韓楽？チヂミ家？ドッチ？

Time to step away from the Japanese food thing, and what better way to do that than to review some... Korean food. I know, it's like pajamas and sweats.
韓楽　(kanraku) is a confused place. It also thinks it's name is チヂミ家 (chijimi-ya). Weird. It's a 2 story place that features a somewhat fast-food looking place on the first floor, this is チヂミ家, and a more typical Korean dining place on the 2nd floor, this is 韓楽. We went to the 2nd floor. It's owned/run by the same people, so what's it matter? To the review!
It was awesome! I'm pretty sure that I've never actually gone out to eat Korean food specifically but I will again now. The inside of the restaurant was adorned with posters of Korean heart-throbs, especially Yon-sama. Especially because this is the only Korean heart-throb I know. Atmosphere takes a pretty big hit here, but it'll come back a bit later, stay tuned! We chose the place because mornin was wanting to eat some stuff called トッポキ (Toppoki (no translation because I don't know what korean foods' names are in english)). Here's Toppoki!It's actually Toppoki and some other stuff: onions, porkish like substance, kimchi, something green and carrots. It was decently spicy enough. The Toppoki itself is kind of chewy and soft and made from rice I believe. The stuff was da bomb! it came to us for the down-low price of... actually I don't remember, but pretty much everything on the menu was reasonable. We also went with a tomato salad that had a super tasty sesame dressing (トマトサラダ) and some cheese chijimi (チーズチヂミ). Also got some egg soup (エッグスープ) which was just ok. The Salad was really goodoops, started eating it!

And the Chijimi was really, really good! All-in-all things weren't as spicy as I was expecting (hoping for), but it was really good. There was one thing that was really spicy, check out those little peppers in the dipping sauce.Yeah, those were spicy!

Oh, beer, I almost forgot! Well, when we went there I was still recovering a bit from being sick so I actually didn't have beer! The only place I've reviewed that had beer but I didn't drink it, sorry. But the prices were decent enough: draft (生ビール) 500円, bottle (瓶ビール) 550円, and some Korean beer called 'Hite' was going for 400円, but I think that was a small size　(小), maybe glass?

Oh! Atmosphere! When we were leaving, the restaurant's "Mama" was just coming on shift and she chatted us up a bit. She's very friendly and sweet, but I felt rude because we were actually leaving... trying to leave at least. But she's a talker, she really liked me! Next time we'll have to go a little later to give her a better chance to compliment me some more :) They did get some points back for that, but Yon-sama... that's rough.

T:9
P:2
F$:7
B$:7
V:8
A:4
S:7
X:6

Total score: 50/70
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mornin's view!
韓国料理って，必ずといっていいほど肉や魚が入ってるのと，辛いのが苦手な私にはちょっと難しいんだけど，「トッポキ」が食べてみたかったのでトライ．トッポキって，円筒形のモチみたいなモノで，前からおいしそうだなーと思ってたのです．こういう「炭水化物のカタマリ」は結構どれも好き．おでんの「ちくわぶ」，すいとん，ほうとう，とか．
で，トッポキですが，すごく美味しかったです．でもやっぱり辛～い(>_<); ただ，同時に甘みがあって，その「甘辛さ」がすごくイイ．きっと，辛いものが苦手じゃなかったらもっともっと美味しいんだろうな～と思いつつ，辛さに耐えながら食べました．
ちょっとレビューとは関係ないけど，私はベジタリアンと言っても「えせベジタリアン」で，ダシとか味付けとかに入ってる肉・魚は気にしないことにしています．そうじゃないと，日本じゃ外食できない(^^;　もともと，動物蛋白にちょっとアレルギーがあって肉・魚をやめただけなので，体調に影響ない範囲ならイイのです．でも，肉・魚を食べるのやめてから体調とか肌の調子とかすごくよくなったから，やっぱり私には動物蛋白は合わないんだと思う．

El Amigo

El Amigo is a little Tex-Mex place along Nakahara-kaido (中原街道) near Nagahara station (長原駅), 3 stops from Yukigaya-Otsuka on the Tokyu Ikegami line (東急池上線). The interior of the place is lifted straight from a Mexican place in America, just with less stuff on the walls. The house speciality is steak, and although it looked really good, I went with some tacos (タコース) and enchiladas (エンチラ). The homemade corn tortillas are the real-deal, but the seasoning of the (under-volumed) meat left something to be desired but satisfying enough when you put on the delicious taco sauce. Too bad the selection of Mexican favorites is on the few side, but the overall flavor was good for a country where I can count the number of Mexican restaurants I've seen on one hand.
The taco toppings are pretty underwhelming, but you can circumvent the problem by ordering a salad (I recommend the avocado salad (アボカドサラダ)) and tortillas (トルティアズ) separately. The prices are a touch expensive, expect 4-5000円 for 2 people, except when it comes to beer. There is a great (again, for Japan) selection of Mexican beer all for 550円, about 150円 cheaper than anywhere else. El Amigo isn't the best Mexican food in the world, but it's the best and closest around here, maybe the only as well.

T: 6
P: 4
F$: 6
B$: 9
V: 5
A: 8
S: 7
X: 9

Total score: 54/70

浜しん

Back in yukigaya for the 3rd review on here, and boy-o-boy does it feel... right!Hamashin (浜しん) is a place I`ve seen many (many) a time while tromping through the neighborhood but hadn`t visited until faced with the choice of visiting the "blue" izakaya (居酒屋) again... Hamashin is a Okonomiyaki/Monjyayaki/Teppanyaki place just across the tracks from the pad and it was pretty good. The food price was excellent, the taste was pretty good, the volume of the food was so-so (as we went through Monjyayaki (もんじゃ焼), Yakisoba (焼きそば), and Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) in one sitting) and the beer price was a bit high (580円 for a mug of Maltz), but with 4 beers or so and all the food I just (mentioned) the price was still under 5000円. Pretty decent I`d say. The overall atmosphere of the place was pretty good, reminding me more of a place outside the city that one here in Tokyo, very family run (って感じ). Unfortunately a group of noisy college students wanted to make the place their own this night... they were promptly sent down to the 1st floor Izakaya, yay! Man, college students were so much cooler when I was in college... but I digress...The staff was not the friendliest at first, but they warmed up fairly quickly (with a compliment or 2) and the feeling was pretty good at the little shop by the tracks.
It`s for sure a place I`d take anyone form out of town that wanted to experience "Tokyo Food" (monjyayaki) and a place that I`d be sure to visit again, and again because of the variety available on the menu... just would probably get drunk before I go... T: 7
P: 7
F$: 8
B$: 5
V: 6
A: 7
S: 6.5
X: 6

Total score: 52.5/70