[/Japanese voice]
I've really fallen behind on these posts, but now I finally come back to you with a detailed account of my trip to Japan this April!
Get ready because you're in for a lot of reading....
Thursday, April 19th
I arrived at Narita around 5pm and after much hauling of luggage and acquisition of yen/train tickets, I headed to catch the NE'X into Tokyo. While waiting I bought my first bottle of tea from the convenience stall on the platform.
From my crude online translation, this is Ito En's Asa no Chaji... which most likely means "morning tea". From my recollection it was simply a lighter version of Oi Ocha, but maybe it's some kind of special blend with genmaicha or something like that? Honestly I don't even care what it was because I was sweaty as hell and it was super crisp and refreshing.
After finally arriving at my apartment in Ikejiri-Ohashi, I promptly visited a Family Mart down the street and procured this for my dinner.
Unbeknownst to me, the clerk asked if I wanted this heated in the microwave, to which I gave my default response of "hai!"... so luckily I wasn't stuck eating cold noodles. I also had to get a Suntory The Premium Malts because it looked like one of the more premium options. The noodles were pretty standard, well worth the 300 yen. And even though I usually prefer standard lagers, the beer was quite flavorful and I really dug it. However it did amplify my jet-lag induced fatigue and I don't even think I finished it before passing out.
I also picked up another bottle of tea for later that came with a free cell phone bag gift.
Ito En's Oi Ocha Nigori Maroyaka, which translates into "mild turbidity". Their website describes it as a mild, less bitter and lower caffeine tea. I'm guessing either they make the brewing process shorter or pre-treat the leaves to remove some of the tannins first. There seems to be quite a bit of this practice in Japan: making less astringent tea to appeal to younger, older or non-tea people. My impression was pretty much the same as the description though: basically Oi Ocha "light".
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| It's a little dog with tea leaf ears... I guess that's cute? |
Friday, April 20th
The first thing I did when I woke up was to survey the little neighborhood I was staying in. Across the street from the train station was a supermarket called Mama's Plate. I kinda love going to grocery stores in general, but that sensation of awe is blown through the roof when I'm in Japan.
Most American supermarkets will have a salad/soup bar and some sort of hot food bar that is usually a part of the deli counter. The Japanese equivalent to this is a crazy assortment of freshly prepared foods including various fried items (tempura, croquettes, etc), sushi, onigiri and bento boxes. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of the chicken/cheese croquette bento that I ended up getting for lunch, but you can easily Google "Japanese supermarket" and see some examples of what I'm talking about... or click here.
However my tea fetish did prompt me to take a photo of their drink section.
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| It was actually twice the size of this... ::drool:: |
Later that day I went record shopping in Shibuya and hit up my favorite chain restaurant Matsuya for a hamburger steak set.
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| This is always delicious. |
Saturday, April 21st
No pictures, but for lunch I went to a Thai place in Koenji called Ban Essu with my friend Ian after interviewing him for 3+ hours. He ordered and I don't remember what exactly it is that we ate, but it was pretty good.
In the evening I went to Harajuku to meet up with Brett and Jen, fresh off their plane from Baltimore, and we went to a Tenya in Harajuku.
Tempura-don was eaten by yours truly. Little did I know it, but this would become one of many days/nights spent eating fried foods, which was totally not my intention.
Sunday, April 22nd
I headed back to Harajuku in the morning to get breakfast with Brett and Jen, and we went to a cafe around the corner from their apartment called Caffe Solare. The main attraction item per the sign was fancy pancakes, so that's what me and Brett opted for.
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| My berry-pear-sherbert fiasco |
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| Brett's caramel-banana-ice cream explosion |
After this we ventured towards Yoyogi Park hoping to catch the rockabilly gangs doing their Sunday showdown, but the weather was too drab and none were to be seen. On our way to the NHK building though, we stumbled into an Earth Day festival that was going on. As you might imagine there was a plethora of organic food enthusiasts and vendors abound, which led to a bounty of interesting and healthy lunch options.
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| Here we find Brett purchasing an organic beer: I dare you to drink something healthier. |
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| They were captivated by her skills |
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| "Spring of Life, let's all get cruuuuuunnk!!!" |
Monday, April 23rd
I headed back to Mama's Plate for breakfast, this time venturing to the attached bakery to get a completely kick-ass sugar doughnut. This was seriously the best doughnut I've ever eaten: bigger than a bagel, chewy and very fresh. A picture wouldn't do it justice (which is a great excuse for me not taking one in the first place).
