Tales (and pictures!) of trips in Japan

rarerollingobject · February 27, 2011

Osaka ctd.

Edited February 27, 2011 by rarerollingobject (log)

helenjp · February 27, 2011

Did you stay overnight on Mt. Koya?

And can you tell us a little bit about where you went in Osaka?

Looks like you had a good time, and I'm looking forward to hearing more!

rarerollingobject · February 27, 2011

Did you stay overnight on Mt. Koya?
And can you tell us a little bit about where you went in Osaka?
Looks like you had a good time, and I'm looking forward to hearing more!

Yep, stayed overnight in Shojoshin-in, the temple closest to the entrance of Okunoin cemetery, and it was spectacular. Food-wise, it obv served all vegetarian (shojin ryori), and I made one of the great discoveries of my life - gomadofu. For those unfamiliar, it's a 'tofu' made with with finely ground sesame instead of soy beans, and thickened with kudzu or arrowroot.

Doesn't sound too appealing perhaps, but it was like the creamiest and most lusciously unctuous soft tofu ever..with a dab of wasabi and some soy sauce, it was one of the best and most memorable things I've eaten in my life, let alone of this trip. :wub:

Tomorrow I'll post Tokyo and Kyoto pics, and go back and caption these Osaka ones with a little more explanatory detail!

Blether · February 27, 2011

Good stuff, RRO. I'm reading with interest, and hoping to hear more about what establishments / kinds of establishments you had each of the pictured dishes at. I'm also here to ask shamelessly if you've time to say something about the katsu there in Tonkatsu (dining), not least because I've been woefully lax about adding more myself.

prasantrin · February 27, 2011

Aack!! When the server at the tonkatsu place cleared your stuff away, did s/he have a funny look on her face? Once you grind the sesame seeds, they don't like you to use the pestle to mix in the sauce. I guess they think it's very gauche. (A friend (Japanese, no less) did that once, and she got a little frown from the waitress.)

Edited February 27, 2011 by prasantrin (log)

rarerollingobject · February 27, 2011

Aack!! When the server at the tonkatsu place cleared your stuff away, did s/he have a funny look on her face? Once you grind the sesame seeds, they don't like you to use the pestle to mix in the sauce. I guess they think it's very gauche. (A friend (Japanese, no less) did that once, and she got a little frown from the waitress.)

Whatever. I did actually wonder about that, but looked around and saw three Japanese diners do the same, so got on with it. I used to really worry about that kind of stuff when travelling to Japan, the zillions of second level subtle sorts of faux pas a friend of mine likes to call the 'OMG-You're-Doing-It-Wrong Factor', but now I'm all just like, "Meh, just deduct that from my Gaijin Tourist Stupidity Credits, thanks". :rolleyes:

Good stuff, RRO. I'm reading with interest, and hoping to hear more about what establishments / kinds of establishments you had each of the pictured dishes at. I'm also here to ask shamelessly if you've time to say something about the katsu there in Tonkatsu (dining), not least because I've been woefully lax about adding more myself.

Will do, we ate lots of tonkatsu on this trip. And thanks for your kind words! :smile:

helenjp · February 27, 2011

Goma-dofu in a Kansai Buddhist temple is the best! I've never eaten really good goma-dofu in Kanto, though I admit I haven't looked too hard.

Looking back at your photos, I see that soba shop with little partitions between counter stools...I don't think I've EVER seen anything like that.

rarerollingobject · March 2, 2011

I've realised I can't go back and re-edit.. :sad:

That little soba shop with partitions is actually a ramen joint, tonkotsu ramen. Ichiran Ramen on Dotonbori. It was quite interesting, not only were there partitions between eaters but the ordering process was completely anonymous as well. The normal vending machine order, yes, but then as you sit in your partition waiting for your order, you realise it's going to come from the screen in front of you..waist-height and with the kitchen directly behind it, the server lifts the screen, pushes your bowl through, bows and lowers the screen. Essentially you see, speak to, interact with NOONE (noone with a face, anyway). Bliss. :wink:

Even if you want to order, say, another serving of noodles for your leftover broth, or onsen tamago, you tick what you want on your specially-printed chopstick wrapper and push a little button..up comes the screen, whoosh goes your wrapper, back come your extras.

It's a chain, also went to one in Shibuya in Tokyo, and it was DAMN good tonkotsu to boot. You can see the screen and button here, and my surreptitious lift-the-screen-and-take-a-picture picture:

All the sushi was from the much-vaunted Endo Sushi at the Osaka Fish Markets. The notable things about this sushi place as far as I could see:

1. You order by the plate. Each plate has five pieces and at Y1000 per plate, it's not too bad for value.

2. The pieces on the plate are generally at the whim of the chef, but will always include one piece of toro. Not the best but definitely not the worst toro I've ever had.

