This post, part 1 of 2 will document and feature most if not all of the various things we ate on our Japan trip, from snacks, meals and other interesting food related items and other anecdotal side stories and observations. Food Journey I will feature all of the food things from the start of the trip up until our departure to Osaka, meaning everything here is in Tokyo + Enoshima in a linear chronological order. We ate a lot of stuff and drank a lot of stuff but I don’t think I took pictures of all of the nice vending machine drinks we had, ah-well. Let’s get to it!
A very expensive tomato, basil and sauteed onion sandwich and a very expensive egg and cheese not-mcmuffin at Vancouver airport. We didn’t have much time in our layover but wanted something to eat that was not airplane food, or rather, our flight to Vancouver didn’t feed us anything and we were starving. I think together both of these including expensive water was close to $30-35 CAD dollars. Shittt.
On the plane to Tokyo now and they offered us our first ‘dinner’ meal, you had a choice between something they called miso chicken and rice and stew beef and rice. I chose the miso chicken, it was basically weak teriyaki chicken on rice. The range of other side dishes were interesting too, like the cold soba noodles.
My sister got the beef stew variant, other than the main meal, both of the options had the same side dishes. She said it was whatever/alright.
A number of hours later we were served brunch/breakfast and they had two options, pork noodles or egg omelette with some tomato/white sauce. The noodles were pretty good, pretty tasty.
The omelette thing my sister got. It was whatever she said, the tomato sauce was kinda like a mexican salsa, so kinda weird. For some reason her meal got all pineapple as fruit, heh.
After our ordeal with getting into our first hotel and the problems/trauma associated with it, our first meal with combeni food from Family mart. Quite a spread of different things even yakisoba pan and other sandwiches and onigiri.
The spicy chicken from family mart tastes like a big mcdonalds chicken nugget. Pretty good shit.
I ended up taking some premium salmon onigiri that costs more than usual, I didn’t know it yet but it was worth the extra money. Best salmon onigiri I’ve had up until now. Good shit.
I can’t remember what this was, I think it was egg and teriyaki chicken sandwich? It was alright but since it’s cold it kinda was just meh.
Another sandwich, shrimp cutlet. It was meh, maybe because it’s cold but these fried sandwiches from the combeni are just not hitting it right. Edible, but kinda had a weird taste, can’t put my finger on it.
Oh yea, hotdog bun/bread, can’t fail me here and it didn’t. Solid shit, can’t do no wrong with a long hotdog/sausage bun.
In our first hotel in Asakusa they left these little gift things filled with crackers and shit. Small token but still nice I guess. We just took that shit, didn’t’ eat it.
Curry manjuu I believe on the way to sensoji temple. Nice street snack to eat in the pouring rain.
A bad photo but this is strawberry daifuku. Pretty straw and pretty berry I guess. Sweets generally aren’t my thing. Looks nice tho. Why is my camera focusing on everything in the background BUT the thing in front of it? Why…
Sweet dango, pretty tasty and chewy. Good shit. They had a few other styles to choose from but we choose the one that was more savory I think, can’t remember.
Ah yes, our first sit down meal in Japan, in a Asakusa shopping street at Yakiniku Like in which we didn’t even know it was going to be self grill yakiniku experience. Good shit. That wagyu so good.
The tiny grill in front of us had controls to adjust the flame and heat which is cool. They provided us some tripe/intestines which was a first for me, let’s just say it wasn’t really my thing; too chewy and fatty.
You order from a nice English/multilingual tablet. The first option is this ‘welcome to japan’ course that has the wagyu beef. The price is pretty good considering the wagyu included, which honestly is probably more than 50% of the cost displayed here. There were some other sets that were like only 1000 yen or 1500 yen without the waygu. lol. Worth it regardless.
Dat nice wagyu beef grilling up nicely. I made sure I saved at least one or two pieces of wagyu for the end, it was great.
After a long day checking out Tokyo skytree we had a mini journey trying to find this Kura sushi. After a bit of a walk we found it but had to wait quite a long time due to it’s queue system which kinda sucks. Our first conveyor-belt sushi was solid tho.
I think this is sea bream/tai.
Some nice inari sushi. Pretty sweet.
Conger eel I believe, solid.
Some kind of clams? I just order stuff that is interesting, not normally seen.
I think this is seared tuna?
I think this is yellowtail sushi.
I think this is salmon belly or maybe salmon different kind of cut/seared?