Brett, Jen and I headed for Ikebukuro based on the fact that I had never been there and that I figured it would be easy to find something interesting considering it's one of the larger stations. The only place we ended up going was a Uniqlo... but then found an Indian restaurant for lunch.
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| Some Naan |
Later that day I went to Shimokitazawa Shelter to watch a Hinto/Owarikara show; Hinto was amazing. After the show I found a little ramen shop to grab dinner at. It seemed pretty legit and even had a vending machine for ordering, however there was some sort of miscommunication for a second when I gave the waitress my ticket. I don't know what the problem was but I just went and sat down at the counter anyway.
This was kind of a blind choice, but seemed to be your basic miso ramen. It was quite delicious as is and I refrained from adding any chili pepper or other accoutrements to it (mainly because I still don't know what they are). The most interesting part was trying to act like I knew what I was doing manners-wise, which meant doing the correct slurping technique.
Tuesday, April 24th
This morning Brett and Jen came over to my place and we went to an Excelsior Cafe where I got a spinach and egg sandwich was was completely un-fulfilling. So immediately after we walked next door and I got another one of those amazing doughnuts from Mama's Plate.
That afternoon Curt finally arrived in Tokyo and we went off gallivanting through Shibuya and then Ueno. We stopped a place for lunch and I got another one of my favorites: katsudon.
Katsudon is pretty amazing, nothing more really needs to be said. Except for the fact that pretty much anytime you try to order it from a non-Japanese chef/restaurant, it's completely bullshit. There's definitely a proper technique to preparing it, including using short-grain rice, correctly frying the pork cutlet and then properly scrambling the egg over top it all. This was done excellently and was around 600 yen.
That night Curt, Brett, Jen and my friends Ryotaro and Ian all met up in Shinjuku to hang out. We went to this hard-to-find izakaya buried in the Kabuki-cho area but I have no idea what it was called. Apparently it's like the only good/cheap one around because Yosuke from The Captains ended up taking Curt there a few days later.
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| Here Curt, Ian and Ryotaro discuss potential band names |
However, Curt and I ended up getting the shaft on the train transfer and had to walk home from Shibuya station. Which was OK thanks because it allowed a Family Mart stop along the way where I bought another one of my favorite items: tuna salad onigiri. My curiosity and "better judgement" also provoked me to pick up an Asahi Dry Zero (a 0% alcohol beer) since I already had like five beers.
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| Don't be fooled, this is horrible |
Wednesday, April 25th
This day the four of us set off for Osaka, which meant another one of my favorite things: ekiben.
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| Tonkatsu ekiben and tea |
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| Sauce dippin' |
Ekiben are usually made in the wee hours of the morning and then sit in a shop at room temperature for several hours before being bought. Common dishes are fried meats, sushi, seafood, sandwiches or rice dishes and cost anywhere from 800-2000 yen on average. I went with a standard tonkatsu ekiben, however there's really nothing "standard" about it.; if you like cold/leftover fried chicken than you would love this. The sauce really pushed it over the edge into heaven though and I highly recommend getting this if you ever have the option.
It's somewhat of a custom for different cities to feature regional ekiben as well and apparently some people explicitly ride the shinkansen all over the country just to try different varieries. They're prevalent in all major shinkansen rail stations, both in the main entrance ways and on the platforms. Everything you need is in the box, including chopsticks, a toothpick and a napkin and/or wet nap.
The main purpose of this trip to Osaka was to visit the Asahi brewery in Suita. Asahi is Japan's #1 beer by far thanks in part to being the victor of the "Dry Wars" (look it up on Wikipedia). It's also my all-time favorite beer (next to Yuengling) and going on a brewery tour is something I've wanted to do for a very long time. There's about eight or so Asahi breweries throughout Japan but the two in Osaka seemed like they were the easiest to get to. Apparently the Nishinomiya plant doesn't do tours anymore though, which is why we went with the one in Suita.
