Tokyo Day 2

The next day, I retraced some of my steps in daylight, confirming again that prices for designer goods are ridiculous (100% more than London, by my estimation, in some cases) and spending ages in Omote-sando Hills, the recently (two years ago) opened Ando-designed shopping mall, which cleverly takes after Wright's Guggenheim in following a spiral from top to bottom, meaning that you're more or less forced to go past all of the shops. I bought a lot of things I don't really need, but such is the nature of the beast.
I also headed to the Meiji shrine, just to the east of there – it is probably the most important shrine in Tokyo (albeit not the oldest, by some margin) and is positioned in a lovely park, which was looking very beautiful in the cold winter sunshine. There's also the old Imperial garden there, with a pond with huge koi carp, an Iris garden etc. All very lovely – photos, again, to follow.
After that, I grabbed lunch in Maisen, the tonkatsu pork place that is quite small and tends to have queues round the block for people to get lunch or an afternoon snack. It was, as with everything, delicious and I'm tempted to go back there as I type this.
I headed home in the afternoon – again, for a little sleep and to get ready for dinner, which I'd booked ages in advance. Usukifugu Yamadaya (in the photo) is one of Tokyo's two best (according to Michelin, at least) fugu restaurants – that's blowfish, to the Western world. I had read how long it takes to fully master the art of processing and preparing the lethally-poisonous-if-not-done-right fugu and had seen glowing reviews of Yamadaya on Chowhound and other foodie sites, so was curious to try it. The fact that it had just been awarded two Michelin stars, in spite of only having opened a year previously, was also a recommendation of sorts.
The dinner was great, as expected: Ed and I decided to go for one of the menus, which was described fairly vaguely by our (delightful and sweetly coy) waitress when we chose it, but was explained in stunning detail once the dishes arrived. After a couple of small courses of little bits of pork and chicken as starters, fugu began arriving – as sashimi (served with chives and monkfish liver and dipped in ponzu), as tempura, fugu semen sacs on sushi and, finally, in a broth that was prepared on a hotplate at the table – even the fins were used in hot, smoky-fish-smelling sake. It was very unusual to have an entire meal based around one ingredient, but it was the perfect time to do it (because of breeding patterns, fugu is best in winter) – and the perfect place, with typically Japanese footwear-off for patrons, attentive service and a subtly-yet-beautifully decorated private room.
The taste of the fugu was subtle, as much to do with texture as it was with taste in the Western sense (though I think I'm not being unfair when I say that a lot of Japanese cuisine is self-consciously about texture, so this is not a surprise). The way it is served added to the taste – which was not very “fishy” (except when smoked in the sake) and quite subtle. After a while, one could feel a very-barely-perceptible tingling in the mouth, which was pleasant and added to the layers of taste (this is, actually, one of the effects of tetradotoxin, the poison inside the fish and, if it develops further, is the first indicator that a potentially lethal dose has been ingested. There are currently no known antidotes, with the victim being paralysed-but-conscious as their organs shut down; the main treatment is a lot of fluids to try and speed up the liver and kidney function in processing the toxin and expelling it from the body).