3. There are pots of soy sauce and brushes on every table, and you're to paint the sushi with them. The brushes are communal, so you can see the film of fishy oil on the surface of the soy sauce, collected over who knows how long. I couldn't decide whether that was kind of gross or not, but either way didn't really care and just decided to believe it added a desirable sort of je ne sais quoi to the taste.

4. The owner/head chef clops around in very high and slightly precarious geta slippers, complaining in Japanese how much his feet hurt and sitting down every 1.5 seconds to rest. This was kind of annoying at first as it seriously disrupted my need for constant sushi flow but my feet hurt in high heels sometimes too so I built a bridge and got over it. :wink:

5. They could NOT believe I ate five plates. Little did they know I have a second stomach devoted solely to sushi and could have gone a few more.

Edited March 2, 2011 by rarerollingobject (log)

rarerollingobject · March 2, 2011

Tokyo!

First meal in Tokyo was tempura at Tsunahachi, in Shinjuku. I really love the stack of flavoured salts they give you (plain, green tea, sour plum, yuzu).

The next day, we went over to Ueno to mooch around the markets and park, but got distracted by this donburi place. Look at that signage! Look at my uni (sea urchin), ikura (salmon roe), and negi toro (chopped tuna with green onion)! Breakfast of champions. :wub: My wimpy boyfriend went for some beef thing.

Later, for some reason we wanted more tempura, so this was a Ten-ya chain branch in Shinjuku. I went for the hiyakko cold tofu and ten-don, tempura on rice.

We then stopped by Isetan food hall for a wee dessert, two Sadaharu Aoki eclairs (matcha green tea, salted butter caramel) and some Henri Le Roux..salted butter caramels. My female vanity compels me to tell you that it's my boyfriend's withered claws holding the box in that photo.

rarerollingobject · March 2, 2011

The next day we met some friends for lunch. In a sort of deflating coincidence, we walked past this sushi restaurant in Shibuya on the way to meet them, and the place had the world's hugest queue. As we passed it, I looked at all the people in the queue, lots of them camera-toting tourists, and thought "Suckers! An hour's wait to get into what looks like some boring mainstream tourist trap, nothing like the cool, secret, funky hidden gem my Tokyoite friends are no doubt going to take us to!".

We met our friends, and they led us to..yep, right back to that place. Serves me right for being obnoxious. Look at this queue! This was only the back third of it. I don't mind queueing for good food but 90 minutes is pushing my limits a little.

The sushi WAS great though, and really well-priced for Tokyo. I see now why it's so popular - Midori Zushi in Shibuya.

Started with chawanmushi egg custard and kani miso (crab..er..guts. I LOVE this stuff and ate two servings).

Lunch set:

Aburi (flame grilled) set:

That night, we went to a yakiniku place somewhere in West Shinjuku, where it's a little grungier and seedier (my kind of place).

Incredible kimchi and yukke, raw beef with raw egg. I love this mixed into hot rice:

Then a lot of meat. Meat'n'beer coma meant I forgot to take photos of much of it, but here's some:

To be continued!

Blether · March 2, 2011

The ramen does look good - nice, rich soup. Of course the isolation-partitions are a sad social comment - or another chance to build a bridge and appreciate the ingrained experience of overcrowding in these islands of cake.

rarerollingobject · March 2, 2011

The ramen does look good - nice, rich soup. Of course the isolation-partitions are a sad social comment - or another chance to build a bridge and appreciate the ingrained experience of overcrowding in these islands of cake.

It was nice and rich and collagen-y..and at Ichiran, after ordering your base bowl, they give you a 'customisation' sheet where you can specify "a little rich, medium rich, very rich, very very rich" as to the soup stock, the firmness of your noodle (so to speak), the amount of green onion you'd like, garlic or no, menma or no, and about a dozen other options for the included price.

I actually loved the sense of privacy but such is the luxury of the tourist. Thanks for the link - interesting article. Not to make light of a serious issue, but it's funny you mentioned cake - all of my friends there refer to me as 'Kurisumasu keeki' (Christmas cake, ie. past its prime sort of thing) for refusing thus far to get married. :wink:

Blether · March 2, 2011

Not to worry, the local lasses qualify as kurisumasu keeki when they're still unmarried at 25...

You must have been posting just when I was. Your uni-ikura-negitoro don looks killer - three of my favourites. Did you guys spot the "Bikkuri (surprise !) donburi", the biggest one amongst the signage ? "JPY3,980; free if you can eat it all within 15 minutes" Ha ha !

prasantrin · March 2, 2011

25? I thought it was 26 (I was told it was because the price of Christmas cakes gets slashed on the 26th, but maybe now they get slashed the evening of the 25th).

