My trips to Tokyo are usually planned right down to the last meal. I like that precision; it appeals to my inner control freak.
But my sister wanted me to experience Ameyoko Market. I had never thought of going, so was game.
We made no restaurant bookings one night and headed to Ueno. The sprawling place, formerly the site of a black market post-World War II, is filled with shops selling everything from cosmetics to snacks, as well as food places.
Wandering through the market and getting delightfully lost, we browsed the shops and stopped to eat at places that looked good to us.
One of these was a buzzy izakaya, where we feasted on motsu-ni or beef offal stew, grilled scallops, cold and briny oysters and baked potatoes with butter.
The city was colder than usual during the 10 days we were there. I found myself walking through overheated department stores on the way back to the hotel, when I would usually delight in the cold.
Those potatoes hit the spot so perfectly that cold night and we had two servings, relishing the comfort the dish brought us. Spuds and butter, that's all it was, but how good they tasted.
Potatoes were also the highlight of another new thing I did in Tokyo.
About a week before I left, a friend who had been in the city before us said she would have to miss Furusato Matsuri, but that I should check it out.
On a public holiday, when no restaurants of note were open, we made our way to the annual food festival at Tokyo Dome. After stashing our coats in lockers, we walked down to the arena and tried to take stock of everything.
Different prefectures in Japan are represented at the festival and it is possible to eat one's way through the country in one place. Aside from that, there were bands playing and competitions going on. People were everywhere.
It was one big delightful mess in an orderly country and we plunged right in.
Furusato Matsuri is like every Japanese food fair you have been to, but on steroids. We feasted on steamed oysters, fish cake, softserve ice cream served in melon halves, sausages impaled on bones (where are the bones - which all look the same and curve the same way - from?) and washed these all down with beer samplers.
Everywhere I looked, there were people holding square plates with huge baked potatoes and various toppings.
We found the stall in the Hokkaido section. After taking a bite, I figured I had died and gone to spud heaven. The potato was crammed with cubes of butter and topped generously with mentaiko, or spicy pollock roe.
There was something about the spicy, salty fish eggs with the butter and potato that made me want to eat more and more.
We could not, to my eternal regret, finish it because we were approaching a food coma.
Back home, I hankered after it again, so I decided to replicate it.
It is difficult to find those huge potatoes here, but smaller ones make for a good snack or side dish. Use Russet potatoes because the insides fluff up during baking. Do not skip the step of piercing holes through the potatoes with a fork. Exploding spuds in the oven are no fun to clean up, trust me.
Mentaiko is available in Japanese supermarkets here. Of course, there are other good things to put on a baked spud. The stall also sold a version topped with fermented squid guts.
Those a little squeamish can consider sour cream, bacon, tuna and cheese.
Sitting down to my baked potato in Singapore, I could not help but think it was equally comforting in tropical conditions. I guess a baked spud is good anywhere in the world, at any time.
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