Eating Tokyo

Tokyo was the last stop on our amazing trip. We had around 5 days in this incredible city with a population of 37 million. It was beautiful, vibrant, MASSIVE, quirky. I can absolutely understand the reason Tokyo has become such a bucket list spot.

I think you could spend 3 months in Tokyo and not see all that you wanted to.  We certainly saw some amazing things, albeit briefly. And unfortunately Tokyo is when after being on the go, that exhaustion caught up and I inevitably got sick. That aside, I forged though and still have incredible memories.

Shinjuku Gyoen is the Central Park of Tokyo and was one of my must sees! It was very close to our hotel and I ended up going twice. 

It was an incredible garden and was a little piece of calm in the middle of the city.

I couldn't resist when I saw this adorable food truck.

It was not cheap at AUD 13 but my goodness it was delicious. A really tasty hot dog on a perfect bread roll with pickled veg which are produced in the garden itself. Very fresh, very delicious and the vendor was really lovely and friendly. 

On our other visit, I stopped in at Tsubura, a cafe in the gardens. They offered a small selection of bentos, sweets, hot and cold drinks and I had a gyodon and home made lemonade slushy while dad had a latte. 

Really sweet presentation, and a nice morning tea. Around AUD25 for the bento, drink and coffee.

A month before we departed I had the most stressful time acquiring tickets to the Ghibli Museum. Logging on at 10am on the dot as told to, I was put into a queue where I was 4099th in line. Tickets are only $10 per person, but are very limited and very coveted. The museum was tiny but very lovely, and absolutely worth the trouble. We wouldn't have journeyed out to Mitaka if we hadn't had tickets and wouldn't have discovered the beautiful Inokashira Park, which was utterly Ghibli in itself. (photography is not allowed inside the museum)

While at the park we stopped for a beer at Italian Restaurant Isentai and decided to share one of the woodfired pizzas. It was beautiful as well as incredibly tasty.

This was the house special and had a base of mascarpone and fresh cream and was topped with prosciutto, rocket, honey and edible flowers.

On one of our last days, I was feeling particularly poorly, but I said to dad I wanted to venture out but I didn't want to do any of the thinking or planning, I just wanted to be lead around. Bless him he did such a wonderful job. 

He knew I wanted to see some seaside and he knew I found the subway and metro incredibly stressful, so se booked us tickets on the open top bus (we had previously open top bussed and ADORED it) and chose the route that would take us portside to Odaiba. 

It was a beautiful out-of-the-way spot that we assume is where Tokyoites spend their weekends and holidays. It was a perfect day and the beach was speakling blue and clean as anything and no hussle and bustle.

We stopped in at a cafe, Sea Side Cafe Solaris that had a decidedly Hawaiian feeling to it for coffee, I also had a cream cheese pretzel which has that perfect sweet and salty combo going on.

We wandered around the area for an hour or two before hopping on the bus back to Ginza. We drove past the Tsukiji Market which resembled a heaving mass of bodies and took a raincheck before finding a bite to eat at the cutest restaurant we'd passed, Il Barocco.

We were lucky to get a seat as it was getting towards the end of lunch time on a Saturday. Inside felt like a traditional Italian Trattoria, not a tourist in sight and smells of deliciousness thick in the air.

I started with a blood orange mimosa and dad a beer with our garlic prawns and house made focaccia (to dip). They were INCREDIBLE.

Our other entree was slow cooked pork shoulder served with mushrooms which was also gorgeous.

Mains were spaghetti marinara and pizza el fungi.

The pizza was very nice, but the star was the spagetti. It had perfect flavour that was in no way overbearing. The seafood was fresh and cooked perfectly and these two actually complimented each other perfectly.

And this place we chose at least partially for the outside of the restaurant.

Cheap and cheerful Chinese! My sweet and sour pork was perfect and I could have eaten two or maybe even three serves. 

Check out dad's plate, actually it was the size of a platter! With fried rice that dad said was superb, fried chicken and gyoza.