Kura is pretty affordable indeed with a nice tablet to order from for us foreigners not good in the nihongos.
Outside of sushi we gotta get some fried shit, our western sensibilities cannot prevent us from getting tempura sushi and popcorn chicken sides.
Wow, all in all our meal combined was only 5366 yen and we ate a decent amount too. Pretty good.
Our hotel gave us some free breakfast tickets because of our check-in trauma which honestly they probably give out to everyone for a small cost. You just go down to the lobby in the morning and they have like a bunch of drinks and bread you can take. We only used it once since we only stayed at this hotel for like 2 nights. The curry bun was pretty good actually, solid. This was the morning we were to check out anyways.
Our first sit in meal once we relocated to our Akihabara hotel was Go Go Curry. After dropping off our luggage at our hotel in the morning we spent a brief amount of time walking Akihabara until it was lunch time, in which we hence went to Go Go curry, not the main one on the main Akihabara street, but a side one off the main path. This little display above was nice, right above the ticket vending machine where you order.
Pretty solid fare, with no options for spicy or sweetness, ordering at Go Go Curry is simple. I think me and my sister ordered the same thing, with the only difference I think maybe that I got pork cutlet while my sister got chicken. Solid shit.
Outside they had all the nice pre-selected options that you can pick from the vending machine. I think I could have eaten more, but it’s good that I didn’t. Can’t be too heavy when exploring Akihabara you know.
I am not entirely sure why Go Go Curry’s mascot is a gorilla but it works. I took a few of those nice free paper maps in the front, they were themed maps of Akihabara according to interests, for example, one was about cute girl stuff, the other about anime stuff and so forth.
For our first day and move to Akihabara hotel, I felt like trying Japanese style Chinese food, hence we checked out this place in the evening, known as “Hidakaya” based off their English menu.
When we went in, it was apparent that this place wasn’t especially used to tourists and was mainly for local Japanese patrons since while they had a tablet ordering system, it didn’t come with a English language option, which kind of is a wasted opportunity really. We signaled down a worker and asked for a “eigo mennuu, kudasai” and they promptly gave us one a few moments later as seen above.
Noice, English menu, but even then it was only good to get a sense of what they offered at a glance, you still had to order on the touchscreen tablet regardless, doh. We pulled out our phones and used google translate/lens on the touchscreen lol. This was probably the first time in our trip where we had to do this but it was quite an interesting experience nonetheless.
They have some pretty interesting rules at this restaurant, which I am assuming is a kind of chain. I mean, if they have tablets to order, then this must be some kind of franchise with the money to install them.
After putting in our order, the gyoza came. Pretty solid, tastes better with the soy/vinegar they have and the hot sauce that you can mix for yourself in a side dish.
I appreciate the very large pitchers of water that they have at every table served to. I definitely made use of them.
I ordered something along the lines of spicy tontaksu ramen. Pretty decent, I mean it’s not a specialized ramen shop, but for what it was and it’s cost, solid choice for a cheap budget meal. The large bowl of green/spring onion was something I wasn’t quite sure about. Did they expect me to put all of this into the soup? I like green/spring onion yea but that’s quite a bit.
My sister also ordered the similar but just regular tonkatsu ramen, base solid. Cost effective meal for the everyman.
Because I am retarded we ordered a regular set of fried rice that also came with a soup on the side, opps. Just wanted the rice alone, ah-well. The fried rice was pretty damn good because they used Japanese rice and had nice ‘wok’ flavor. Different from Chinese style fried rice but still good shit.
We are fat so we also ordered some sides of fried chicken and croquettes. Yea, we ordered quite a bit from this place since it all seemed so cheap and affordable. Fried chicken karaage on point.
Based on the demographics and vibe, this is a kind of place where a office worker would just come after work to enjoy a quiet cheap meal by themselves alone, not really a place to chill with friends or whatnot, although there were a few tables with larger groups. Hmm…
After we were done, all you have to do it press the tablet and say you are done and checkout for the bill, in which you go to the front-counter and pay for your seat/table number, which for us is 25. Wow, despite ordering so much food for both of us, our bill is only 2820 yen. Wow. Cheap Chinese style food really is a popular discount meal thing in Japan I guess.
The outside of the restaurant, notice the lack of any English signage or tourist friendly cues. We were pretty brave to go into this place and it was quite an interesting experience, no regrets.
