Aroyna Tabeta In Yurakucho

Short note: It was a wonderful Golden Week break, filled with several events, activities, and trips within the five-day-long holiday. I will be blogging on those very soon, but for the meantime, here is another short entry to buy some time.

I first came to know about this restaurant from Ben, my senior who took me there to have dinner about two years back.

Aroyna Tabeta is a Thai restaurant, and it is just a short walk from the JR Yurakucho station. One thing that sets this restaurant, located underneath the train tracks, different from most restaurants in Tokyo is that it gives you the feeling of the night stalls in Bangkok - loud pop music, fantastic cooking aroma, and some deco with Thai-touch.

The interior of the restaurant, which is always full with customers.

The food is certainly a bargain as it has a set price of 630 yen for everything in the menu. The food is really delicious and authentic, and the friendly staff are Thais who speak perfect Japanese and English as well. When I was there tonight, there were a few tables which were already reserved, which portrays how well-known this restaurant is. The Japanese don't mind at all having to squeeze among other customers in such a small space, perhaps because they are served with great food.

To be honest, the ambiance of the place might not be as great at Bangkok Kitchen, but that is secondary to me, because what's more important is the taste of the food.

The menu, which was bilingual in Japanese and English.

Set C, plus the descriptions of each dishes.

Two things to note when dining at this place; firstly, they ask you to pay immediately after ordering, before bringing your food, maybe a tactic to avoid the chew-and-screw trick. Second, if it looks spicy on the menu, it is, in the hottest possible way. Initially, I thought this restaurant is just like any other Thai restaurants in Japan, which often adjust the spiciness of their food to cater the Japanese taste bud. But no; most of the food taste almost exactly like how they should taste; i.e. if it's spicy, it is really spicy.

That is why when I was eating there, I noticed the Japanese ran out of their tissue stock. Their tables were full of mountains of tissue, and you should be able to guess why. The two ladies next to my table were even funnier. The first lady asked her friend to try a soup (I suspect it's tom yam mee hoon) and right after she had a scoop, she was so shocked and said it tasted really hot. They immediately ordered two glasses of beer and a plate of rice haha!

My set meal with a combination of white fragrant rice, fried mustard greens (sawi), fried pork with shrimp paste, green chicken curry, and cellophane noodles salad.

When I had a first spoon of the green curry, it immediately reminded me to the Thai food I often eat in the Thai temple back home, whenever there is a festival there. It also brought me back to  the time I used to spend in my grandma's and Mom's kitchens, as they cook Thai cuisine at home once in a while.

This is my second time dining in this restaurant, and I know it's not gonna be the last time.

Phuket Aroyna Tabeta

Marunouchi 3-7-11

Open 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. daily (including Sundays)
Tel/Fax: 03-5219-6099
Train Station: Yurakucho Station via Yurakucho Line (you can also walk from Ginza station via the Ginza and Hibiya lines)

To get to Phuket Aroyna Tabeta
1. Exit JR Yurakucho station at the Kyobashi (京橋) exit.

2. Turn left and cross the road. Continue walking along a small lane, underneath the JR Yamanote tracks. 

3. The restaurant is on the left, about 150-meters from JR Yurakucho station. There is a big glowing sign in front that says 630 at the top.
※ Map is here.

House Warming Party & Shopping At Ueno

Short note:  I was walking to the station the other day, when I was suddenly approached by a lady. At first, I heard the word "basu... basu..." and I thought she wanted to ask me about the location of the bus stop. She was asking while showing me some body gestures, that resembled somebody who is gonna make a slam dunk lol! I later realised that she was actually asking me if I play basketball. It was really random in Japan, to have a Japanese coming to you, and have such friendly short conversation. Nevertheless, it gave me a good start to my day. 

How often you get to see a poster prepared for a house warming party? Haha!

It was the eve of the Golden Week holidays last Friday and I joined the rest of the Chiba gang to attend the house warming party at Bao Cong and Wee Kien's place. It has been some time since they moved into the new place; roughly about more than a couple of months, and it was time to give their place some warming-up, even though the weather is getting hotter and hotter already in these few days. 

The party was held on a week-day, so most of them who are living in Tokyo didn't make it to the party.

Food attack the moment the big gang arrived.

From left: James, Kae Lin, Andrew and Michael.

Their place was in Midori-dai, a station away from my place in Inage.

