It is becoming a tradition for me to eat at the Ikspiari Mall either before or after my Tokyo Disney trips. Yes, they are probably rip-off tourist prices here but nothing gets more rip off than Disney – am I right? I just wanted some good ole Taiwanese food so we came to Seiryumon after we were pau with our DisneySea excursion.
If you order a meal set, it comes with egg drop soup and their salad. Those stringy things on top of the salad are like tofu I believe? Really good.
Braised Pork | ¥1,180
Sweet Chili Shrimp with Egg Stir Fry | ¥1,890 (set menu)
Mala Tofu | ¥1,890 (set menu)
Here is the rice but I forgot to take pictures of the vegetables we ordered (you can see them in the back)! I talked about it in my previous post but we also ordered Stir-fried Pea Sprouts but now I’m not sure if it was the same dish as last time. Honestly, they changed their menu a bit since I last visited and I got a little confused. The veggies were good nonetheless!
Krispy Kreme Donuts! There is a Krispy Kreme in the mall so we decided to order some donuts! Aren’t they so cute? The cashier was very sweet and happily encouraging as I went through all my coins to pay. I don’t wanna carry around choke coins! You know what was cool? By the end of the trip, I used up all my coins! Until I got to the dumb airport but that’s another story for another day lol.
Chan and I aren’t the best theme park people, I think we’ve always gone in the past with others who are gung ho about the parks. I certainly don’t mind it! It’s fun to walk around, eat some ono grinds and see the decorations for the season. Combine that with Japanese hospitality? Why not? We only went to DisneySea on this trip, I thought it would be nice to see the Christmas decorations!
Japan was unseasonably warm this trip around. Don’t get me wrong, 50’s and 60’s is awesome weather but we kind of brought clothes that were for colder weather. Bummers! Well DisneySea was COLD. You know why? It’s always so windy there! I was getting so cold basically because of the high winds. I think we got out of there by lunchtime. But it’s okay, Chan was able to find a few things he was looking for.
Didn’t mean to catch the couple in the picture, but how cute is that?
I wish I got pictures of the limited edition popcorn tongs Chan got! You can see more pictures of them here. You had to line up for popcorn and you gotta actually buy a bag of popcorn so you can pay extra to buy ONE set of the tongs. It’s kind of silly and we both didn’t want the popcorn so we bought it, got the tongs and I immediately handed the bag of popcorn to the group of girls behind us in line. They were very happy with free popcorn lol.
Hot dogs! Ha you know how much I like hot dogs. Right? Well these were good, not great. Not American style you know? More of a Japanese sausage. Anyway, that’s all the pictures I got lol. Sorry I didn’t have much to share on this. We’re hoping to make it to Universal Studios next time because it would be cool to check out Super Mario together! Take care!
When I was growing up, KIKU was my daily jam – especially on Saturdays (yes, quite a lively social calendar) but I loved it because Soko Ga Shiritai would show at like 6PM and then right after that show ended, Crayon Shinchan would come on. Then I would get a half hour break to shower before I watched my 8PM Korean drama on KBFD (lol). It’s a core memory for me.
Anyway, my favorite episodes on Soko Ga Shiritai were always their restaurant segments, especially the 1000-yen meals. One restaurant always remained in my memory, Kitchen Carrot. I wish I could find the episode again but it was a small restaurant run by a married couple, the husband was a former butcher so he knew how to get good quality meat at a cheap price which is why they were able to offer cheaper meal sets. They were super popular back then and I remember how tired the wife was (she said it and looked it) but the food…oh the food looked so good. It’s always been on my bucket list to find this restaurant and try it and guess what? I did on this trip! And a double score? We met up with Kat for lunch here! Thank you Kat for making the trek out here to join us for lunch! And oh my gosh, THANK YOU FOR THE OMIYAGE. You really didn’t have to and I loved the bag you gave me and all the goodies inside, I can’t wait to try the Japanese sriracha, you are so generous. And thank god Kat was there because they are not English friendly at this restaurant lol – double thank you!