Interestingly right beside it was also this Doner kebab mini place. lol Must be a chain as well. It should be noted that this restaurant was also right beside the Go Go Curry that we had for lunch lol. Yea, we did that.
They had one of those food displays on the left. If you look carefully, you can see how cheap their shit really is. Really discount stuff, good for the every-man worker I guess. The job recruitment ad at the bottom is interesting too, they pay more the later it is in the evening.
Here we are at Tsukiji in the morning of the next day scoping for food. We set our eyes on this grilled tuna skewer from this boss man.
For only 500 yen a piece, looks pretty good. We put some spices and lemon juice on them as they had it on the side, everyone was doing it too.
Truly, I kinda understand why they say tuna is the ‘chicken of the sea’ because yea, if you prepare it this way, shit is pretty meaty, almost like chicken and it even looks like chicken a bit from the inside. Good shit.
This place sold wagyu A5 cuts of meat with seafood on them like uni for a truly lux experience.
Being not a big fan of uni or sea urchin, we opted to choose just the meat, we like meat. We chose the skewer that cost 4000 yen which was A5 sirloin beef. Think about that for a second..
This one single skewer of wagyu A5 beef cost more than our entire meal at Hidakaya, by more than 1200 yen. Was it worth it however? Yes, yes it was. I would do it again, A5 truly is one of the best beef in the world, something you gotta try at least once.
Tsukij also has fruits and shit being a market and all, more than welcome to capitalize on the trend and reputation of premium Japanese fruit and vegetables.
They had a sampler cup of both red and white strawberries for sale. Not bad, the red ones were pretty sweet, but the white ones tasted like…peach or something else, not strawberry. It was interesting, I think this bowl cost us 800-1000 yen? Can’t remember.
Being at the fish market, I felt compelled to buy at least some fish so I saw this sashimi bowl for sale from one less traffic fish monger who honestly was just doing it for a side gig. No line so it was a quick transaction, pretty good salmon and tuna bowl. I think for like 1500 yen? Not sure.
Wow, quite a large selection of grilled things to eat and snack on, especially unagi and other skewered things.
Couldn’t resist and ended up buying the larger triple stick one for 900 yen. Sure they had it precooked but when they reheat it on the grill and put some more sauce on it, shit still tastes good. Savory and tender eel, good shit.
Another stall was selling some giant siu mai like dumplings, Chinese style I suppose and it was alright, a bit too much filler or something in the meat, it was noticeable so not the best thing I had today but since it was featured on several youtube channels, it was worth a try I suppose.
After a not to long wait for the famed tamago yaki at Tsukij we some of the the dude making this shit, must be hard work but I guess after a certain point and after making probably hundreds it becomes a mind numbing task.
Very cheap for only 150 yen it was certainly quite a delicious tamago on a stick. You can really tell the rich dashi broth that they use in the egg. Good shit.
When you think that we didn’t have enough sushi to eat, we ended up at Uobei in Shibuya, aka ‘Peter Barakan’ sushi to fulfill the prophecy of going to eat here after all these years, for my sister at least.
Nice selection and picture poster on the wall of all the stuff that they serve. Looking a bit dirty here but I guess that’s what happens when you’ve been around for so long in the same location.
As the universe would have it, one of my my sister’s OG highschool friends; Justin, just so happened to be making a short stay in Tokyo for a few days while we were also here so we ended up scheduling going to Uobei for lunch together. Wow, funny how things work out.
Once inside we are greeted with a nice tablet and dedicated rail line lanes where sushi is delivered to each individual diner, it’s kind of the opposite of traditional conveyor belt sushi which has proved to be very popular and successful in light of recent sushi terrorism by youth hooligans. Justin and my sister seem to be pretty happy with this reunion on the other side of the world.
Uobei had some nice ace tablet and English version going on. The ideal setup I suppose for a sushi place of this kind. Even back in 2014 when I went here alone by myself it was good but it seemed like they had improved the tablet even further.
I am still kind of amazed that this reunion had even took place to begin with. I mean, what are the chances that both of our schedules aligned and that Justin just so happened to be staying in Shibuya, the same day we were planning to visit the area. His flight back to Vancouver was apparently was tomorrow and was cramming in several other meetings with other friends all throughout the day and for dinner. Wow, mad lad.
Uobei in terms of price was a bit more expensive the Kura but their selection of sushi and items were more interesting in my opinion.
I don’t even remember what this was but I think clams maybe?
Probably sea bream/tai, nice garnish.
