Written by Amie-san & Nadhila-san
About The Manhattan FISH MARKET
Another good news for people living in Tokyo, the famous Manhattan Fish Market just opened near Ikebukuro Station. This American style restaurant is having various seafood served in various cooking ways as their specialty. Fish, shrimp, crab, lobster, squid, clam, you name it, and you get it! The interesting part of this restaurant is not only the ingredients, but also the art of cooking. They will give you an option of what you want to do with your seafood: flamed, poached, grilled, baked, or fried. Sounds delicious, right?!
In addition to the good news for people living in Tokyo, this is also very good news for moslems, as all the menu in this restaurant is halal!! The location of this restaurant is quite easy to find as it is next to the big street near Ikebukuro Station. When we paid our first visit, we could immediately feel the American atmosphere in the restaurant by the interior and as the restaurant staff gave us a warm welcome in both Japanese and English phrases, and waving their hands to us. We found that half of the visitors were Japanese while half of them were foreigners, including a lot of moslem women, as we could recognize them from the ‘hijab’ (head covering) that they were wearing.
We took some time to make a decision what to order since all look delicious but we finally decided to order the special menu, with the combination of fried scallops, flamed shrimps, spicy baked fish, grilled squid, and in addition to butter rice. The restaurant staff flamed the shrimps at the table which was an interesting entertainment, then we were so excited to have a taste of the food. The baked fish was very soft and was having a sour-sweet-spicy taste which might be a bit spicy for Japanese people, but it was so perfect for us since we are the ‘spicy food lovers’. We loved the shrimps as they were flamed perfectly and tasted sweet. The butter rice was a perfect dish completing the seafood platter and we loved it.
As I went to the restroom, I noticed that they prepared the praying room just next to the restroom so moslem people can do praying and can enjoy relaxing at the restaurant without worrying missing the praying time. The praying room is covered by curtain so we can pray without worrying being interrupted. It might be better if the restroom for men and women could be separated since before praying, we need to take a ‘wudhu’ which means washing our faces, hands, feet and other parts of our bodies. For moslem women who are wearing ‘hijab’, sometimes they need to take off their ‘hijab’ while doing ‘wudhu’ and it is not possible to do that in front of men. Yet we are so happy that this restaurant is really paying a great concern for the needs of moslem people to be able to pray and we really appreciate their good intention.
As we finished our meal, we got ready to go and the friendly restaurant staff waived their hands to us and said ‘Thank You, Please Come Again’ in English. A very nice American greeting See you next time!!
Amie- Working in Japanese company in Tokyo
Nadhila- A graduate student in Waseda University