Small kine research was that the original owners sold this place about a decade back – luckily the new owners are running it pretty much the same!
Looks just like it did in the 90’s! And man, this restaurant is SMALL. We were the first ones in line, well, no line really. But there was a stream of people coming in as we started eating.
Sirloin Steak (200g) | ¥1,750 served with miso soup, rice and coffee/oolong tea or orange juice
This was Kat’s dish! Oh man, it looked so good. I wanted to get hers when I saw it arrive! I’m a sucker for herbed butter, looked like the perfect portion too!
Chan and I ordered the same set, for me, it was go big or go home. I waited over 20 years for this and who knows if I would return! You know what I really wanted? Same dish like this but in the segment, they also had these giant ebi fry. Oh that would have been awesome but this was good too! Can you believe…the chicken (the one with the red sauce on top) was the best part of the dish? The steak was actually bit dry and tough. I think I like everything else over the steak I got. I got the orange juice and absolutely enjoyed my experience.
Just wanted to show you my set up close and the big order of rice it comes with. Kat was good and asked for less rice, no way I was gonna do that. LOL, thank you to Chan and Kat for being part of one of my bucket list items come true!!!
Chan and I took a train out to Hiratsuka located within Kanagawa (my first time!) to meet up with two of his friends. I will say, the best meals we had during the trip were definitely at restaurants his friends’ (locals!!) chose. We dined in at Takeman and it was a wonderful experience; ambience, excellent service, food, everything was perfect!!! No English menu folks and we were served a set menu…so no real names of dishes here…sorry! It was all so delicious though…
Each of us had our own setting with a unique image – details!
Every dish was delicious and beautifully presented. Thank you to Takao for introducing this restaurant to us! Takao then drove us up to beautiful Komayama Park.
The park had one restaurant and check this out folks…
It was called Aloha Market and they sold Hawaiian plate lunches and specialties including “marasada.” Too bad we just ate lunch, I would have tried something!
Happy Holidays everyone! I hope this post finds you well and that you had a wonderful Christmas! Traffic has been nuts yeah? More like nuts drivers. Stay safe out there! I’ll try my best to organize my life so that I will have time to blog again. Everything is a bit of a mess so I have much cleaning to do. Let me get some Japan posts out before it becomes old news! Chan and I had a wonderful time in Japan, was sad to come home but we will be back soon I am sure! For today’s post, I’ll share our wonderful flight experience from Honolulu to Haneda.
Sakura Lounge | Honolulu Airport
Yummers. Had to try their chicken curry on rice and of course their instant cup noodle. The curry? Was just alright, sorry! The chicken was kind of overcooked and dry. It’s a nice lounge and has every drink you can imagine! And not to sound da kine but the bathroom is located outside of the lounge in the airport and it was all hot and kind of stinky.
JAL Amenities Pouch – just wanted to show you folks what they give lol
They start you off with a drink and a nice rice cracker mix! Yum!
Washoku (Japanese Cuisine) | JAL Corporate Chef Uchiyama Naoki
Clockwise from top left: Walnut Tofu with Black Sesame Sauce; Squid Roll stuff with Spicy Cod Roe Potato; Salmon marinated in Sweet Vinegar; Roast Beef & Braised Soy Pulp with Soy Starchy Sauce (lol this description); Steamed Chicken with Sesame Sauce; Taro & Shrimp Cake & Japanese Omelette
Absolutely chose Washoku over the Western menu and there were no regrets. I enjoyed all of it! I especially loved these little side dishes. I think the tofu and squid was my favorites.
Grilled Black Cod “Saikyo Miso” Flavor Steamed Rice (For keeping moisture of steamed rice, Chinese cabbage will be covered) – oh the details!
Super tender cod, looks kind of gray in the picture but tasted great! Loved the cabbage on the steamed rice lol.
Miso Soup
Lilikoi Passion-fruit Cake Green Tea
Good, not great.
