Coffee Jelly, Mexican, Akihabara, Department Store

On Sunday morning I stopped by one of the many coffee shops trying to keep Starbucks from world domination. This particular shop had one of my favorite desserts, coffee jelly (gelatin), for a mere 210 yen. Coffee jelly is a simple concept: take the prior day's leftover coffee, add gelatin, chill, and top with soft serve ice cream just before selling. Sounds strange, but I like it. Durgin Park in Boston has the same dish, albeit with whipped cream.

My boss, his wife, and I spent the better part of Sunday in Akihabara, Tokyo's electronics district. There are few bargains, but there are some unique gadgets available, including high-tech toilets with more buttons than my dress shirt. I was mainly interested in finding a mobile phone, but since I'm only scheduled for six months in Tokyo it didn't make sense to get a contract with Willcom, NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, or Vodafone. Vodafone and KDDI offer prepaid phones, but apparently only the companies' own stores sell them, so I'll have to make a special trip. I think I also might need a resident alien registration card in order to buy a mobile phone, and I can't get that until I move from the hotel to an apartment. Mobile phone rates tend to be expensive, but at least incoming calls are free (because the caller pays).

The most puzzling gadget I found was a tiny dishwasher that can handle perhaps five teacups and saucers. What's the point? Wouldn't it be trivially easy to hand wash that small number of dishes?

Sunday night we dined at Fonda de la Madrugada, an excellent Mexican restaurant (best in Tokyo, supposedly). The watercress salad had too much dressing for my tastes, but the lentil soup was sublime.

On Monday I was back in the office around 8:30 a.m., and I (finally!) had soba (buckwheat noodles) with vegetables in a miso (soy) broth for lunch. Lunch was a bargain: about $3.75 for the noodles, a hunk of tempura vegetables, and something resembling cherry Italian ice. I had lunch with a senior IBM manager (one of the corner office people), and we talked a bit about his visits to Connecticut, the same state where I grew up. During the afternoon I arranged for three apartment visits tomorrow (Tuesday, January 31st). I also spoke at length with many of the technical staff, including my direct counterpart (a mainframe software architect). We talked especially about scheduling architectural workshops with some of our customers.

On the way home I visited the lowest floor in the Mitsukoshi department store. That's where they sell gourmet food, and it's wonderful. I bought a loaf of French onion bread for about 230 yen. Every counter is immaculate with all the food items beautifully displayed. For special occasions I'll be sure to return.