You have to make reservations in advance either by phone or online, but the website says to call if you are interested in an English tour. I decided to go ahead and try the online system anyway and managed to figure it out quite easily. I even got a response back in English! They stated that they might not be able to provide an English tour, which was completely fine with me. Besides, I was mainly interested in the "free drinking" portion and the gift shop anyway
Arriving on the "compound" was so exciting, even the security guy knew we were coming and was all like, "Rob desu ka?" When we got into the actual building I signed us and the girl at the desk was very helpful. While waiting in the gift shop our tour guide ran over to apologize that she would not be able to give us an English-language tour because we were the only non-Japanese of the group. She did say to ask her any questions we had regardless though; she was a super nice lady!
The tour features a very thorough "how beer is made" exhibit which then leads to the actual brewery which is visible from above. All of the exhibit signs were in English, too, which is something I didn't even expect. We even got a chance to taste barley: strange yet awesome.
After the tour we were led into the tasting cafeteria to our RESERVED TABLE (!!) for a selection of beer and other beverages, as well as complimentary beer snacks. As we all proceeded to get as drunk as possible within the allotted 30 minutes, we were given a demonstration on how to pour Asahi correctly.
We ended up being the last ones to leave and made our tour guide take a photo with us because she was so nice and seemed to like trying out her English on us. I highly, highly recommend doing this tour if you get the chance.
Here's a video I made of our trip there (watch it on YouTube to get the HD version):
After the tour we stumbled back to the train station where we met up with Aki from Electric Eel Shock, who coincidentally lives right by Suita. He helped Brett and Jen make a connection to Koshien Stadium to watch the Hanshin Tigers beat the Hiroshima Carps, and then took Curt and I out for a night on the town.
The first stop was to what he said was a famous kushiage place in Japan's longest shopping arcade/street, Tenjinbashi-suji.
I was dying to get some kick ass okonomiyaki, so that became our next objective. We headed straight for Shin Sekai, which ironically was a stone's throw from the hotel we were staying at in Shin-Imamiya.
Shin Sekai has a reputation for being a seedy entertainment district, however it was after 9pm on a Wednesday night and almost everything was closed, which is the exact opposite of what Aki was expecting. We walked around for awhile asking locals for suggestions but eventually gave up and walked to Tennoji station instead.
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| Tennoji is a large hub-station in Osaka |
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| Hanging out with a genuine Japanese heavy metal dude while he wears your fake-Japanese band's t-shirt is pretty awesome. |
We got three kinds: pizza, "noodle-mess" and regular (I think). While the pizza one sounded completely stupid and gross... it was actually amazing. It seriously tasted like the best cheese pizza I've ever had, with a hint of Japanese flavor behind it; it blew my mind. The other two were equally delicious though and it wasn't expensive at all. There was much beer to wash it all down with, too.
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| Super Dry |
Thursday, April 26th
Curt and I got up early to catch the shinkansen back to Tokyo because I had an interview and I got another ekiben for the trip. This time it was somewhat of a "meat lovers" set.
There was a mini-hotdog, some potato wedges, shrimp tempura and then two kinds of hamburgers: one on top of spaghetti and another on top of rice and corn. This was probably not the best thing to have gotten after a very long night of drinking, on top of the fact that I had been eating way too much unhealthy foods the entire trip thus far. I mean, it was pretty tasty... but I was burping up hamburger essence for hours afterwards which was most unpleasant.
The tea was Suntory's Iyemon go Meshi ga Oishii Ocha (delicious rice tea). If you understand Japanese the website explains it much better, but I'm guessing they use white rice instead the brown rice that is used for genmaicha... otherwise they'd just call it genmaicha, right? There's a diagram on the site showing the exact percentage of ingredients but I can't translate it. The taste is pretty mild though, which does make it a good companion drink to a meat-laden meal like the one I had.
After doing the interview Curt and I walked around Ikejiri-Ohashi for a bit and settled on a small ramen shop to eat.
I went with an extra karai (spicy) ramen, and when the guy asked me what kind of topping/ingredient I wanted with it, I just repeated one of the random words he said, not having any idea what I asked for. It seems like it was some sort of jelly-like mushroom, which didn't really add much to the dish overall. The broth was spicy as hell though and on my first spoon full I sucked it back too fast and started to choke. Thankfully there was no one else in the restaurant to call me a stupid gaijin and laugh me out the door.
Friday, April 27th
Were it not for a loss of WiFi, we would have been in Kyoto this day with Brett and Jen, but instead stayed in Tokyo with no real plans. The first place we ended up at was Nakano Broadway, where we walked around for a good three hours, investigating pretty much every shop there. On the way back to the station we hopped into a Matsuya for lunch.