This is the final of the Japan series. I feel so lucky to have been invited to join my father on this trip of a lifetime. My dad is the perfect travel partner. I admire his calm in stressful situations, his never-ending youthful adventurousness and his open and empathetic understanding of those around him.

Love you, Papa. 

Eating Konbini

So one of the things I was most excited to eat in Japan, was convenience store foods: 7/11 and the likes. NOT like Australian 7/11s but a veritable smorgasbord of delicious delights.

https://www.japan.travel/en/japan-magazine/2002_konbini/

"The term konbini – also sometimes spelled as 'conbini' – is that Japanese name given to the nation's ubiquitous convenience stores. These Japanese stores, more than most other countries in the world, are the center of daily life, especially in the city." - Japan National Tourism Organisation.

We did quite a few konbini dinners for no other reason than it was so easy to pop downstairs from the hotel, grab something (most of our hotels had kitchenettes), heat it up and relax and rest our feet after doing averages of 15km per day with a glass of wine.

First up we have a dinner in Osaka from 7/11. Please excuse the contraband. If I remember correctly, this meal of a bento, chips, ice cream, parfait, onigiri INCLUDING French red wine and fags was $AU 35!

The 'main' if you will felt a bit like a kids meal, but was delicious nonetheless and consisted of  sausage, fried chicken, ketchup rice with omelet, mini onigiri, meatball, croquette and potato salad. For my first it was a good all rounder and was around $4 6.5/10

My goal was to pick and eat as much 'weird stuff' as I could on this trip and this weird fish flavoured chip packet, I felt filled that niche. They tasted like fish and chips. 7/10

Onigiri is sushi rice, usually with a filling wrapped in a sheet of seaweed and are as popular over there as the standard rolled sushi are over here. These were pretty good but a bit too ricey and not enough filling for my preference. 6.5/10 S1.70

I had seen these recommended on youtube and as a brulee fan I was very happy to see them in 7/11s ice cream freezer. These need to be left on the bench for 15-20 minutes to slightly thaw before eating and then the perfect toffee crunch with a semi fredo (half frozen) custardy wonderfulness underneath. Close to perfection 9.5/10.

Ps the wine was EXCELLENT! And I'm not usually the biggest fan of Merlot. This is one of 7/11s stock standard brands and was around $9 a bottle 9/10.

I always forget how matcha-y matcha flavoured things are. And this was as matcha as they get. Very good. Maybe a bit too matcha-y. 7/10.

Another Osaka dinner was this utterly man-sized pasta dish, coming in at around $5.70, I can whole-heartedly say, this pasta was better than 80% of pastas I have ever got in any restaurant, ever. Served with a glass of my French Merlot, this was just bliss to me. 10/10.

Another of my 'that looks weird, lets try it' items which I had nooooo idea what it was.

This... this was very confusing to me but I needed to try it. Labelled as 'stir fried noodles and mayonnaise' which, in essence are two of my favorite things, and from the bakery part of 7/11. I peeled it open to get the lay of the land before trying it. 

So this was a sweet crepe, topped with bonito flakes, filled with very good stir fried noodles which I assume had the mayonnaise already through it. It was weird, but it was also AMAZING. As I write this, this is the first thing I have thought 'gosh, I could go one of those right now'. $2 9/10.

One thing I was not prepared for was how good chocolate in Japan is, like, all of it, delicious perfection. Most of my carry on luggage home was filled with Japanese chocolate products. All 10/10.

Another thing I was ill-prepared for was how delicious the plain old sandwiches are. The bread is just fluffy, white, crustless clouds with crazy fresh fillings. This sandwich and peach and naval orange highball came to less than $5. 9/10.

Hiroshima 7/11 provided this well-rounded meal (that I did NOT consume in one sitting, mind you). Chicken, radish, lettuce, spicy yuzu and soy salad, with sides of egg, seafood stick and cucumber was so fresh and so tasty, this was bought at night time and tasted like it was made and packed 5 minutes before consuming, $4.80 8/10.

