Jiro!

Maybe you have seen Jiro Dreams of Sushi, the documentary that came out earlier this year to rave reviews...


Now that his restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro is mega-famous. We decided to try it for ourselves.

His flagship restaurant was way booked...but we managed to score a rezzie at his youngest son's restaurant in Roppongi Hills, which is pretty much identical.

It is located in the nondescript corner of a little shopping center above a Ferragamo store. Pretty tough to find if you don't know what you're looking for.

And it's just a tiny restaurant, with just 11 or so seats total.

Riding the worldwide fame of their movie, Jiro & Sons could pretty much charge whatever they wanted for dinner at their restaurant.

Dinner is served omakase style (aka the chef decides what to serve you) and was around three-hundo per person...but honestly I'm sure if they were charging eight-hundo we crazy tourists would still fork that shit over for what is generally recognized as "the best sushi in the world".

And it is REALLY good...but I'm not a sushi connoisseur...and I'm not sure it's worth the exorbitant pricing if you're not able to differentiate between good sushi and epic sushi (I cannot)...

Actually, the only sushi I do eat lots of is tuna. And I could tell that this tuna was OUT OF THIS WORLD delicious. It was like tuna-butter. You put it in your mouth and the thing just MELTED with deliciousness and flavor.

Same goes for the toro...

There were a couple things that made us gag a little...like the sardine... yech. I almost puked a little and ended up needing a big beer chaser to get it down.

The uni (sea urchin) too was supposed to be incredible. According to the sushi-lovers around me, they were moaning and groaning over how sweet and delicious and creamy it was...I wasn't a huge a fan though.

Mmmmmm....clam...

Mmmmmmm...mackerel...(aka buttock smackerel)...

Mmmmm....scarrop...

Mmmmm...succulent eel...

Mmmmmmm....egg thing...

Afterwards...superchef Jiro (I'm actually not sure if his son's name is also Jiro but I'm going to call him Jiro) came out and chatted with us and asked about my height and stuff (obvi).

And we took a picture with the celebrity chef.

Derrricious! Definitely a good choice if you want a once-in-a-lifetime sushi experience and are a sushi lover. But there's plenty of great sushi in Tokyo if you can't tell the difference great and epic sushi and want to save yourself a little cash.

Roppongi Hills / Mori Art Museum

My first day in Tokyo was before Eugene and Erik and Roger arrived.

Thanks to the wonder of Facebook, I found out that my long-lost high school friend RyujiYamaguchi happened to also be in town visiting family while I was there (he lives in Jordan) and so I jumped at the opportunity to have him as a tour guide.

We met up at Roppongi Hills, the glorious upscale shopping complex and commercial center just down the street from Aly's apartment where I was crashing.

And we had an awesome soba and tempura lunch.

Ryuji had the ten-don and I had the katsu-don and it was THE BEST katsu-don I've ever had in my life.

That, and it was from a restaurant we just chose randomly because we happened to walk by it...so Japanese food really IS better here in Japan.

After lunch, we went up to the top of Roppongi Hills, where they have an art museum on the 65th floor.

They were having a special exhibition featuring the art of Aida Makoto.

Photos weren't allowed...but here are some of the pieces that were featured. They were really large-scale canvases that took up entire rooms and were extremely detailed. If you click on the pics and expand them you might be able to see better.

This was a monstrous canvas of fighter planes destroying New York City.

Below on the left there is a huge one of a giant blender full of beautiful naked girls...

And this was my favorite. "Ash Mountains". The canvas was like the size of a tennis court.

If you looked up close, the mountains are made up of thousands and thousands of office workers in suits and uniforms...

Here are a couple pictures I did manage to sneak...

After the Art Museum, we went up to the top floor which features 360 degree views of the city...

Tokyo is so huge...

On our way out of Roppongi Hills we passed by a dog grooming studio. Funniest thing I've ever seen.

This dog was loving it.

Tokyo is just full of funny Engrish or lost-in-translation types of things...

A popular clothing store...

Some really popular J-Pop bands...

Finally...before an epic dinner (at Jiro), we stopped in Ginza to meet up with Risa ("Lisa?"..."NO!, Risa.") for happy hour beers and snacks at a streetside hole-in-the-wall.

Yummy!!!

Loves a Gyoza on a stick!

Next I will tell you about $300 Jiro sushi which obviously deserves its own post...