Date Night In Tokyo - Japanese Gems & Spaghetti
Last Saturday my wife and I were looking for a place to go on a date in Tokyo. Actually we had been talking about it for 2 weeks beforehand but still hadn't made a decision. It's not an easy decision to make in a mega metropolis with more restaurants & Michelin stars than any city in the world.
Another challenge is we live 45minutes outside of Shinjuku. Along the train route into the city center there are tons of other smaller cities each with unique places to eat. Then once you get into the city core your choices skyrocket. What to do!?
Then something strange happened, Twitter. Across my wife's Twitter feed came a few posts about a gem and mineral show down in Asakusabashi. Even stranger, a block away from the show was a Japanese spaghetti place my wife had eaten at and wanted to take me to. So we rolled with destiny and headed downtown!
On the way down to Asakusabashi we were talking about a gem and mineral show we will do coming up in May in the same area. We talked about how we need to get on a gem show circuit like the ones in the US. Dealers sign up with a group that hosts gem shows all over the country and basically tour around. It's a huge business opportunity, but we weren't sure Japan had one.
When we arrived we were pretty shocked at how big the show was. 2 full floors of this modern building next to the train station. Even better, admission was free!
Since it was free, it was also packed. Seriously, moving took time and effort and it made stopping at dealers' booths kind of a pain in the ass. But we persevered.
The quality of the dealers was great, but everyone on the first floor were "Dealers" and not necessarily collectors/rockhounds.
We did get sucked in by a boulder opal dealer. Kinda hard not too, especially with the quality & variety that they had. From really high end over $10,000 pieces to the $10 end cut bin, there was something for everyone. We picked up a few end cut pieces because it was top quality material.
We then decided to head upstairs because it was too crowded on the first floor. On the second floor they had many more dealers, but some of these were actually rockhounds and others were jewelry makers. The rockhounds always have awesome specimens and deals. They also like to talk your ear off telling "fish tales". It's fun though, especially since I am a foreigner they want to hear my stories too.
One such guy had these incredible andradite "rainbow garnet" specimens. As we all chatted and I dug through his specimens I found a really amazing piece. He had collected it and was selling it for pretty cheap. I made him an offer and we had a deal. He was also a really funny guy. He was talking shit on the dealers on the first floor while praising his own minerals, in half jest. My wife and I instantly took a liking to him and exchanged contact info.
After about 10 minutes browsing we headed back downstairs. My wife wanted to talk to the organizer regarding how much they charge to be in the show. This blew up into a 1 hour conversation with him and guess what? His show is a circuit in Japan. They are called Mineral Marche and do several shows all over Japan all year.
He was just as excited to meet us as we were to meet him because we offer gems and minerals from the US, which none of his dealers specialize in. He offered us a spot in the tour and of course we said yes. Even more than that though, he offered to help us import large quantities of rocks into Japan and invited us to join his gem & mineral club. It was almost surreal, we had just been talking about something like this on the train ride in and it was happening!
5:30 rolled around and so we said our goodbyes and were off for Japanese spaghetti!
The restaurant is called Tokyo MEAT Sakaba Asakusabashi 東京MEAT酒場 浅草橋店 and it was delicious! They specialize in meat, but their spaghetti is what we were there for. The first floor is counter only with a second floor that has tatami style seating. Unfortunately for us the second floor was booked so we sat at the counter.
We quickly ordered a round of beers, spaghetti and meat & cheese gratin. When ordering my wife showed me the instructions on how to best eat the spaghetti. The meat sauce comes underneath the noodles. You are instructed to first try the noodles, I guess to set up your palate.
Then you are encouraged to try it with the delicious jalapeño sauce and/or with the meat sauce. I have to say this process was fantastic. It allowed you to feel like you were eating 3 different dishes. The jalapeño sauce was amazing! It wasn't too hot like a normal jalapeño, but added a small kick and an amazing element to the spaghetti!
After the first sampling it was time to dig in and add some jalapeño sauce! Oh man it was so gooooood! A smooth blend between all the flavors, meat, sauce, noodle & jalapeño. We had to order another bowl of noodles it was so good. This is a common thing among noodle shops in Japan. You can order parts of the meal rather than the whole thing again. So if you are low on sauce or noodles you can order one or the other. We honestly thought about ordering another whole set, but we still had another dish coming out, the gratin.
The gratin was as delicious as it looks. However, after that amazing experience with the spaghetti, it wasn't as impressive. Still, we quickly devoured it with another round of beers.
This place is definitely a must visit if you come to Tokyo! Here is their website if you are interested, https://tokyomeat-sakaba.com/shop_list/tokyomeet_asakusabashi . I know I will be going back there if I am in the area.
After that we called it a night and headed home. One thing I forgot to mention though, I picked up some Jadeite at the show, blue & lavender which I will share in tomorrow's Mineral Monday's post, but here is a sneak peak.
Thanks for reading!
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US - https://www.etsy.com/shop/Rt395Minerals
Japan - https://www.rt395mineralsjp.com
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This is going to be exciting! I can't wait to hear about your experiences traveling around to the different shows. And that spaghetti! It does sound simply delicious.
Thanks @melinda010100. Ya, it's a big deal for us. Honestly the biggest challenge will be keeping inventory. I have to figure out how to keep stocked for the shows because we are selling quite a bit on our online shop too. It's a good problem to have though right? 😁
Ha! It is a great problem to have! Will you keep two separate inventories? You are going to be very busy.
We don't want to keep separate inventories because that means we have to keep inventories. We want to move as much as possible without having a huge back stock because that means $$ sitting around. We think we've come up with an easy solution to manage it all though.
I've owned a couple of retail businesses in my life but my inventory always stayed in one place. Good luck getting that all worked out!