I can’t remember what this was, but it looked very different than other sushi I normally order.
A classic base salmon roe sushi or Ikura sushi. The eggs pop in your mouth, good shit.
I can’t remember but maybe flounder?
I think this was yellowtail.
This was I think fatty salmon belly grilled/torched. Tastes great.
I am pretty sure this is young mackerel or gizzard shad/kohada, but probably mackerel I think.
A combo dish of tuna and salmon, forgot what cut/fattiness, probably lean.
Salmon with cheese/mayo torched, pretty good. You see this kind of sushi all the time now at AYCE sushi’s back at home.
Oh boi, gotta get in our bait fried shirmp tempura sushi in. I mean, it’s popular enough that they have it on the menu still so it must be somewhat popular everywhere.
Our plates be stacking up higher and higher. Back in the day they would have a device to count each plate but these days it’s unnecessary since everything is already counted via the tablet. You can check at anytime how much you have eaten on the tablet and even the order history.
My stack is pretty big but not that big I’d say, we all ate quite a bit still.
They didn’t have a whole lot for dessert but they did have this creme brule like pudding, not bad. I don’t think I remembered to take a photo of our bills but it was once again pretty cheap, good shit.
In a day packed with eating so much good shit, I decided for a late dinner would be good and went to our nearby Torikizoku, aka “Pirate chicken” for nostalgia’s sake as I remember that being one of our first real sit down meals in Japan back in 2014. It was nearing closing time so they asked us to put ourselves down on the wait-list and see what happens.
Luckily we didn’t have to wait that long, maybe 10-15 minutes or even less before we were called and taken to our table. Pirate chicken has also gotten onto that nice tablet multilingual ordering system, which is great for tourists such as ourselves.
For a chain izakaya restaurant the demographic in this nearby Akihabara location, the majority of the patrons here were local Japanese people if I can tell from a glance, which was a bit surprising. But then again, this was not exactly the most accessible location to find, hidden away on a higher floor of a commercial building, you need to take an elevator to get to this place, which I’m guessing not to many tourists are willing to commit to.
Among the multiple tables and parties/groups, we have this solo pirate chicken patron who don’t give a shit. What a boss. I wish this kind of thing was more common/acceptable/normal in the west, solo dining at a restaurant if you know what I mean. I mean, they have an entire chain of yakiniku restaurants; Yakiniku Like, that is all about solo dining experience.
Even tho they had an tablet for ordering I still appreciate them having nice print menus to see everything all at once, although my photo is shit and blurry for some reason. Too bad. Every item on this first sheet is 350 yen each, which is pretty cheap!
A continuation of the backside with info on drinks and other beverages. Too bad for that blurry photo tho, mann.
First things first, I ordered a ‘mega’ whisky highball, the glass certainly is big and some base edamame beans, I mean it’s a izakaya after all.
Some fried chicken skins I think, pretty tasty and crispy. Nice.
Some of the first yakitori arrived, I believe this one was momo or thigh chicken meat. Tare sauce.
Another classic with negi green onion/leeks on them. Tare sauce.
I forgot what this was but it’s like ground chicken meat formed into little patty meatballs, I think it’s called tsukune, this one with cheese. Tare style.
The same tsukune also tare style. As you can begin to see, all of the yakitori was ordered was tare style or, teriyaki sauce glaze style. This was kind of a bad on us as when they seated us they said we only have like an hour before last call so we ordered hastiliy as soon as we could without spending more time to decide if we wanted them to be shio style/salt seasoned instead do defaulted on tare. Doh.
I can’t remember what it was but it had cheese sauce and seaweed on it. Not bad.
I think more breast meat/white meat chicken yakitori, tare style. Yea..we should have picked at least a few with shio/salt seasoning only.
We ended up ordering a few things more than we should have because we thought that 1 order meant 1 skewer when in fact 1 order actually had 2 skewers, hence the repeated tare tsukune here. Ahwell. My sister also ordered some rice thing and a few other things I forgot to take pictures of, like grilled chicken wing skewers but overall our Pirate chicken experience was solid, although on our part we should have ordered some shio/salt ones. I think I actually did end up ordering a few beef skewers in shio style but the workers came to us later and told us that it was sold out…man, bad luck I guess.
On our disney day our first food item we purchased was this coveted popcorn bucket. Man, according to my sister collecting these vessels is the hottest shit, people go to the parks just to get them.
