Lunch on a boiling hot day at “Gyoza Ichigoro”, Ueno

Good evening.
Thank you very much for visiting this blog.

Today’s report is about a restaurant in Ueno, “Gyoza Ichigoro”.

Contents

Ueno in a hot lunch time

The day was the last Friday of July.
I was in Ueno on the day the temperature was extremely high.

I was there to get my resident’s card at Taito Ward Office.
I mentioned that I have a license called “Chiefs of Money Lending Operations” in a previous blog.
This license needs to be renewed periodically, and 3 official certificates are required at the renewal; the person’s ID, the certificate to prove that the person is not registered as a guardian, and the resident’s card.

2 of the 3 documents, the certificate to prove that I’m not a guardian, and the resident’s card, were the purpose of visiting Ueno on that day.
You might think that it would be more convenient if I asked to send them by post. but I went to the office ~~to go out from my office~~ to save postal fee.

The time I got the resident’s card at the Taito office was around half passed 1 in the afternoon.
I walked to the area under the rail bridge of Ueno Station from the office in the hottest hour in a day to find a restaurant for lunch.

There were many restaurants on the way, but because I was not good at making a decision quickly, I had to walk for almost 30 minutes in the extreme hot temperature.
When I was thinking that I would seriously fall down due to the severe heat, a restaurant which I hadn’t seen before, appeared in front of me around the back of Marui.
The restaurant was “Gyoza Ichigoro”.

I found that the prices on the sign boards were not so high, and the inside of the restaurant looked nice.
There were many, but not too many customers.
It seemed comfortable for me, so I decided to take lunch there.

Gyoza Ichigoro

In the room, there was a kitchen at right of the entrance, 5 counter seats in front of the kitchen.
The left side were long table seats.
It was a typical Izakaya restaurant.

The time was almost 2, but there were 5 groups of customers.
One of them was a group of 4 or 5 people.
They were already enjoying some alcoholic drinks, maybe because they had finished big work of the day.

I imagined that the lunch party was the idea of one of them who looked like the boss.
It should have been more than great to drink during the work in daytime.

I have done it once with my boss when I was in the previous work.
Drinking alcohol in working hours in daytime is not what is praised, but it’s not illegal at all.
It was a little exciting because I felt as if I was brave enough to break the common rule.

By the way, I remembered what a sales manager said to a salesman.
He was just keeping explaining the details of the product because he hesitated to say, “Please buy this!”.
The manager said

“A salesman who drinks but sells more is better than another who is sober but sells less.”

I made it simpler than what he actually said, but he meant it^^;

My previous company did sales by phone, so the sales people couldn’t go out of the office until they managed to get appointments.
Therefore, the customers wouldn’t know if the salesperson was drunk, anyway.
The words represented the base mind of the company!

Drinking before seeing customers or desk works is not appropriate, but after work is ok even if it’s daytime.
The day was Friday.
Finishing work early and get some drinks for refreshment, and go home at the closing time will be regarded as the better style of working, not like old sense of values.

The menu

In such a happy room of this restaurant, I drunk up my glass of cold water, and started to check the menu book.

Maybe because of the environment in my childhood, I had thought that it’s world’s common sense to order Gyoza (Chinese dumpling of minced meat, vegetables, etc) together with Ramen.
Therefore, I had never ordered only Gyoza or only Ramen.
I always took Ramen at “Gyoza no Osho”, which is Gyoza restaurant, too.

However, since I started a diet, I changed my mind.
I started to think that lunch is just for taking the minimum energy required for the afternoon’s work.
I chose “Gyoza Meal”, which doesn’t include Ramen, because the volume was enough.

At the bottom of the page, I found some side dishes.
There were salad, Kara-age (Japanese deep fried chicken), and so on.

When I find Kara-age at restaurants, I always order it to compare the characteristics of Kara-age of each restaurant.
Unfortunately, however, it is not good for my diet, so it’s very convenient if I could choose a small serve like this restaurant.

“Gyoza Meal” also had a half serve.
It was very convenient for people who care about their intake calorie.

Gyoza Meal

After I finished ordering, I checked the other parts of the menu book.

In the drink menu, there were many kinds such as beer, Shochu (distilled clear liquor), sour cocktails, wine, whisky, and Nihonshu.
There were 5 labels of Nihonshu including “Otokoyama” and “Gokai”.
There was a sake called “Junmaishu Goro”, and it looked like the original brand of the restaurant.

For the food menu, there were various kinds of Gyoza; normal Gyoza, Sui-gyoza (boiled gyoza), and Age-gyoza (deep fried gyoza).
In addition, there were unique ones such as cheese-gyoza, coriander-gyoza, Taki-gyoza (another type of boiled gyoza), and gyoza-cutlet.
While I was unable to eat outside due to over-working and too little salary, Japan’s gyoza culture had developed so much.

While I was impressed by the unique menus, my salad, Kara-age, and Gyoza Meal arrived.

“Oh, Gyoza is the full volume…?”
I learnt later that the normal serve was 10 Gyoza.
So it was indeed a half serv.

My parents ran a Ramen restaurant, and 1 serve of Gyoza was 6, so I thought that 5 Gyoza was too much.
What is learned in the cradle is carried to the grave.
The photo of their Gyoza in the menu was indeed 10. I just overlooked it^^;

Well, I started my lunch from Gyoza.

It was nice!
It tasted of Chinese chive and garlic, but it wasn’t so strong.
The skin outside was crispy, and each piece was dense and compact.
It was not too oily nor thick, and delicious.

The next was Kara-age.

Arare crackers were mixed in the coating, and it made the texture very crispy.
The flavor was orthodox soy-sauce flavor.
It wasn’t too thick nor weak.

Maybe because I had walked in the hot temperature for a long time, my body wanted more salt.
I added some salt on the table.

The salty taste and rice matched perfectly!
When I was in the 5th year of waiting and studying for the entrance exam for university, I was very poor for some reasons.
While I was in the final spurt for the exam, what I ate everyday was only steamed rice and salt.
I remembered the old days when I had the lunch.
The rice with salt was sadly good…

Well, now I can go to restaurants in Tokyo, and I can have Kara-age and Gyoza with rice.
The standard of my life has developed!

I finished the meal.

Both Gyoza and Kara-age had rather light taste, but the texture was nice.
I would be able to eat them much more with whisky and soda or sour cocktails.

The atmosphere of the restaurant was very casual and relaxing.
I thought that it would be good for both the first place, and the second or later to stay slowly.

They had more food menus which looked nice, so I want to try again in dinner time. I finished my lunch, and went out to the temperature which was hotter than my body.