I got the current promotional dish which was some kind of tomato curry. It was like a spicy, chunky bolognese sauce... but I don't know if there was any meat in it actually. Because I decided to get the super-size version, I nearly ate myself sick... but it was really tasty.
After wandering through Koenji for a bit, we discovered a free Wi-Fi connection in front of a local pharmacy along a shopping street. I made quick use of it to email Ryotaro again to see if he wanted to hang out and we made plans to meet him in Ikebukuro for dinner. He asked if we were cool with okonomiyaki and of course I said yes.
The place we went was on the 5th floor of a building right next to the Disk Union and was fairly crowded. Ryotaro went ahead and ordered two kinds of okonomiyaki and one monjayaki, which I had never heard of before. Monjayaki, or simply "monja", is a Tokyo specialty that is very similar to okonomiyaki except there's no real batter that holds all the ingredients together, making it very runny. In fact, it never really coagulates or fully cooks on it's own and resembles bubbling vomit on the grill top. The one we got featured mentaiko (spicy cod roe) and mochi (glutinous rice cake).
The secret to cooking it (and I do mean secret... Ryotaro had to refer to the instructions at the table to figure out how to cook it correctly) is to fry up the solid ingredients a bit before creating an area in the middle where you then pour in the liquid part. After screwing around with it for awhile it becomes slightly more cohesive and you use a tiny spatula to slowly scrape off pieces to eat. I don't think it ever really gets fully cooked which is always an issue for me, but it was pretty delicious. The best part I think was the mochi. I'd never had mochi as part of a non-dessert item before and it really helped everything stick to the spatula.
Here's a short video of Ryotaro cooking it up for us (or via YouTube directly):
After that it was pretty late so we headed over to a Saizeriya for a nightcap.
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| People are so embarrassed to go here that they censor their own faces |
Saizeriya is like the Japanese/Italian version of Denny's, open 24 hours and apparently home to many a degenerate; I was told that if you take a girl here on a date that there is no way she will ever speak to you again. I ended up getting potato wedges and fried hotdogs or something... because that's completely Italian. Curt and Ryotaro urged me to try to glass of 100 yen wine but I couldn't justify that in way. Apparently they have a cafe buffet or something, which is what Ryotaro did: all you can drink coffee-type drinks or something? I don't know, it's a pretty strange place.
Saturday, April 28th
This is the day that Curt and I went up to Sendai for the Arabaki Rock Festival. As you can imagine there were plenty of festival-style food carts all over the place, all of which were somewhat of a ripoff. The festival is held at Michinoku Park which is normally open to the public though, so there are some permanent service facilities there. We managed to find one of these "gift shops", which also acted as a mini-konbini (convenience store) that stocked tons of cheap beer and other snack items. So of course we camped out there for awhile drinking Asahi tallboys, eating Chip Stars (Nabisco's version of Pringles) and Curt got a huge taiyaki-style ice cream bar (it was sort of like a Klondike bar but instead of chocolate it's encased in a huge sugar wafer). Other than that I ate some yakisoba and that's about it until we got back to Sendai station and hit up a Family Mart for a few onigiri. All in all not a big food-day at all.
Sunday, April 29th
I spent most of the morning doing laundry to get the 10 lbs of mud off my clothes and shoes that I had acquired at Arabaki. While waiting for the dryer to finish I went around the corner from my apartment to the local bakery for some breakfast.
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| Kare-Pan (curry bread) |
Another yoshoku staple is curry bread, which is fried doughnut-type bread filled with Japanese curry. The idea is a bit disgusting, but like everything else in Japan, it's pretty delicious. This one was filled with a savory beef curry and the bread-shell was very crispy and chewy. When I went to pay for it, the girl said she had a surprise for me, ran into the back and brought out a mini-doughnut right out of the fryer... there is no limit to how awesome Japanese people are. Of course the doughnut was magnificent, chewy and warm. I just couldn't get away from eating fried food!
We went to Shibuya in the afternoon to do an interview The Captains and then headed to a little cafe down the street from their manager's office for lunch.
Basically this was grilled teriyaki chicken, drizzled with mayonnaise (of course) on top of rice, with an egg on top. You can probably imagine what it tasted like and you'd be right, just imagine it being a little better. Something about an egg over top of chicken makes me want to make a joke about birds, but I'll save us both the disappointment.
