I am just imagining V asking me why we ate at McDonald’s. It’s different in Japan ok! And this was breakfast sets! The filet-o-fish was good, just like it tastes here. But can we get these salad shakers back in America?!
This was the salad dressing – goma dressing. Yum! Squeezed it in and then shook it up!
Gracoro Burger is a sandwich with a patty of macaroni, shrimp and white sauce. Chan had this, I think he said it was just alright. Me reading that description already triggers a tummy ache haha. But hey, when in Japan – gotta eat the Japan exclusive sets!
We headed to a cute little bar in Shibuya after dinner with friends, they specialized in Hawaii beers. Was super cool and the couple running the joint LOVE Hawaii. I thought it was really cool to see the different beers and they were even selling Maui Towels to raise money for Maui.
Bar Food – I’m sure V would enjoy this. It’s lost on me since I don’t drink.
Hey Kat, is this a good Tokyo People post? LOL nah if any of you are offended by this picture, I’ll happily remove it. This a late night on the train, the only late night I had on a train and well, this is what I saw. He had the whole row of seats to himself lol. Poor cleaners.
Thanks to Chan’s friends, we got to try another awesome Japanese restaurant we probably would never have found ourselves. Nanpeidai Goryo–san is located in Shibuya in a residential building. They specialize in vegetable and meat rolls on skewers that are grilled. Not tourist friendly, thankfully Chan’s friends did all the ordering!
This is pretty cool, the server brings this platter out to every table to show you what the different items are. I assume they don’t use this for actual cooking because I saw a waiter sneeze on it lol. I can probably read most of these signs but it would just take 10 years for me to read and then translate it in my head.
Kampachi | ¥880
I’ll try my best to find the prices and names of these dishes. This was a seasoned kampachi sashimi dish. Very good!
Red Sangria | ¥600
I actually drank alcohol, can you believe it? I did not feel good after drinking this. It got to me a bit so it just further cements that I shouldn’t drink. I mean, isn’t this basically a juice? LOL
Seasoned Cabbage
If you know, you know. When you go to these yakiniku places, they serve up some seasoned cabbage as a free service. It’s very lightly seasoned with probably sesame oil and salt?
Assorted Meat Vegetable Rolls
Okay good luck folks, I don’t know what these were. They were all good though!
Shirako
You folks know what this is right? If not, sorry about this. This is fish sperm. I have never had it before but I think this is from cod? I don’t know. Well how was it? Not looking for a that’s what she said moment but man this tasted good. It was super clean tasting. I enjoyed it a lot. I tried this again in another restaurant that maybe wasn’t as high end and did not like it there. It was good here!
Deep Fried Yamaimo | ¥580
Very good! Surprisingly light and not that gooey haha
I forget what this was. Was good though, how can anything served in that much butter/oil not be good?
More meat sticks in my mouth! That’s what she said.
Heh. I don’t remember what this was either lol.
Iburigakko with Cream Cheese | ¥500
My freaking favorite dish of the night. It’s smoked daikon rolled with cream cheese and I just didn’t even know what it was when it was served so I thought it was some kind of char siu (lol). Do we have iburigakko here in Hawaii? Does Don Q import it? I need to eat it again!!!!
Happy Aloha Friday! Since I have a few random pics I can share, let me share them! I also want to share these while they are recent!
Tantan Ramen | $13.50
Tonkatsu Sangi is located in Pioneer Plaza in Downtown. They have ties to the old school Gomaichi so you know their ramen is gonna be good. Sorry I took a picture only after I mixed it all up. They are also very popular for their tonkatsu and nanban chicken! It’s a take-out place, no dine in. Didn’t get to try the tonkatsu but did try the nanban – the nanban is drenched in like a ponzu-ish soy sauce. I think a lot of folks expect the other way, plain fried chicken smothered in tartar sauce so I’m just giving the heads up there. The ramen was good! The broth is rich in flavor but didn’t feel too heavy or greasy. They get pretty busy so I would go earlier in the day to get your food because they also do run out!
Shoyu Butter (Soy Garlic + Butter Sauce) | $12.00 + Extra Pasta | $1.50 Spaghetti, Bacon, Mushroom, Spinach, Nori Katsuobushi flakes
We did a quick lunch order from Mio Pastalogy and Dell’s Kitchen & Bakery (same space/owner/kitchen). I was in a pasta mood and felt like their regular portion was kind of small so I added extra this time. Not too bad for $1.50, it was delicious! I love Japanese fusion Italian food. Mio makes their own pasta daily so you’re eating fresh stuff, never the dry stuff. You can even buy your own pasta to take home and make your own dishes with! My favorite part? You can order and pay online and go pick up when it’s ready!
Bibimbap | $10.00 (tax included)
When do you ever see me commend prices? Holy crap here is one. I went to Palama Supermarket last week to grab some groceries and did a quick glance at their snack bar menu. I wasn’t planning on buying dinner but I can’t pass up a bibimbap and for 10 bucks?? Why not. I ordered it and it was 10 bucks even, no tax – sounds silly but I was even excited about that. Here it is. They even give you a side of kimchi. Great portion and price, man I should come to the snack bar more often. The rest of the menu looked really good value too!!
Have you heard of Baek Jong Won before? I’m sure you must have if you follow Korean stuff. If not, he’s a very famous Korean chef and I was so excited to finally try his food! He has a few locations in Japan – not sure why he calls it Hong Kong Hanten 0410 – they serve the Northern Chinese cuisine we see here in Hawaii but Hong Kong is not Northern Chinese (though he loves visiting Hong Kong). Anyway, sorry for the confusing words – let’s get to the food!!!!
Complimentary pickles and raw onions – gotta have em!
Tangsuyuk (Large) | ¥2,600
Looks as good as it tastes! So light and crispy – love when the batter is light. Delicious! We over ordered hehe.
Gogi Jjamppong | ¥1,250
Chan’s dish, he enjoyed it! It was actually spicy so that’s good because he’s Korean and he can handle spice.
Jaengban Jajang | ¥1,950 (serves 2)
I saw this on the menu and had to get it. I don’t know why they only serve this as a 2 servings dish, I wish they offered this just as a single serving? Well it doesn’t matter, I ate it. I was hoping to share it with Chan but let’s be real – I just bodied it myself after he tried it. It was the best jajangmyun I have ever had in my life. I liked this one because it’s all stirfried together and it has all these vegetables and seafood in it. Man, I’m still salivating thinking about this dish. I want to eat it again.
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!