It’s supposed to be for popcorn but what you are really buying is the vessel. Nice I guess. The flavor of this popcorn was black pepper, although the pepper is very weak tasting. Apparently different popcorn vessels have different popcorn styles, like caramel or other powdered popcorn seasoning depending on what location in the park you get them from.
After waiting in line for most of the morning for 20,000 leagues under the sea ride, the most closeby food was this long pork bun/roll. “Where dreams come true” nice wrapper.
And here it is, it looks kinda weird to be honest but it’s just a solid meat/onion bun, similar to a butaman or pork bun.
Filled with ground pork, garlic and chives/green onion, it did it’s job in satisfying our hunger after a rainy morning. Pretty tasty but the filling is basically the same as a gyoza, which is not a bad thing, I just wished it was more disney or something.
Hell yea boi, when I mean more disney, this is the shit I am talking about, full on bullshit gimmick food. These toy story mochi/dango alien head things were filled with ice cream of differing flavors. Oh and a churro stick because it’s a thing, not my thing, but it’s a thing.
I think the flavors were like strawberry, chocolate and vanilla but that’s besides the point, look at those balls, pretty good form.
One of the first things that my sister did when we got into the park was use their app and try to book/reserve things. One of the things she managed to get was this apparently high class fancy restaurnt called “Magellan” which made me immediately think of the starcraft space vessel because i think that’s what it was called in a special mission or something. The picture above is us waiting in some waiting area before we are seated.
Apparently they seat guests by timeslot in waves so yea, we had to wait, and in our case, they had a bit of difficulty finding our reservation for some reason, I have no idea but it was resolved. They have this nice swank bar but it was closed because yea, covid measures and such. Heh.
They had a few pre set courses you can choose from but me and my sister ultimately choose the same course, I can’t remember what it was called but it was around maybe 10,000 yen, the ‘special course’ I think. The first course was this thing, some french tourettes or something and some salad greens and sauce. Nice plate and fancy presentation.
Second course was abalone and some scallop with some fancy foam sauce and mash potato streaks I think? Overall pretty good, I’ve never had real abalone prepared in a non-asian chinese manner so it’s safe to say this was probably the best abalone I’ve ever had. Noice.
And here is the main course. What is supposedly wagyu steak chunks, some bean, dolleop of green sauce, green leafy stuff and slice of beet and some beef stew I believe. It ain’t much but it’s our main dinner for tonight.
Nice wagyu steak chunks and some garlic herb sauce. Tasty indeed but honestly I couldn’t tell if it was wagyu or not, still very flavorful tho.
Beet slice with a mushroom, mashed potato and some green stuff. Not bad for a salad.
The beef stew chunk tasted pretty good, almost like at homemade guiness stew. I can’t remember what the thing underneath was but I’m pretty sure that’s bokchoy.
After the main course they served us coffee and tea. It should also be noted that you have unlimited fresh baked bread during the course, although additional servings of butter are for additional cost. Noice, I ate bread.
The dessert was this icecream, cookie brownie, chocolate sauce fruit thing. It was pretty good. You pour the hot chocolate ontop and yea, eat it.
In the center of Magellan is this huge globe piece, much like the starcraft science vessel that bears it’s name. Very fancy and swank. In terms of cost to value for a meal, this restaurant is probably the worst in terms of quantity or if you want to get full; it is however probably the best value if you want to try and experience rich classy fine dining with small portions, high quality and artistry. It’s definitely not for everyone, including myself, as I would personally spend the money on quantity and quality over dining experience and presentation but that’s just me. My sister thought it was great so yea, it depends on your expectations I suppose.
Lest to say I was still hungry when we got back to our hotel. No fear however, that’s why we have combeni food! Yea boi. Get that onigiri bitch!
I can’t remember if this more expensive than normal onigiri from I think…lawson was the only thing I ate but it was alright, not as good as the family mart equivalent however.
For breakfast the next morning we decided to check out another family restaurant, this time Gusto that was also nearby. Pleased that they have a nice tablet to order from with English.
Damn, Gusto be living in the future, our orders were delivered via a robot. Wow. Japan man, doing it’s thing.
I ended up getting the hamburger steak with sausage and egg and toast. Pretty solid eats if you ask me.
When I saw the toast I kinda forgot that I was in Japan and this is their toast/bread. Thick and softer/sweeter than wonder bread that’s for sure.
My sister got something of a traditional Japanese breakfast, similar to what I had previously but for some reason just seems like more, probably because the big bowl of rice that came with it.
