🇯🇵 Where Bourdain Ate in Tokyo

Tony said this was the greatest show he's ever seen, better than Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and David Bowie live. He saw the show called Robot Wars.

"Definition of a hole in the wall," says Tony.

There used to be a boxing gym in Toshima called Yurakura Gym, but I could not find it on the map.

Tony loves Yasuda in NYC, and wanted to find out why the chef, whom the restaurant is named for, would suddenly move back to Tokyo. Yasuda said that Japan is the origin of sushi, so he wanted to return to where it was created. Yasuda is also a karate master.

Tony meets with Tamika (a professional dominatrix; Kinoko Hajime, a shibari (Japanese form of rope bondage) artist and Tamika’s partner; and Naga, a translator also joined) at this Izakaya restaurant. They have Kusaia, which is grilled fermented fish, yakitori, and motsunabe (intestine stew with miso).

Tony had a meal with Toshio Maeda, the manga illustrator credited with inventing tentacle porn. They ate katsuo no tataki (seared bonito with daikon, fresh greens, sprouts, and ponzu) and tomato nabe (a hot pot of meat and vegetables favored by sumo wrestlers).

Tony had a meal with Chef Yasuda, they had kushiage (fried skewers of shrimp and basil, lotus fruit, octopus, and quail eggs) and okonomiyaki (egg-batter pancake stuffed with squid). Yasuda lives near here and loves this place.

One of the BEST sushi places in the world. Masa learned here. They had seared horse mackerel over green onion and ginger, maguro (bluefin tuna), Japanese tiger prawn, octopus, fluke sashimi, striped jack, anago (sea eel) rolled in seaweed, and tamagoyaki (breaded shrimp eggs and fish paste)

Tony and Chef Morimoto ate soba noodles here. They have been making soba noodles by hand here since 1789

Fancy cocktails at one of the best bars in Tokyo, in Shibuya

This is Chef Morimoto's flagship restaurant. He prepared monkfish many different ways for Tony.

Yakitori, or Japanese BBQ, mostly chicken.

A nomiya, which is a tiny bar where late shift workers go out after work

Former site of Ivan Ramen, a restaurant that has since closed. The owner opened a spot in New York by the same name.

Tony and Chef Ivan ate this restaurant that serves grilled eel.

Chef Rene Redzepi met with Tony to eat here. Spinach with codfish sperm.

I am not sure if this is the exact location where David Chang introduced Tony to this convenience store, which he later wrote about several times in his future visits to Japan. It is a chain of stores, and both David and Tony loved the egg salad sandwich and the chicken nuggets here.

Tony met up with David Chang again after the Cook it Raw competition and had yakitori.

Fresh fish market

Kendo master Tadao Todo did a kendo demonstration for Tony