Assorted Cheese Frest Fruits Apple Juice (lol)
I had to take advantage of a snack time. Why I wanted to eat cheese as a lactose intolerant Asian on a plane? What do I say? I guess I’m a risk taker. I asked for water and apple juice too because I don’t drink alcohol. She plated it all so nicely and even gave me biscuits. Very nice.
The meal before arrival. Meh, was just alright. Nothing memorable. Didn’t care for the yogurt and there is my trusty apple juice again. Just a forewarning, I drank a lot of apple juice on this trip.
So sorry folks! Life caught up with me. Work burned me out. Just trying to survive out there but was working towards that light in the tunnel which is my vacation!
I am off to Japan today! I am SO excited and hope to come back refreshed and reinvigorated. I will definitely be updating my Instagram plenty during the trip so please follow along! Add maybeitsjenny to join me on this journey!
Sorry folks, no food pictures in this post. I just wanted to share some random photographs I took from Seattle and Canada. I really enjoyed this trip and can’t wait to return!
Space Needle! We did not visit it but it was nice seeing it from afar haha
View from our Richmond AirBNB window. This was like at 9PM. That was wild to me. I can never get used to late sunsets!!!
Vancouver Chinatown Entrance Gate – we did not have a good experience here (lol). I enjoyed Richmond much more!
I really enjoyed our stay at Whistler. It’s so beautiful there during the Spring, I can only imagine how beautiful it is blanketed in snow. Bucket list is to visit Whistler one day in the snow! I love the small town village feel even though the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night (false alarm).
Mount Rainier
Finally got a shot of Mount Rainier during one of our many drives. Pretty yeah? We didn’t get to visit but it was so pretty to admire from afar.
Ichiro Japanese Restaurant is one of the restaurants my BF really wanted to check out since he’s been before. We thought we were safe for a weeknight dinner without a reservation (spoiler alert, you are not). They told us they were full until late so we were starting to order take-out when a couple left and they said they could seat us as long as we could finish eating before 7:15. I said, if you can feed us fast, we can eat fast. No worry beef curry.
Ichiro Don & Noodle Set | $28.50 (CAD) prawn tempura, deep fried chicken & BBQ eel on rice
Kaisen Don & Noodle | $29.95 (CAD) uni, negitoro, mentaiko, ikura and seaweed on sushi rice
This was my set and it was winners! They ran out of something and had to substitute, I can’t quite remember what it was but it doesn’t matter, it tasted great anyway!
Steveston Sashimi | $76.50 (CAD) tuna, red tuna, scallop, hamachi, atlantic salmon, sockeye salmon, sweet shrimp and spicy sashimi
We shared this sashimi set – so full from our sets but we had to try out the sashimi selection! If we weren’t so rushed, I think we would have enjoyed the sashimi set more. It’s okay, there’s always next time!
My friend Naomi told me I had to try these Australian meat pies so of course I did! Peaked Pies is a cute little Australian bakery in the Whistler village!
Get Peaked (Add on) add mashed potato, mushy green peas & gravy to your pie
We ordered two pies and got both peaked!
Steak, Bacon & Cheese chunky steak pieces infused with ground bacon, layered with a cheddar/mozzarella mix
Traditional Aussie (sorry for the blurry pic) ground beef, onions & gravy
How was it? Nice and fast stop for some warm comfort food. I actually preferred the steak pie, I like to have chunks of meat to bite into. Learned that I am not a fan of mushy peas so I probably wouldn’t get it peaked next time or would get it peaked without the peas. I enjoyed it and can’t wait to return during the winter time!
For sure had to try poutine while I was in Canada and Zog’s was the place to go! Very short post today lol.
Zog’s Classic Poutine
Yeah, I wasn’t impressed. I don’t know if it was just this place that made it junk or maybe I’m just not into fries slathered in gravy and cheese curds. Not a fan.
Jalapeno + Cheese Smokie beef and pork stuffed with cheese and jalapeno
Saving grace of the meal. I love myself a good hot dog. This hit the spot. Love the spice and cheese, and the char from being grilled. Yum!
