There was a famous gyoza joint I was planning to take Chew Steel to, but when I looked the location up, it wasn’t convenient enough to fit into our schedule. Instead, we went to Harajuku Gyoza Lou, a restaurant his student recommended to his other student, who then took me years ago. Let’s listen to “Like a Surgeon” for this post.
Harajuku Gyoza Lou is very popular with tourists, most likely due to its location and ease of ordering from their picture friendly menus. The prices are dirt cheap, too.
When we waited in line, a gaggle of female tourists came skipping over. They were my age but wearing pigtails and eye-catching dresses. One of the women came over asked the guy ahead of me if this was the waiting line for gyoza. He nodded. Her friends lined while she sat on the stairs outside the restaurant, opened her colouring book and began drawing. Her friend came over and snapped pictures while she looked up, her forty-year-old plus face smiling coyly to the camera. I noticed all her friends wielded selfie sticks.
Once I got a seat and took a long gulp of my drink, my mood improved. My bubbly lemon sour was refreshing and potent; and it was only 530 ¥. Chew Steel’s draft beer was 580 ¥. How could you not be happy under these conditions?
You can order the dumplings fried or steamed. We tried all three dumplings: chives and garlic, plain, and shiso. An order comes with six dumplings (¥ 390), and when all the damage was done, Chew Steel and I averaged about a dozen each. We watched as the gyoza master lined up trays of dumplings and monitored the massive sizzling cooking process.
We ordered our dumplings fried. To me, that’s the only way to go. The crispness of the wrapper was part of the appeal, when your teeth broke into the thin skin. Chew Steel made me a dipping sauce, combining the chili oil, vinegar and soy sauce on the counter. The shiso in the gyoza dumpling was fragrant and sweet, reminding me a little of fresh basil.
My favourite version was the garlic and chive, while Chew Steel preferred the simplicity of the regular filling. Chew Steel recommended popping the entire dumpling in your mouth, so the juices would remain in your mouth and not the plate.
I loved the cucumber with miso sauce (￥290) so much that I ordered a second helping to go with my last order of dumplings. The chilled cucumbers were ultra-crunchy and intensely melon-like. With the tangy, nutty and buttery miso, I thought the cucumber could spar with the gyoza for the best snack of the trip. We liked the food so much that we returned on the last day of our trip.
Hitting the Sauce gives Harajuku Gyoza Lou two phat thumbs up and her startling rage at Instagrammers who should know better two phat thumbs down. “Yoisho! Yoisho! Yoisho!”
Hitting the Sauce 