Fugu Diaries

A friend of mine told me about this place when I was complaining about the lack of a good Jewish deli in Tokyo. Pita the Great doesn’t have corned beef or pastrami, or any meat at all for that matter. If you can get over that disappointment, you will get some of the best vegetarian sandwiches ever. I’ve seen signs for this place for a long time, but I never went because it was located in a dark office building, and I figured it was one of the American foodcourt type places that isn’t particularly good. Boy, was I wrong.

The joint is a small place on the second floor of a building, but you get there by climbing a flight of stairs from the outside. Once you get there, a very friendly man (I’m guessing an Israeli because it’s billed as a Israeli place) will be there to greet you and take your order. You have a choice of 8 or so vegetable sandwiches — the healthiest option is the hummus sandwich. The rest are fried — fried pumpkin, eggplant, mushrooms, falafel, or mixed vegetable. A small oven in the store indicated that they may make the pita themselves. A sandwich sets you back about 700 yen, but you can get a set with a drink and hummus salad or fries or mini-falafel balls, for about 1,000 yen. The man fries the vegetables for you after you order, which makes the sandwich all the more tasty, but it’s also a drawback because it takes a long time. A small sign on the back wall that says “Slow-fast food” acknowledges this.

We waited for about 20 minutes because of a large order before us, but it was worth it. Sitting at one end of a long table that seats about 20 on the terrace on a sunny day, it was temporary bliss to bite into a freshly made sandwich, stuffed with fried mashed vegetables, lettuce, tomatoes, olives and a generous dollop of tahini. I’m not a big vegetarian fan, but these were surprisingly filling and good. Watching groups of expats walking in and out of this place, it was almost easy to believe that we were back in the States as well.

Pita the Great
Open: Mon-Fri 11am - 6pm
Akasaka 2-11-7, ATT Shinkan
Tel: 03-5563-0851

— Yukari