[Japan] Food!

Japan cuisine is tremendously popular all over the world so I'm quite happy that my family and I got to enjoy a lot of it during our trip.

In Osaka, we stayed in the Dotonbori area which is known for having an endless array  of restaurants that offer a huge variety of Japanese dishes. On our first day, we were really hungry but we most restaurants we passed by were quite full (which I guess it to be expected). We ended up having a late lunch at Sukiya, which I didn't know was a popular chain that is now also open in the Philippines. I ended up ordering a gyudon set meal, which was perfect because apparently, Sukiya is the biggest gyudon chain in Japan. 

Gyudon set meal from Sukiya

Almost just across the street from Sukiya along Dotonbori is Strawberry Mania. It has a very enticing display of mochi and other strawberry desserts. They also serve ice cream. My family and I got desserts from this place a few times. (I believe it's only a take-out place.)

Dessert display at Strawberry Mania

I already mentioned in a previous post about Nara that we got to enjoy some snacks at a traditional Japanese tea house in Nara Park.

Tea and snacks at a traditional Japanese tea house in Nara Park

And that same day, we got to have our first ramen at Kamukura which we found near the train station. I was so hungry that I also got a side of chicken karaage. (Proof of my hunger is in the fact that I forgot to take a photo of my food when it arrived and I ended up taking it when I was almost done eating hahaha.) I think Kamukura is also a ramen chain.

Ramen and Karaage at Kamukura

We got to have a bit more ramen on the day Osaka got hit by a typhoon. (Of course, hot ramen is perfect for a very rainy day.) We were looking for a place to eat and saw Ten-Ti-Jin. It's a small restaurant and everyone just sits at the bar but thankfully, there were enough seats for us when we arrived. I really enjoyed the ramen here.

Ramen at Ten-Ti-Jin in Dotonbori

My nephew's friends tol him that he should try Okonomiyaki while he was in Osaka so I looked for an okonomiyaki restaurant along Dotonbori. There were a few we passed by and we ended up in Takohachi (instagram: takohachi5248). We ended up ordering quite a few dishes here, including okonomiyaki, which is a savory Japanese pancake cooked teppanyaki style,...

Okonomiyaki cooked right in front of us at Takohachi

...and Akashiyaki, which is like takoyaki but, according to wikipedia, has a softer, more eggy texture. (We also ordered takoyaki.)

My first time to try Akashiyaki

Another dish my nephew was told he should try to have was udon, which we got to enjoy at Tsurutontan Soemoncho which was just near our hotel. We had to wait a bit before we got seated but the udon here was really good!

Udon from Tsurutontan Soemoncho

I also got to have soba at a restaurant at the train station when we returned to Osaka from Kyoto. I ended up getting soba with takoyaki.

Soba with takoyaki

I previously mentioned the Japanese barbecue restaurant we got to try in Kyoto. We ordered a variety of dishes while we were here, but the only item I took a photo of was the crab that my nephew ordered because it was the only one that we had to cook at our table.

Crab cooked at our table at a Japanese barbecue in Kyoto

We got most of our Japanese dish fixes in Osaka because most of the restaurants in our area served Japanese food. Tokyo was a lot more varied, with more international restaurants than local ones, which I guess is normal for any capital city. That said, on our first night in Tokyo, we had dinner at Tsukiji Sushiko Nagomi, a restaurant at Tokyo Station that serves many different Japanese dishes such as sushi...

Sushi at Tsukiji Sushiko Nagomi

...and tempura.

Tempura at Tsukiji Sushiko Nagomi

I also got to have Chawan Mushi, a savory Japanese custard dish that I learned from a friend of mine. (This dish used to be served in Teriyaki Boy; not sure if still does since I haven't eaten there in ages.)

Chawan Mushi at Tsukiji Sushiko Nagomi

Another item we ordered was this eel dish wrapped in egg. Both of my nephews would order eel every chance they got so when we saw this dish on the menu, we ordered it.

Eel wrapped in egg at Tsukiji Sushiko Nagomi

In Lake Kawaguchiko, I got to have a Japanese-style burger.

Japanese-style burger in Lake Kawaguchiko

In Ginza, my family got to have dinner at a tonkatsu restaurant at one of the top floors of Mitsukoshi Mall.

Tonkatsu dinner

In Shibuya Scramble Square, we had lunch at a restaurant called Neo a couple of times. We ate there the first time when we visited the Hachiko statue and got our Shibuya Sky tickets and we discovered they serve food quite quickly. So when we went to to Shibuya again for our actual Shibuya Sky visit, we felt that a quick meal would be good so opted to eat at Neo again. The lady who served our table on our first visit recognized us and ended up serving our table again. On our way out, she told us to visit them again and I said that it was already our last day in Japan. She held and shook my hand and bade us farewell.

Lunch at Neo in Shibuya Scramble Square

Of course, we also did get to try yakitori in Gonpachi Nishi-Azabi.

Yakitori at Gonpachi Nishi-Azabu

I also finally got to try Dango in this trip. I wrote about the dango we had in Hunters Bar but I actually got to try this Japanese rice dumpling even before that, while in Asakusa.

Dango

When many of my friends find out that I was traveling to Osaka and Tokyo, they shared a lot of restaurant recommendations to me. However, I realized that my family's traveling style is different from theirs in that the highlight of our trips is the sightseeing and we pretty much eat at whatever place we find the moment we get hungry. That said, even if none of the places we visited were recommended by anyone else to me, I really enjoyed the food we had. I guess you can't really go wrong with Japanese food in Japan.

Next: And More Food!