Day 4 Part 4 Christmas Dinner!

Christmas dinner was at Shisen Hanten. This is Iron Chef Chinese Chen Kenichi's restaurant in Akasaka. It's actually on the 6th floor of an office building. He does have other restaurants, but this is the original. I believe it's the same one his father has who was famous for first bringing Szechwan style food to Japan.

The idea was to do 3 get different types of proteins cept for having to order Chen's Mabo Tofu. We started with a sautéed chicken Szechwan style which was very good (photo 1).

The second dish we ordered was cuttlefish fried rice. What came to us was 2 bowls (one looked like a soup and the other looked like a bunch of pork rinds). We were like this can't be what we ordered. The waitress and confirmed that was indeed the fried rice cuttlefish. The pork rind looking things were the fried rice. They poured the broth with cuttlefish inside the bowl with the fried rice (Photo 2).

This bowl was beyond tremendous! One of the best things I've ever had in my life.

The last item was the signature Chen's Mabo Tofu (Photo 3). A waiter talked to us a bunch in Japanese explaining what I believe is a warning of how spicy it is. Japan is not a spicy food eating culture in general. I saw the waiter give the warning to another table too. I've had spicier things in my life, but damn it was pretty spicy. It helps buying small bowls of rice to accompany it. Of course, this dish was awesome. I was really stuffed by this point that I was hurting to finish my portion.

Overall one of the best meals of my life. Unfortunately, Chen Kenichi was not there tonight. I do plan to make it to Iron Chef Italian Masahiko Kobe's place too which I hear he is always at.