Fast food worth lingering over
The bright yellow sign calls down over the busy, narrow sidewalk like a grandmama from the old country exhorting her brood to come to table. "EAT EAT," it shouts. Do as you're told: Go in and sit down. We did. And we ate. We ate very well indeed.
Apart from the neon up above, there's little to indicate this blink-and-you-miss -it hole-in-the-wall diner is anything special. But, as we've learned so many times in this city, you don't judge a restaurant by the width of its shop front or the length of its history.
Eat — for that is its punchy, no-nonsense name — only opened last summer, but it didn't take long for the word to reach the street: Tokyo's got a hot new "premium burger" joint. We found out it's got a lot more to offer besides.
There are three tiny wooden tables where you can perch by the window, but the seven leopard-skin-print bar stools at the counter are cozier and more comfortable. We shoehorned ourselves in by the narrow open kitchen and settled back. Certainly we were there for the burgers. But what was the hurry? Why not start with a couple of snacks?
First up, a plate of chips and dips to go with that initial bottle of Lowenbrau (there's also Yebisu on draft, or Corona for the truly homesick). Instead of standard-issue corn chips out of the package, we were given a plate of crisp tortilla chips cooked in-house with a couple of tasty dips — a piquant homemade salsa with fine-diced tomato, pimento and onion; and a smooth, creamy guacamole. We were impressed from the get-go.
We were also intrigued to find a menu of weekly specials that was far from the norm for a fast-food restaurant. It wasn't the weather for chilled carrot and ginger soup, but we certainly felt like trying the seafood gumbo. It didn't disappoint. Dark, rich and nicely spiced with both chili and black pepper, it includes clams, fine-cut squid, carrot, mushrooms, and even the crumbs of broken-up chips for extra texture.
We weren't going to risk spoiling our appetite for burgers by ordering the sirloin steak (from wagyu — Japanese black Angus cattle) or the beef stew. But we just had to try the confit of duck; first because it seems so unlikely to find this standard of French cuisine in a fast-food joint, and second because it's one of our all-time favorite dishes.
The flavorful leg meat was neither too dry nor too salty (two common faults), and had plenty of good crisp skin. It looked appetizing too, served with a tart cassis jam that was drizzled artistically in concentric circles over the plate. Clearly, this had to be the work not of some hired grill-hand but a proper trained cook.
And so it turned out: Eat's cheerful chef, Michi Takahashi, ran a highly regarded restaurant in Los Angeles until 2008. Now back in Tokyo, he may have started up in modest premises, but he's not scaling back on quality.
E*A*T
2-12-27 Kita-Aoyama, Minato-kutel: (03) 6459-24324
Open: 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5:30-10:30 p.m. (Sunday 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m.).
Nearest station: Gaienmae (Ginza Line)
2-12-27 Kita-Aoyama, Minato-kutel: (03) 6459-24324
Open: 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5:30-10:30 p.m. (Sunday 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m.).
Nearest station: Gaienmae (Ginza Line)