When you want to pay, you just take your paper receipt to the front machine and scan the QR code and you pay with whatever you want. It’s cool to see that Japan is finally accepting credit cards and other digital payment means alot more now than in the past, which is good shit. Up until now I haven’t tried using my credit card in Japan, this time I did; it worked. Noice.
After a very tiring day at Disney Sea, this was supposed to be a chiller day where we visited Ueno Park and see the nice cherry blossoms. Our next stop was at the Teamlabs Planets so we had a schedule to meet and didn’t have time for a sit down meal, ended up picking up some combeni buns. The Curry pan was solid from 711.
I seem to can’t resist these hotdog sausage buns. Good shit man. Good shit. We ate our buns/food outside Teamlabs Planets, waiting for our time slot to get in. It was hot waiting in the sun.
After Teamlabs we went to Odaiba for gundam unicorn and some mild shopping/crane games. It was about time for dinner already and we checked out the nearby Diver City food court. This tsukemen looked interesting.
Not sure if it’s supposed to be a chain or a one off shop but yea, they have a sign and nice tourist friendly set/meal ordering.
They were moderately busy but overall the food court was quite busy. I couldn’t tell what shops were more busy than others, every one of them was kinda mid busy.
I believe I ordered a large serving of noodles, I am not sure what the 100 yen extra cost is tho, probably the egg and minced meat. I just pointed to the picture.
And here is my dinner for today, while it was pretty good. The cold noodles quickly made the soup cold and so as the meal continue it just didn’t taste as good when you first started. And because I had a large serving of noodles, it made it only worst since there was a lot more noodles and soup that needed to be dunked from a normal serving. I ate it all but I should have stuck to a normal portion, it was quite a lot of noodles.
As you can see from my sister’s portion, it’s smaller and more manageable. No egg or minced meat, which honestly I could have done without as well. Ah-well, the more you know, still tastes good tho, even when the soup is not hot.
There is a crepe place that is literally right next beside the exit/entrance to our hotel in Akihabara so my sister finally decided to give it a try. Looks and tasted pretty solid.
Getting into a habit of wanting to have sit down breakfast, we decided to try out Denny’s. Nice all you can drink bar as per all family restaurants.
The demographics of this place are interesting. Sitting above/near a hotel you would think it’s mainly foreign patrons of the hotel but for some reason..it’s not really? Nice guys with the rad hair on the right, wow.
My breakfast meal/set came with this yogurt thing. It tasted like shit. No sugar or fruit or anything. What the fuck is this? I had to add my own syrup and it still tasted like shit, didn’t eat. Would not again.
The remainder of my breakfast set was a standard Japanese fare, with the nice salted grilled salmon, rice and miso soup and a egg/tofu for good measure.
My sister went with a more traditional American breakfast, french toast and some bacon. Nice.
As this was our Enoshima travel day trip, we didn’t actually think it would take so long to get to the island due to our bad train travel luck so we were kinda hungry by the time we got to the main street in Enoshima. We some some nice street food fried croquettes and decided to give them a try. Pretty solid.
This was the vendor itself and I ordered two kinda. I can’t remember the difference between them, both of them had this mini fish in them, which apparently is the signature/specialty of Enoshima/locals.
Walk dat path, line up to get dem special pressed seafood crackers.
So cool to see this, even though there is no prawn/shrimp just the shell. I said they were pretty salty, and yes, they were.
They are more known for the octopus one but I like the shrimp one better, looks kinda like a fossil or something, and it’s bigger too.
After getting to a higher level in Enoshima near the candle tower as they call it, was a shop selling curry Shirasu bread, ah is that what those tiny fish are called? Shirasu huh, wow.
I have had my shared of curry pan by now in Japan and I’d say this one was decent. Even with the Shirasu fish I can honestly say they are just filler, you can’t taste them at all, the curry sauce is just too overpowering. It looks cool tho after a bite.
After wandering around and doing the best we can with Enoshima, it was getting late and we were hungry. Most of the shops and food places close at like 5 or 6pm…except for this pressed Shirasu takoyaki like cracker senbei thing. I can’t remember what it was called.
Once again the fish don’t add much in terms of flavor but at least in this snack it added a decent texture along with the cracker and other crispy bits.
My sister got a more traditional one without the fish and she said it was alright.
