「日本料理」 – Japanese dish

Well, I hope you guys are hungry because there are a lot of food pictures here :P Kidding aside, one thing that you should do while you’re in Japan is, of course, taste all of the foods that this country has to offer. And by that I don’t mean the Teriyaki Burger from McDonald’s. Although that will be kind of interesting to try as well since this type of burger doesn’t exist in my country. Anyway, Japan has different kind of foods. Just looking at them already makes one wants to be a glutton. Not only that the foods taste good, they normally are packaged rather well.

I’m actually quite surprised at how affordable foods in Japan turned out to be. I mean if you keep going to the restaurants, then obviously you’ll be running out of money in no time. But you can save money by getting a bento box for around 500 Yen (around 4-5 US Dollars) from local convenience stores. And don’t look down on convenience stores here. In Japan, convenience stores are light ahead in comparison to convenience stores in other countries. Not only Japanese convenience stores have more variety, the foods in the shelves are normally very fresh. The foods are re-stocked every couple of hours, so there’s little chance that they will go stale.

But if going for a pre-cooked foods is not your thing, then there’s always local ramen/tonkatsu (fried chicken/pork)/sushi place where you can get cheap foods. Having said that, please note that I’m talking about my experience so far in Tokyo and Okazaki city. I’m not sure about other cities just yet. I’ve heard that Kyoto is a tourist trap and that everything is expensive over there but I haven’t been there myself. But in Tokyo, at the very least you don’t have to worry about not having enough money to buy foods. If you’re strapped for cash, there’s always one of those Onigiri (those triangle-shaped rice) or breads which you can get for around 150 Yen.

I have a lot of favourite Japanese foods and these includes: Takoyaki (squid-filled fried balls), Chicken Katsu Curry (fried chicken topped with curry sauce), Flower-topped Hamburger (Hamburger meat patties topped with flower-shaped egg – must take a picture of this next time I eat), not to mention the various breads, drinks, pocky (did you know that there’s a lemon cheesecake flavour?), and fruits. I wonder why I haven’t gone fat with all of these foods even though I haven’t gone to the gym for the last 2 weeks. Maybe it’s because in most cases, the portions are not too big. Or maybe all of those bike riding that I do every day eliminates the need to go to the gym.

Anyway, the best food I’ve had so far was this meat dish on a hot plate when I visited Akihabara. The eatery is called Pepper Lunch and it basically serves fresh meat and vegies which you then cook yourself on a hotplate. It doesn’t take long before everything are cooked well and since it’s not overcooked, they taste really fresh and the meat remains tender. I also had a good experience at one of Japan’s fast food outlet called Mos Burger. Their burger is much better than anything that McD’s serves and the Matcha (thick green tea) drink that they have at the place is rather good.

And oh, for those of you who are still wondering about Kibidango, I just realised that I have some photos of them which I didn’t discard after all. The Kibidango is the one with brown sugar coating. I personally haven’t tried the black or the yellow-coloured ones. But the next time I see them again, I’ll make sure that I do just that. Anyway, I think I think if you go here, it’s a good idea to try different food variety. What’s the point of going all the way here and only end up eating McD’s day in, day out? Make sure you make the most of your time while you’re in Japan and that means having some of the local foods.

Started the day by visiting a local food vendor. This place is frequented by the local neighbourhood Oyaji (old guys) who come daily for their noodle fix. I have to admit that I never experienced this kind of ordering method beforehand. Basically you put your order on a vending machine by placing coins into it.

Once you’ve made your selection, the machine will print a ticket which you will then give to the waitress before you sit down and wait for your meal. I thought it was a rather nifty thing and the food is not bad either. I ended up ordering Chicken Katsu Curry (650 Yen) because the time was close to lunch and I haven’t had any breakfast.

Once that was over, I decided to walk around the neighborhood. Asakusa is quite an interesting place. It’s a mixture of the old and new culture of Japan. So while you can see places such as Starbucks and KFC, if you want you can always go to one of the food vendors to buy a bento/takoyaki.

Anyway, Asakusa is definitely a good place if you’re looking after some traditional Japanese foods as well as presents to bring back home. And I am not even talking about Nakamise shopping arcade just yet. I’m talking about the surrounding shops around the neighborhood. It was definitely hard for me to not succumb to the buying mentality.

In the end, I had no choice but to force myself to remember that I’m still going to be here for another 2.5 months and at the end of that month, I’ll be going back to Tokyo anyway. Somehow I managed to made it through without buying anything much. The only thing that I bought was this really nice traditional cake called Kibidango.

This is some kind of glutinous rice cake mixed together with peanuts and coated with brown sugar. You can get this at the Nakamise shopping arcade and I’ll talk about this and Sensoji-temple next after I get some sleep and sort the pictures that I took while I went there. I think I went a little bit overboard when I took the pictures.