Failure To Lunch

Rule of thumb: when in Rome, New York, or Tokyo, do as the locals do. Or, more specifically, eat where they eat! This simple approach has saved me many many francs, lire, euros, dollars, yen...and has allowed me to experience gastronomic adventures unavailable to tourists on the beaten trap , er track. Hee. I've been in Tokyo almost every year for the last half-decade, and the Japanese capital is no exception to my very handy rule. Granted, eating like a local may mean grabbing a bento from the nearest Maruetsu or slurping down piping hot soba/udon from one of those "espresso" (read: standing room only) noodle shops that sell tickets from vending machines, but hey, if it's good for the がちょう, it's good for the gaijin! Some of the most spectacular (non-fast food/carry-out) meals I've had have been with locals/semi-locals: early morning chirashizushi at Tsukiji; overflowing sake, Kirin, yakitori, and all sorts of delectable delights at rowdy izakayas; and

A Chinese meal without fried rice is just about as unthinkable as french fries without ketchup - you'll live through the experience, but there's something just wrong. One of my biggest frustrations about Chinese lauriats is that fried rice is served as the penultimate course, if at all (I am not Chinese, so kindly forgive this philistine); it would have gone sooo well with everything else that came before it. But anyway. Of all the variations of Chinese fried rice, Yang Chow (as popularly spelled in the Philippines, but elsewhere known as Yeung Chow, Yangzhou Chow, Yung Chow) is my go-to favorite. And because it is so easy to come by in these parts, I never really quite bother making it, partly because of the required day-old rice (cooked rice runs out very quickly in my household), and mainly because a 24-hour Kowloon House is conveniently on the way home/delivers in less than half an hour (best deal ever of PhP32 for a half order which feeds two + a short order of