Takewaka, Spice 2 building, Metropolitan Ave, Ikebukuro, Tokyo

An amazing meal of sushi, seaweed, tempura veggies and a fried chicken dish. The food was presented like a small Japanese garden and tasted incredible. From a root, type thing, our attentive waitress made us fresh wasabi, which doesn’t taste anything like the tube stuff. It’s still green, but rather than a uniform grunge colour, its a host of rich green, flecked with brown. The taste, as complex.

The restaurant has a large central pond full of the fish that we ate, and tables that looked to be inches from the ground, which did have me wondering how I was going to manage. However, under the table was a drop down section for those of us who can’t mange the upright, legs folded beneath them, position with which Japanese seem to be born.

Excellent.