Asadachi (Morning wood) a place where they serve stamina food!
Also what the Japanese call ゲテモノ Getemono or grotesque foods.
Asadachi is located in the dirty backstreets of Shinjuku which is a quick walk from the west or east exit from Shinjuku station. It was a little difficult to find the place at first because of its location but if you have a smart phone it shouldn't be a problem. Ever since I saw the television review of this place I had to check it out. It was a little difficult to get information on the place in English but I managed to find the phone number and hours of business. The only problem was that the owner never picks up his phone and the business hours are actually from 2pm- and not from 12pm. When I first arrived at Asadachi there were already three other people sitting down and not much room left, but I managed. The reason I wanted to go was to eat the raw frog that they serve but they only serve that from May to September if I remember correctly. According to the owner the place has been open for more than 40 years. They have been serving things from raw pig penis, raw cow heart, raw frog, turtle hotpot, grilled frogs legs to grilled salamander. They also have a variety of regular foods you can choose from. I asked the owner many questions about the place and seemed to be proud that his place was famous its own right but kept saying that even though people from the newspaper in Japan and from television shows come to do interviews with him he doesn't really care and still treats everyone the same. Everything they serve was written in a cursive style kanji you can see in the next photo. The prices are not written so if you are not looking forward to spending a lot make sure you ask how much everything is before you order it. Also I am sure there was a small table charge.
As I mentioned before the list of items on the menu are on the wall written in kanji. If your Japanese isn't so good please invite a Japanese friend to go with. If you look at the top of this photo you will see a bunch of things hanging. These are turtle shells left over from people who have ordered the turtle hotpot. The cost is about 10,000 yen which is about 100USD. After you finish your turtle meal you can write your name on the shell and have it hung at Asadachi.
Asadachi has two floors but the second floor is especially for people who order the turtle hotpot.
This is the "complementary" cooked beef heart salad they gave me which also came with a small order of potato salad. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good.
This is the grilled scallop which cost me about 800Yen. I love raw scallop over cooked scallops so I was not very impressed with this one.
Did you already take a guess at what this is?
If you guessed that it was raw pig’s penis then you guessed right! The owner says that it will give me a lot of stamina so I dug in! Actually I was a little scared to try this and who wouldn’t be. The owner told me that the meat itself doesn’t have any taste which is why he adds a raw egg yolk and some sweet sauce and told me to mix it all together before eating.
I could only taste the sauce but the texture was something I have never tried before and actually kind of grossed me out. I ended up eating all of it because the Japanese guest I was with was telling me that it would be rude to the owner it I left anything... I think they just wanted to see me eat it for the fun of it :)
This dish to my surprise was actually the cheapest! I was really shocked to hear that it was only 600Yen. I was thinking that the Japanese salary men flock to get a quick bite of raw pig’s penis before they went home to their wives!
The next dish I had was grilled salamander. This was pretty interesting since I thought these were strictly pets. The salamander were grilled for a few minutes, dipped in a sweet sauce and served.
The taste was actually not bad. It was a little crunchy because all of the little bones but not bad. It kind of reminded me of grilled chicken tail. The cost for these little delightful crispy critters was about 900Yen which is pretty expensive if you ask me. Next time I'll just go to the pet store ;)
The owner informed me that one of them was pregnant, I guess he was right.
I forgot the name of the fish I ordered but apparently these little guys are mostly kept as pets in the west but farmed and eaten in Japan. The taste was not so bad after you get past all the little edible bones. The flesh was very soft and kind of resembled eel. The owner actually had these alive in a small fish tank before I ordered them. Talk about fresh food. These little guys cost me about 1000Yen.
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog and if you are in Shinjuku you must check this place out. These is another shop which sells strange foods near the red light district but it was a little shady and I don’t advise going there unless you want to be over charged and annoyed by the staff constantly harassing you to order more food and drinks. I guess I should make a blog about that place just so you know where not to go. All in all Asadachi was a pretty nice place to enjoy a beautiful spring afternoon. The owner was nice and the people who ate there were very friendly, but that might have been because all the alcohol they drank. Enjoy, and let me know how your experience was.