moominmolly | and then we... i... and it wobbled, see... (Reply)

If you are ever, ever, ever in Tokyo, skip the damn Ninja restaurant and go to this tiny basement bar called Kagaya. It's run by a complete lunatic named Mark Kagaya. He has written his (Japanese-only) menu in crayon inside a notebook -- you can order one of a few drinks, and also a "style" (i.e., you pick a country name from a short list). Mine was Brasilian -- he ducked into a back closet and came out with music blaring, wearing a green-and-yellow soccer jersey, puffy red tulle around his arms, and a big red stuffed crab on his head, waving his hips and dancing around the room. Then, he brought me a drink in a glass that wouldn't stay still once you picked it up off the table. I was far too alarmed to do anything other than laugh. But when he came out with David's "French" drink:

There's a charcoal portrait of me, now.

His drink came in this highly suspect item:

Mark, the owner, brought out hand puppets to explain his various food systems. I have to say, I really wish we'd had enough time to take advantage of the "Mark brings us whatever food and drink he wants all evening" option, but instead, we just got "light snacks". That's all, just "light snacks". He brought us seasoned sesame spinach with orange zest, some unbearably good tofu veggie scramble thing, dried fried radish done up like pad thai, and spicy baked pumpkin. An uninspiring glimpse:

When it came time to leave, he squeaked "David!" into a little animatronic frog doll, which hopped around the room repeatedly squeaking "David! DAVID! DAVID!" at various pitches, and Mark kept time with it himself: