Ginza Fish House – where to go on Valentines if your date is Wes Anderson

ManDates in general seem to err on having more “man” than “dates”, so it was unusual, to say the least, to go on an actual date with a GIRL without my usual coterie of bros and dawgs. Of course, the counterparty to this evening probably considered this a platonic ramen outing in downtown Chicago, rather than a shot with the Windy City's most hapless bachelor. However, I don’t really care what women think as you can tell by the way I spin my finger around my ear in the universal “koo koo bird” crazy sign and mouth “hormones” whenever a woman starts talking.

If I were to pick the defining metaphor for my love life, it would be one particular sequence in the 1993 Dallas Cowboys/Buffalo Bills Super Bowl. Leon Lett of the Cowboys recovered a fumble in the midfield and ran towards what seemed like an assured touchdown. At the ten yard line he slowed down to a casual, cocky stroll. Thing was, Bills wide receiver Don Beebe had been trailing the whole time and as Lett stretched his arms out in triumph just before crossing the end zone, Beebe managed to knock the ball out of bounds for a touchback. I could write a weekly column about all the almost-touchdowns I’ve fumbled, but people come here for the food recommendations, not the anecdotes of a man that can’t score *sigh*. There is an important distinction however between Leon Lett and me: he went home that day, likely to a pool-sized Jacuzzi full of super models, a Super Bowl champion; I go home to a pint of double chocolate fudge ice cream and tears…mostly tears.

Ginza Fish House (19 E Ohio St) has as inauspicious a façade as Rachael Leigh Cook’s character in 1999’s breakout rom-com, She’s All That (plot summary: popular guy unleashes the swan inside bookish duckling Laney Boggs). Located below the seemingly dilapidated Tokyo Hotel in the Near North Side, I was pleasantly surprised by the clean, wood- paneled interior, simple elegance, and quaint atmosphere.
As Chlodnik astutely observed, we felt like we were in a Wes Anderson movie, probably Early Wes rather than Later Wes. We tried to be as quirky as our surroundings and write out Wes Anderson’s name in toothpicks, but we had already stayed past closing time and didn’t wish to further impose on the friendly staff.


Ginza Fish House is renowned for its sushi and sashimi , but Chlodnik and I found that we shared a mutual obsession with ramen. Apparently the best ramen in Illinois is 20 miles away in Arlington Heights, which will be the subject of a future review no doubt, but we had cravings, and one of them was for ramen. We ordered the traditional tonkatsu ramen. The toppings were good, the noodles adequate, but we both found the broth too salty for our tastes (and no, I wasn’t just pretending to agree with everything the girl says). Even dropping my cell phone into her bowl did nothing to fix her soup, but it did fix that pesky problem I had of my cell phone turning on and working. Chlodnik felt really guilty about the phone, which I should have used for my advantage because, as anyone can tell you, guilt is nature's aphrodisiac.

Ginza Fish House: Don’t judge a book by its cover…and ladies, don’t judge by the cover and your first 10 or 20 awkward interactions with the “book”…if you know what I mean. You don’t? Never mind. It wasn’t that important anyways. Anyone got some double chocolate fudge ice cream and Kleenex?

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