the pleasure of meeting these two dudes before - and I was overly stoked to have been able to do some promo photos and interviews earlier with the two - since I’m a big fan of the band.
We started with edamame and pickled-lotus-root with sesame; onto the sea-urchin-looking deep-fried shrimp-balls. Jaw-dropping fried-greatness here. I think the texture wrapping the mashed shrimp mixture was Ramen, but fried onto the shrimp. Assorted Nigiri was next, along with one of my personal favorites - Uni (sea-urchin egg-sack, or roe). Tempura of vegetables and shrimp (make sure when you eat tempura, you put that little mountain of grated Daikon (Japanese radish) into the tempura sauce. It makes it even better than it already is.)
Yaki-tori skewers of peppers with fish flakes; some kind of mushroom or root (sometimes hard to tell after as many Kirin Heartlands that we had been downing); akebab/kofte like stick of ground chicken meat; and then straight up beef - all fantastic.