After finally getting back to Akihabara and our hotel we decided to go out for a proper dinner, this time at Royal Host a more upscale, at least it seemed that way family restaurant. They had quite a big menu or grand menu as they call it but they had big sheets pushing people to get their steak and other seasonal items. Funny enough they were promoting ‘American angus beef’ sets.
My sister’s meal with a nice hamburger steak and other real steak, real ‘American angus beef’ according to the nice little plastic thing. One broccoli, just like the picture. Wow.
My meal had a bit more green stuff, kale salad, beef, chicken steak and shrimp in a variety of ways with mashed potatoes. Not bad, tasty. The meal itself was kinda higher than average for a family restaurant but then again, we both did end up eating steak and beef.
We also added in free drink bar access for a few 100’s of yen more, can’t remember but it was worth. Had my fill of soda pop, coffee and other beverages. My sister drank quite a bit of their hot chocolate as well, making it worth it for us this time. Nice homely meal to a big day full of hardship and struggle.
Keeping up with the trend of having sit down breakfast in the mornings, we decided to walk a bit and go to the small Yoshinoya in Akihabara. Wow, so cheap their menu is. It’s kinda strange that they have eel at Yoshinoya but sure.
No time to chat or chill, this place is really small, in and out, eat your food and gtfo, a trademark of many Japanese food places, even more so if they are this small like this.
I got the highlighted beef bowl breakfast, which amazingly is only like 500 yen, holy shit that’s cheap. Certainly a fulfilling cheap quick breakfast beef bowl. I mean, I have brought single gacha capsule rolls for 500 yen and this meal costs that much. Wow. Solid.
Solid through and through. I know it’s a three way debate between who is better for Yoshinoya, Matsuya and Sukiya but funny enough I still haven’t been to Matsuya or Sukiya. Even in 2014, I had Yoshinoya; the next time I visit Japan again, I’ll make it my mission to try the remaining two. Shiet.
My sister once again got something like a traditional breakfast with the salted salmon but only with a small gyu sampling on the side and some other things like miso soup and salad. We were eating there for like at max 15-20 minutes and then we were out, quick and cheap.
Our first destination of the day was to check out Tokyo station. They had an entire area/section where it’s just ramen and other food shops, all mostly tourist friendly based on the English signage. We decided already that we were going to have either ramen or curry for lunch today, just which store it will be we weren’t sure yet. Everything looks good to be honest. I don’t think we went to the place pictured above tho.
We went to Tokyo station to check out ekiben to buy, specifically looking for the kiddie ones that are shaped like a shinkansen train. Yea, we got some. Noice.
With a wide selection of so many ekiben, it’s hard to choose, even these self heating ones seem cool although based on youtube people, may not be the best taste wise. We’ll see which ones we get I suppose when we do need to travel on the shinkansen shortly.
After a very busy and crowded morning shopping and browsing ‘character street’ in Tokyo station filled with hello kitty, sumikko gurrashi, pokemon and ever other kind of fandom with cute characters, we decided to try this ramen place. Looks nice.
We partly choose this place because there was a lineup and it also had a English friendly ticket machine and seemed to be popular with both Japanese and tourists/foreigners. An interesting thing about this store is that they also employed a few brown/Indian workers that could speak English. Wow. In fact the person that guided us to our seat was a brown women and a couple of the ramen chefs were also brown. Wow. Japan, you doing it.
I got black garlic tonkatsu ramen, pretty good shit. Nice noodle texture and thickness, not so sure about the bean sprouts however.
My sister got this teriyaki tonkatsu ramen, one of the shop’s recommended specialties I think. She said it was pretty good, looks good.
And here is the entrance to the actual ramen shop we ate at that had some brown employees. Wow. Still not exactly sure what it’s called but I’m sure it can be looked up, since it’s in Tokyo Station. Pretty good shit.
Because we were at Tokyo Station to shop and buy the nice shinkansen ekiben, sometime later when we got back to our hotel to rest my sister ate it. While inherently kiddie for kids, she said it was pretty good. Ok. Too bad my photo is blurry, ah well. Nice vessel.
After spending the rest of the day exploring Akihabara again after Tokyo Station, we decided to have conveyor belt sushi again, this time at Sushiro, another well known sushi chain. The line up was pretty bad to be honest and their queue system was questionable and confusing at best. You take a ticket and wait for your number to be displayed on the screen, easy right? But the display itself is so confusing since the biggest number on the screen isn’t the party being seated, it’s weird man. We waited I think over 45 minutes, maybe a bit more before we were seated and struggled to ‘check in’ using the QR code using the machine but we did it.
