Thanksgiving 2015

I have spent more than a few Thanksgivings in Hong Kong. Two years ago, we went to a Michelin star Italian restaurant for Thanksgiving. I was not all that wild about the food. I have been to several hole in the wall Italian restaurants that were far superior. A lot of people will disagree with me, but I think Italian food is better when made by an old married couple in the kitchen. Celebrity chefs get all the attention, but their revolving door staff can never match what Nonna Leone can do.

Ironically, we went to a Japanese restaurant near Canton Road last year. That was another trendy hot spot with average food. Having been to Japan, I can confidently say that some anonymous guy making noodles by the side of the road can deliver a more honest meal than a celebrity chef from Italy who trained in London and makes Japanese food in China.

This Thanksgiving, Lily and I were in Japan. We could have easily had a better Japanese Thanksgiving dinner than what we had last year in China, but I wanted something more American. People always tell me it's crazy to seek out American food while traveling in other countries. You are in that country, so you should eat that food. I mostly agree, but I live in China. I don't eat American food every day. I rarely eat American food at all. Around here, authentic American food means McDonald's and Haagen-Dazs. There are plenty of “American” restaurants in China, but they are as authentic as American dim sum. We ate plenty of Japanese food throughout the trip, but for Thanksgiving, I wanted something more familiar.

Tokyo has plenty of American expats and restaurants that cater to our tastes. We heard about several restaurants that had special Thanksgiving menus. We picked a place just south of the Shibuya station called Good Honest Grub because we liked their menu and, this part is important, they had reservations available. Rather than one night of Thanksgiving, they did it all week.

Despite the terrible name, this was a nice restaurant. They are only open for breakfast and lunch, and close when the sun goes down, so their chefs are never going to be famous and they are unlikely to ever get any Michelin stars. But they use a great deal of fresh, local produce and are a rare non-smoking restaurant in Tokyo.

Something I was a little disappointed in was their pumpkin pie. I have been on a bit of a quest to find real pumpkin pie for several years now. Most places in Hong Kong use the cheapest butter they can find in their crust, if they even have a crust, and the pumpkin filling tastes nothing like pumpkin. I think most of them use sweet potatoes or squash instead. Good Honest Grub's pumpkin pie tasted like pumpkin, and the crust was much better than anything in China, but they seem to have forgotten the nutmeg. Pumpkin pie without nutmeg is like brownies without smashed up chocolate bars.

It was a good Thanksgiving meal overall, and Tokyo has a million places to get dessert. Since Thanksgiving is meaningless in Japan, nothing closed early. Ice cream and imagawayaki were available all night.