Boy Restaurants

I have had several posts in which I talk about cafes - which, of course are meant for eating cake, not drinking coffee. These tend to put great effort into designing an atmosphere that will attract a female crowd. They tend to be trendy and chic or decorated in a more tuscan theme. That sort of thing. On the flip side of that, there are also what we have come to term "Boy Restaurants." These are restaurants that often cater to men on their lunch hour. While the girls head off to the fancy cafes and restaurants, the boys look for something a little bit grungier and less pretentious.

These boy restaurants have been mentioned in this blog before. You might remember that one of Nicole's three "worsts" while she was in Kobe was:

"No dude restaurants (due to Gwen being too girly)."

Gwen quickly replied in the comments with:

"'too Girly' meaning I wouldn't eat at a filthy restaurant"

The particular restaurant to which they were referring was a Gyuudon place near the train station. Gyuudon (in case you have not been studying your Japanese food flashcards) is the beef over a bowl of rice that Russell is so good at making. Russell had been to the Gyuudon place by the station and had come home raving about it, but as Gwenn pointed out, its a little more than seedy looking. I hadn't put it too high on my priority list to try it out. Today, however, Russell suggested going and figured, why not? I have to say, it was one of the best meals I have had in Japan (although my next post is going to blow it out of the water, so stay tuned).

The restaurant is small (it probably can only seat about 10 people on stools around a U shaped bar. Before you sit down, you buy a ticket for whatever you want to eat out of a vending machine. We have seen these in several other restaurants, and of course at the cafeterias where I work, and they really are quite clever. Since you buy your ticket before you sit down, the restaurant doesn't have to handle any money. In fact, this particular restaurant is run by only one man. All he does is cook and clean up after patrons when they are finished. Its quite efficient. Russell and I each got a ticket for gyuudon and we sat down. The fellow behind the bar came out, took our tickets and returned maybe 5 minutes later with a tray and three bowls. The big bowl was the guudon, the middle bowl had some broth with bits of seaweed and peppery shitake mushroom slices in it, and the last little bowl had some kimchee in it (spicy Korean pickled cabbage if you have never tried it before). Everything was delicious. The Gyuudon was different from Russell's gyuudon. There were larger, but still thinly sliced pieces of beef that had been grilled perfectly and laid over half of the rice in the bowl. By grilled perfectly I mean they were fully cooked but super tender and tasted like the best steak you've ever had - even though they were very thin cuts. The other half of the rice was covered in shredded cabbage. All together the meal cost $6 and I was quite full afterwards. It was delicious.

I have to admit, though, the place is absolutely a boy's restaurant. The walls started at a grease flecked off white color at the bottom and about half way up started slowly getting darker and darker until the color was more of a dark brown at the top. The ceiling was black. This was all due to the smoke from the grill and an apparent lack of any sort of attention for quite some time. The posters on the wall were all sun-faded and covered in a similar caramel patina. Everything we came in direct contact with (the bowls, the counter top, etc. ) seemed perfectly clean, but this did strike me as the kind of place you would need some encouragement to try out. Considering I have never had better gyuudon anywhere, though, consider yourselves encouraged.