The location itself was like on B1, the underground of some other building and the line/wait was almost out the door. The demographics were mixed between tourists and local Japanese, both businessman and groups of Japanese youths, it was an interesting mix. While we were waiting, I overheard a lone middle aged salary-man commented to another older Japanese women something along of the lines of “Wow, it’s so busy, it’s incredible, look at all the foreigners here, I haven’t seen this many in years” with him loosely pointing to all the visible white people who had already gotten seats. Ha ha ha, little do you know salary-man, I too am also a Gaijin foreigner, you don’t even realize it. Ha ha ha.
It was such a relief once we got seated since man, we were pretty hungry. I don’t remember how I got this photo above, I think I actually did a selfie and just raised my photo above my head. The result is pretty good I’d say.
All of these big sushi chains now, you order from a tablet. It never used to be like this by default for Sushiro but ever since the incidents of sushi terrorism were posted my hooligan Japanese youths; which just so happened to be at a Sushiro, they stopped putting sushi on the conveyor belt and just put bullshit like wasabi, napkins in rotation, such a shame. Now that most conveyor belt sushi’s have become kinda like Uobei’s, it kinda validates their business model and methods I guess and hooligan terrorism proof.
I am not sure what kind of sushi this was but I think it was pork sushi? Pretty different from other places. I think this was my sister’s order.
Popcorn chicken again, once again, my sister’s order. I just realize that in some way or another, we almost always eat fried chicken in some form. I can’t remember what day, but I think we had fried chicken like 3 times in a day. To be fair, Sushiro’s fried chicken was pretty good.
I believe this was mine I think seared lemon-herb tuna. Wow, look at that thickness of the fish and pretty big rice too.
Can’t remember what this was, maybe seam bream/tai or yellowtail probably since it seems like I always order that. Nice big rice there.
I believe young mackerel or gizzard shad/kohada. I like shiny fish with skin.
Oh shit looks like we got a badass over here with a black more expensive plate with 3 kinds of fish combo. Wow, I kinda like this type.
I love eel, you have to put your own sauce on yourself with a little bottle they have, similar to the other places like Uobei. They have sweet and regular soy sauce. This one requires sweet thick soy sauce I believe.
Ikura again, man now that am reviewing these photos, I really do tend to get all the same things at every sushi place lol.
Another black plate filled with an assortment of torched sushi, I think scallop, tuna and shrimp.
Three kinds of salmon cut sushi. Noice.
Hmm, not sure what this is, my guess is tai/sea bream again but then again, would I get it twice? Maybe not.
Oh yea boi, I know this one tho, otoro /fatty tuna belly sushi. Good shit, so melty.
For dessert I ended up getting something called frozen mangos lol and yes it was indeed frozen mangos, but shit was pretty good honestly. Once you bite into it, it’s soft like a regular mango, meaning I think they just dip these into liquid nitrogen or something, not just have them sit in a fridge, cause otherwise they would be hard as a rock.
Some yuzu/lime/lemon jelly thing. Very forgettable but yea. I could do without the whip cream from everything.
This little thing is apparently melon sorbet, I didn’t think it could come in such a nice plastic vessel. Lest to say, I took that shit with me once I was done eating it lol. Nice souvenir and taste, basically melona in a round vessel.
Once you are done eating all you have to do is press the checkout/ask for bill button and you get this screen and wait a bit. Then you go with your receipt and pay at the self-pay register using either cash/card or other payment options. Nice, Japan’s got this self payment shit going well now.
Here is the screen where you look for when it is time for you to check-in after the waitlist…so confusing. You would think that the 630 is the one that you need to go and scan your QR code, but it’s actually the smaller squares above that matter that show if your table is ready for check-in. Shit. Nice collab/commercial with slime tho. Hmm.
So yea, that ends part I of Food Journey post that ends with the last meal in Tokyo before heading out to Osaka the next day. If you would remember right, I felt terrible this night thinking I got a cold/covid or food poisoning and got the chills, damn man. Looking back, I probably got food poisoning due to something I ate on this last Tokyo day, either it being Yoshinoya, Ramen or the Sushiro. I have no idea what might have been the meal that ruined me for a couple of days, but regardless everything was still good shit, even tho it gave me…bad shits.
Well anyways, next stop is in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo again for part 2, let’s see how that goes.