Omurice (omelette rice) probably doesn’t top everyone’s list of things to eat in Tokyo, especially when there seem to be so many other delicious subsects of Japanese cuisine, but The Eggs Factor isn’t “everyone”. Few things in life are more captivating than a well-executed omurice — a simple tomato fried rice wrapped in an omelette and drizzled with sauce.
The omurice is really made up of just two simple components, one a protein, the other a carb.
Wish I could read Japanese so I could decipher what’s so special about Rakeru eggs. Because it’s totally practical to learn a whole new (and very difficult) language just to read one paragraph of one menu.
Everything pretty much comes as a set. And the set starts with a sweet corn soup. There’s some rice-crispy-type crunchy garnish on top. Snap crackle pop. It’s so smooth it could have come from a can. And it’s sweet and very homey.
Also super homey is the flatware. Very twee Alice in Wonderland theme. Actually the whole damn restaurant is quaint, all red-checkered tablecloths and waitresses in dirndls. Sienna brick walls and hanging stained-glass lamps.
But the omurice set comes and your surroundings disappear. Maybe it’s an exaggeration, but the simple pleasures really get me. It’s worth mentioning that Rakeru also makes ridiculous rolls. Microwaved so they are warm but still soft to the brink of sogginess, and then cut open and drenched, but I mean drenched, in butter. There’s also a baked potato afterthought on the side. Which you can also slather in lashings of butter to drive both the taste and the fat levels through the roof.
Luckily I have self-restraint. By which I don’t mean that I didn’t polish off everything on that plate. I just mean I haven’t yet booked a ticket back to Tokyo to indulge again.
Rakeru Shinjuku Nishiguchi
B1 Dai-Ni Seishin Biru,
1-12-7 Nishi Shinjuku,
Shinjuku, Tokyo 160-0023
Japan
Tel/Fax 03-3348-1385
The Eggs Factor 