Japan Trip: Random Fooding

I can't recall exactly when I had these meals but I'll give you a brief description of each.

This is one of my favorite instant ramen. You basically pour hot water onto the noodles, let them cook for about 3 minutes and then drain the water out before adding the seasonings. Yes, the white stuff is mayo. Weird huh?

The below is ramen from another place near our hotel which was not that great. In fact, I think this is one of the worst meals we had. I mean, it looks good but it was lacking taste wise. The ramen broth was salty yet bland and don't get me started on the gyoza. It was full of stink which meant they were stuffed with tons of cabbage. I had one piece and was done.

Japan Trip: Harajuku, Akihabara & Ueno

I'm going to lump Harajuku in with this post just because I don't have many pictures to go with it. Harajuku is famous for having oddly dressed people. It's mostly girls that dress in costume like attire and sadly there weren't much when we visited. I saw a handful but couldn't whip out my camera quick nor discretely enough. However, I did get pictures of one of the dishes I wanted to have while we were in Japan, called takoyaki. These are little balls of rice flour based batter wrapped around a chunk of tako (octopus). We weren't very hungry so we only ordered 4 of each kind and shared amongst myself, Justyn & Bri. Brianna ordered the traditional kind, I got the Mexican style one and Justyn had the ones topped with an omelet. Mine were so good I forgot to share one with Justyn. Woops!

Two of the places Justyn wanted to visit were Akihabara & Ueno. Akihabara is known for being an electronic centric place. I expected to be somewhat bored here but found that on top of having a bunch of electronics, they also had anime related things. We also killed a bunch of money and time at one of their many claw game arcades. Sadly we didn't win anything though. The claws were two pronged instead of three which made things more difficult. At this point during the trip, I was having major lower back issues. It was painful to even stand so I made us stop at Mister Donut for a snack and for me to rest a bit before going on. Both donuts were unlike any other donut we had had before. Justyn's chocolate donut was chewy.. almost like bread and mine tasted like strawberry Pocky. It kinda looked like the stuff that comes on Pocky too.

Our next stop was Ueno which is a motorcycle district. Most of the shops were closed but we still snapped a couple pictures of motorcycles. The third picture shows how space is precious. They even built, what we think is, housing under the freeway onramps.

For dinner we were pretty exhausted so we went to another Italian joint called Miami Garden. It was filled with teenage to mid 20s girls and guys. That should've been my first warning. It was probably my 2nd least favorite meal. Justyn enjoyed his pasta with bacon and cheese but my clam chowder was watery and tasted too much of butter. I mean look at it.. you can practically see the broken butter floating on top of it. For my entree I got a doria which is essentially rice topped with cheese. Boring.. *yawn*

Japan Trip: Roppongi

The plan on our trip was to hit up different districts in the Tokyo area and one of the stops we had decided on was Roppongi. Roppongi is known for having a very active night life as we saw by all the different bars they had. Unfortunately, we went there during the day just to see what they had there for lunch. Interestingly enough there was more of a variety than we had seen so far on the trip. They had everything from Mexican to Mediterranean cuisines.. of course with the Japanese twist.

Eventually we wandered around to an Italian place called Spajiro. This place happened to be my 4th favorite meal. Their spaghetti was so good. It's nothing like the spaghetti we have here in the US and as mentioned before, there's a Japanese twist to everything there. Justyn ordered the eggplant with minced meat which I was totally salivating over. I should've ordered that instead of the sausage and mushroom pasta but mine was still fantastic.

Japan Trip: Tsukiji Fish Market

The next day we were (or should I say Justyn) was comfortable enough to plan our first trip using the train system. It was a straight shot there which meant we wouldn't have to transfer trains. I was quite proud we made it there without any real complications. Although when we got to the actual fish market there was so much traffic from all the vendors and buyers hustling around. There were so many times where we almost got ran over!

When we finally found the tuna auctions which were not as exciting as what I've seen on TV. Unfortunately we only caught the tail end of one but that was enough. We walked around for a bit, soaking in all the stunning seafood along the maze of alleyways.

My stomach was growling and we went on the search to find breakfast. I didn't know that what we would find would be our best meal on the trip. We stopped by a tiny shop crowded with hungry people. It seemed that this particular shop specialized in fried foods such as katsudon and aji fry. I was in heaven. The fried fish was perfectly crispy on the outside and the fish remained tender and juicy on the inside. All I needed was a squeeze of lemon and the dish was perfection. Justyn also commented how his katsudon was delicious. I ended up trying a piece of the pork cutlet and got a fatty piece so I didn't think it was all that.

After breakfast (yeah, we ate fried food for breakfast, so what? we were on vacation), we walked around the nearby shops before heading back to the hotel for a nap.

I'm going to include this in the same post because we ended up going back to the nearby restaurants of Tsukiji market in search of some good sushi. Unfortunately, it was not as good as I thought it'd be. In fact, the conveyor belt sushi in Shinjuku proved to be much better..

Japan Trip: Exploring Shinjuku

On Day 3 of the trip we decided to play it safe and explore Shinjuku. Unfortunately, due to my stupidity, I didn't realize that we had to buy the train vouchers in the US before going to Japan. That meant we had to buy train tickets individually which ends up costing more money than buying the train pass. Don't make the same mistake I did! We weren't quite ready to take the train anyway so exploring around Shinjuku made a lot of sense. There were a ton of department stores set up around the train station such as Odakyu & Lumine.





On the way to and from our hotel is a McDonalds. I couldn't resist snapping a few pictures of the stuff the McDonalds here doesn't have. Hello? Bacon Potato Pie, McPork & McHot Dogs? OK, I was way too amused by this stuff.






No, we didn't eat anything from McDonalds. Instead, we went to the top floors of one of the department stores and ate at a restaurant called Five F Dining. *shrug* Don't ask me about the name.. I have no idea why it's called that haha.. I also don't question the Japanese. They just do things differently there which is part of the fun. Justyn ordered the hamburg "steak" which is basically an oval hamburger patty seasoned with onions and other things. I had a well known comfort food known as omrice (ketchup fried rice topped with an omelet) which was served with beef stew & fries.






Afterward we found a bar called Kirin City which was set up kinda like a British Pub but everything else is obviously Japanese. I had a Yuzu & Vodka, Justyn had a Guiness (not surprisingly) and then I followed my drink up with a Moscow Mule.






For dinner we met up with Brianna & Yuichi. Yuichi had made reservations at a traditional style restaurant. We had 3 kinds of sashimi, a soy bean curd based appetizer, a variety of fried foods, shrimp salad and steamed pork with ramen noodles. It was delicious and heavily satisfying.