I had difficulties locating their place at first because I've only been there once, on the day time. Is my sense of direction deteriorating these days? I hope not haha! Luckily, I met with Michael,  a senior of mine who was heading to the same place, and we managed to locate their house in the end after turning into several small lanes and walking around that area for countless of times haha!

One gang was busy making takoyaki as dessert lol!



They claimed their takoyaki is ten times more delicious than the famous one in Osaka haha! 

On another corner was a different group playing Jenga game after we filled our stomach.

The party was supposed to start at seven, and I thought the two of us were the last one to arrive when I reached there five-minutes-to-seven. Well, people always say the nearer a person lives, the later that person would arrived. But guess what? Nobody was there yet when I stepped into their house haha! Apparently, some of them were stuck in the traffic jam on their way back from Tokyo. 

Normal-lah, Malaysians will never be on time one because we all practise MST. Just in case you have no clue about MST, it is explained here. Let me quote it here: "The timezone of Malaysia is unique because it follows the system of +1/+2 PMT , which is 1 or 2 hours later than PMT. Most foreigners have difficulty adjusting to this new timezone as they tend to show up 1 or 2 hours earlier than their local counterparts." 

Chai Ei trying to do the impossible move, in which he succeeded. Architectural student-mah haha!

The tuan rumah gave up and go against the rule we set, by taking the middle piece.

Just look at the position Chai Ei made while playing Jenga!

Jenga is such an erotic game if you listen properly to the words and phrases that come out from everyone throughout the game. Lemme give some of the examples here. "Woah, using soft touch again", "Yerr, this one so tight/loose one", "Woah, you straight away play from down from the beginning already arh?!, "Wait! If you pull out already, cannot push back one wor!" etc. Damn erotic, isn't it?

I shall move to something else, or my Mom will start asking me why I simply write uncensored stuff here lol! So, on the next day, the three of us - Cung, Kok Hong and I went to Tokyo to wet ourselves. First stop was Ueno. While Kok Hong was busy shopping, the two of us dropped by at a stall to have some octopus balls.

A self-service takoyaki stall at Ameyoko in Ueno.

You get to pour the sauce and katsuobushi (dried, smoked skipjack tuna), aonori (blue seaweed) and mayonnaise to your liking.

Here's our plate of takoyaki.

We then walked to Akihabara, which is just about ten minutes away from Ueno. Since it was the first day of the Golden Week, the place was super crowded with sea of humans, especially those people who are into gadgets and also anime and manga fans.

Too bad, I have minimal interest on those stuff haha!

There was almost no space in between the walking people.

We spotted this little dog, who was left in the bicycle basket by its owner. It was shivering, perhaps because it wasn't wearing a jacket lol!

A common method for the Japanese to promote some anime which is scheduled to be released in July - using a bus!

Japanese chicks dressing like maids distributing leaflets for the maid cafes which is famous in that area.

Gundam fanatics, making a bee-line just to have a cup of coffee inside Gundam Cafe.

Walked back to Ueno and have the famous Turkish kebab.

There are a few levels of spiciness for its sauce, from level 0 to 2.0; this is the second most spicy one- level 1.5 and it was quite spicy to my standard.

I didn't plan to get anything at Ueno, but in the end, I spend almost 10,000 yen there lol! I got myself a silver luggage bag for my upcoming trips to two different continents, a pair of Reebok sports shoes at half price, and also a packet each of red beans and coconut powder. I know it is a bit sampat for me to mention the last two stuff here, but never mind-lah haha!

We later met up with Cliff and Ming Han, and the five of us returned to Inage after spending half of the day in Tokyo. Dinner was at the Korean restaurant in Midori-dai. I think like what Andrew said, I am beginning to grow some liking for this restaurant. The lady is a really friendly person and the food is not bad as well.

The interior of the small Korean restaurant.

I know Kok Hong through blogging three years ago, and Cung was his junior at IBT in KL. It's a small world after all.

石焼ビビンバ定食 (Hot-stone bibimbap set meal).

冷麺定食 (Cold noodle set meal).

 

ユッケジャン定食 (Yukke-jan set meal).

When I was paying for the food, I took out all the coins from my wallet and was selecting the correct amount of money to pay that lady. She always tell us to pay her with coins because she needs them for change. I noticed that she was staring at my palm while I pick my coins.

I think she couldn't wait anymore, because she suddenly took away all the 10yen coins from my palm, because she needs a lot of them haha!