Later that afternoon Brett and Jen finally made their way back to Tokyo after gallivanting around Hiroshima, Kobe and Kyoto for a few days. They also landed an executive suite at the Shinjuku Hilton.
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| The view from the 37th floor fancy-pants bar |
We "sneaked" down into this classy open bar for some drinks and we all pretty intoxicated by the view alone. Well... Jen was normally intoxicated by the time Curt and I got there and she was giggling up a storm, so much so that she dropped her iPhone in their bathroom and busted up the screen.
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| Probably 30 seconds after I took this picture we all felt the rumbling of a 5.8 magnitude earthquake and decided we should probably not be on the 37th floor of a building anymore |
Our next stop was yet another place that I had been waiting years to go to: Zauo in Shinjuku.
Zauo, which literally means "sit and fish", is a chain of restaurants where you do just that. There's a big fake boat that sits in the middle of a lake-like aquarium that houses a bunch of different creatures including fish, sharks and eels... an I'm talking HUGE sharks and scary-as-hell Moray eels.
The main attraction obviously is to fish for your own dinner and then have the staff prepare it for you however you want. You save money by fishing yourself, but when you factor in the rod rental and bait fees it's probably no different from just ordering straight off the menu. Of course we all went ahead and tried our luck at fishing. The waitress told us that the little shrimp you get for bait are only eaten by Madai (red sea bream/tai) which make up about 75% of the marine life in the tank; they were also the cheapest option. But that didn't stop me from jerking my bait away every time one of the massive sharks swam by, fearing I would hook it and have to pay like 50,000 yen or something. However, catching something was the least of anyone's problem which was evident after 20+ mins with no luck.
Eventually though I did manage to snag a fish and yelled for someone to come take it off my hands so they could grill it for me.
The thrill of the catch was the best part.. the fish not so much. Everyone else bitched at me for getting it grilled in the first place, but between my lack of interest in sashimi and the abundance of diseased-looking fish in the tank, I thought that grilling was the best option. I figured whoever caught the next fish could get the raw preparation but that never ended up happening. Curt eventually just left because we were supposed to meet up with Yosuke from The Captains again and the fishing process had wasted a lot of time. At that point Brett and Jen finally gave up on the fishing, too. and just ordered a sashimi/nigiri platter. All of the actual food at Zauo was pretty lackluster and I ended up feeling sick afterwards; whether it was actually from the fish or just the idea of it coming out of a disease-ridden tank, I really don't know. Also, that fish ended costing me around $30 which was pretty lame. At least I can say I finally went though.
(Possible video forthcoming)
Monday, April 30th
My last day in Japan started with rushing back to the Shinjuku Hilton to conduct another interview and then immediately heading to Narita to catch my flight home. In the scramble to catch a train, I only had time to run to a convenience store for breakfast/lunch.
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| I really love me some tuna onigiri |
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Regrets? I had a few. Mainly, I ate much more fried/yoshoku dishes than on my previous trips which most certainly added a few pounds to my bulging mid-section. Pretty much everything was delicious though, so I guess it's OK. I also did manage to eat a lot of my favorite things as well as a few I had never had before. Being able to get a bottle of amazing tea at literally every corner is enough to satisfy me though. Just seeing Ito En delivery trucks everywhere makes me giddy.
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| Drive this thing to my house once a week, please!!! |
APPENDIX
Before boarding my flight back to the land of mean-spirits and crap food (America), I picked up another bottle of tea and a snack.
I've had Kirin's Nama Cha before but it never came in a bottle like this... or tasted so shitty. After 12 days of wonderful teas this was the only thing available before boarding the plane and it was a true disappointment. It tasted like an American company's attempt at Japanese tea and was just boring.
On the other hand this sakura/matcha flavored Kit Kat bar was fantastic. I don't even know if this is what actual sakura and matcha would taste like, but I really don't care. It's too hard to even explain and I just wish that I had bought more of it.
The in-flight meal service was pretty bad, some kind of "asian chicken" which lived up to every airplane food stereotype you can imagine. There was however one saving grace courtesy of United that I would have never imagined: free alcohol.
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| Unfortunately I only got the regular Kirin lager once and then had to settle for Kirin Ichiban for the rest of the flight; I really don't like Ichiban. |
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