My favourite Japanese potato salad (does anyone have a recipe of how to make this, cause I have been craving it for weeks.) $2 9/10.

Onigiri with grilled salmon sub-$2 7/10.

And breakfast the next day from the bakery was some soft and lovely 'tomato pizza buns'. Very nice. 8/10.

Picnic lunch at Kyoto Imperial Palace, sandwiches and Starbucks iced coffee. I got quite a taste for the refrigerated coffee products and had them most days. Really good. Both together were under $5 8.5/10.

On my 'would like to try' list was Gyudon, or beef bowl. I just had a feeling I would really like it. And like it I did. For a very simple dish- literally rice, very fine slices of beef and flavoring, I found it to be terribly comforting. I paired this with a Korean green salad and a glass of buttery Californian Chardonnay.

Perfect meal, there's not much else to say, the Gyudon surpassed all of my expectations and the salad and Chardonnay were perfect matches. 9/10. Meal with ice cream and bottle of chardonnay $20.

I didn't try everything in the freezer, but from the ones that I did try I'm going to just say Japanese frozen confectionaries are INCREDIBLE. These were frozen cream clouds with a consistency of melty marshmallow, dusted in high quality, ultra fine cocoa. 9.5/10.

Not from konbini, but still very convenient, I also developed a taste for hot tea and hot coffee from vending machines and was having multiple per day $1.20 to $1.40 8.5/10

In fact, here is a photo I sent to Gudge showing that I had emptied the machine of my favourite hot coffee and tea.

I was going to do a separate post for the Shinkansen, but I think I'll tag it on here, and much of it was convenience food as well.

Firstly, eating and drinking on bullet trains is not only acceptable, but it's just the done thing, I found the very exciting, (and good for stress-eating away the anxiety of dealing with the stations).

Our first Shinkansen was from Osaka to Hiroshima and dad opted for a specialty Osaka station bento and a Kirin beer.

For my first treat I grabbed this packet, not really knowing what to expect, and it was really quite extraordinary. It was like a cheese platter in a pack! The sausage was wonderful, then there were 2 packs of cheese which were sandwiched between an ultra fine cracker almost. I don't know if these were cured or dried or what, but it literally was cheese and crackers in a series of bags. Perfect with Kirin Beer 9.8/10.

I also got a pork katsu sandwich was just incredible. Imagine perfect fluffy white bread, a pork schnitzel- not chewy or dry at all, and the faintest hint of BBQ sauce. 10/10.

For our journey from Hiroshima to Kyoto I splashed out on a premium bento. There is a huge price variation on prices of ekiben (or train station bento boxes) ranging from a few dollars up to and over $40. This one was around $15. And contained oyster, eel, octopus, beef as well as chicken, omelete, rice and sweets. All was very, very high quality and taste. 8.2/10.

From Kyoto to Tokyo I got a selection from a BreadTop type store, and all were tasty. Big shout out to the [unpictured] ham and cheese baguette and curry bread. Both 9/10.

Pizza chips: very good 8/10

Dad came across to my hotel room one night with a half eaten bag of chips. He was trying 'weird' stuff too but said she just couldn't do these ones. I looked at the label and asked 'are they pancake flavour??" He said he didn't know. One night after a couple of wines I got into them, and they were indeed pancake with maple syrup flavour and they were indeed weird. 4/10.

I initially picked this packet cause it looked cute. Upon studying the back of the pack I thought it was in fact rather macabre and that the creatures were devouring a kill. By the end I worked out that it was like spaghetti and tomato sauce flavour and the shape of the crisps was the pasta and the creatures were eating a big plate of pasta and tomato sauce. Quite delicious. Fun puzzle to figure out. 7/10.

Delicious edamame snack- lightly salted is much better than the wasabi kind 8.7/10.

Also booze comes from konbinis and is very cheap- beers are like $1.50 to $3 each, highballs are $3ish and as mentioned wine is from $9.

What is my take away from this?

Very, very good food is available easily at incredible prices and for that reason, amongst others, Japan is great.

Thanks for reading.