Well, I guess that means I'm waaaaay past Christmas cake. But I'm like Christmas fruit cake. It gets better with age.

rarerollingobject · March 7, 2011

Tokyo and Shizuoka

Two more of the innumerable pastries we (ok, I) ate. Pierre Herme beauties from Isetan, Shinjuku.

The famous Ispahan:

And an astoundingly lovely mille feuille:

The next day we took a trip to the tea fields of Shizuoka to visit a friend of mine, a Japanese-Brazilian who can't speak any Japanese but is simultaneously learning and teaching English there (the mind boggles). This was the middle of Bumf*ck, Shizuoka (Australian technical term for a very rural locale indeed):

But with a large Brazilian-Japanese (and Japanese-Brazilian!) population, there're quite a few Brazilian restaurants there, and we went to one for dinner for some pork and bean action:

The next day, back in Shinjuku, I wanted to hunt down an upscale yakitori place I'd been recommended, called Keishoan.

Nice atmosphere to the place:

Sampler of gizzard, liver, quail egg and green onion:

Tsukune set (chicken meatball) with various sauces:

Really very good oyako donburi (chicken and egg on rice):

For dinner, we went to Maguro Bito in Asakusa, one of my very favourite kaiten zushi places in Tokyo. These pictures aren't really very interesting, but I was in a sushi coma and could barely function. Incidentally, this was the only restaurant (ie non market) environment I saw in Japan serving whale meat.. I didn't try any.

To be continued!

Edited March 7, 2011 by rarerollingobject (log)

rarerollingobject · March 7, 2011

The Last of Tokyo

Gratuitous cat shots!! Alright, it's SORT of food related, but really just an excuse to post pics from our late night stop that night, a Tokyo cat cafe! My boyfriend is a chronic cat-adorer and starved of feline affection as we're not allowed one in our apartment building. So since he dutifully and uncomplainingly comes along on all my mad food-related adventures, I figured I'd make him VERY happy indeed and take him to a cat cafe, where similarly cat-starved Tokyoites pay $$ per hour to, er, be in the company of some very well pampered kitties.

I was initially concerned it would be like a factory, but these are some seriously happy, healthy, relaxed cats with lots of space and stimulation, and there are lots of rules about what you can and can't do. You sanitise your hands, don special shoes, pay an enormous fee for 40 mins of time, and also buy little containers of shredded chicken breast. Predictably, until you crack these open, the cats are a little standoffish..one whiff of chicken and they swarm.

In fact, with all the rules and divas and slight sense of being ripped off, it sorta felt like a strip club. (Not that I'd know. Ahem.)

Anyway:

That's enough of that. The next day, we took a stroll through Aoyama cemetery and out the other side to find the Pierre Herme boutique.

A most delicious yuzu-chocolate confection:

Something involving mango and white chocolate:

That night, it was pouring and cold so we ducked into a small izakaya beneath Shinjuku station (I think it was called Shosuke). The layout was cool here, a wavy length of table running down one side of the restaurant, and two layers of booths down the other.

Ate lots of things here, but the only standout was the hambaagaa, a patty of ground wagyu with a beautifully soft and gooey poached egg (almost sous videy) on top.

To come: Kyoto.

Cadbury · June 7, 2011

Started with chawanmushi egg custard and kani miso (crab..er..guts. I LOVE this stuff and ate two servings).

That would be kani "mustard".

rarerollingobject · June 7, 2011

Started with chawanmushi egg custard and kani miso (crab..er..guts. I LOVE this stuff and ate two servings).
That would be kani "mustard".

Yes, the Japanese call crab mustard/tomalley "kani miso". :smile:

This reminds me, I never finished this trip report! Must get back to it with the rest of the food pics.

Lori D · October 14, 2011

I finally was able to get back to Japan a few weeks ago. I had planned a trip for April, but, in light of the earthquake/tsunami, decided to postpone. So this trip was overdue.

Once again, I didn't do that great of a job of preparing to write about the trip. But I do have a few more pictures than last time.

Starting with breakfast:

This was from the ryokan (Japanese style inn) that I stayed at the first night of the trip).

And another traditional breakfast:

I stayed at a Buddhist lodging temple for the next several days. No food served, so I went to nearby small restaurants that cater to those visiting the temple and grocery stores for bento.

This breakfast is the highlight of the food part of this part of the trip. Not only incredibly tasty, but nutritious. Mackerel and miso soup are two things I rarely eat at home, because the quality is so poor compared to what is served in Japan.

The side dishes changed a bit every day, but were also great. One day they served picked myoga (young ginger), which was fantastic. However, every day, one of the side dishes was greens with nagaimo (mountain yam). Good for the health, so I didn't complain and ate it, but sticky stuff is not my favorite.

And one other food highlight from the time at the temple, mostly because I figured I had missed the season for it - kakigori!

Matcha flavored. I really enjoyed finding that on a hot day.

Now for the food pictures I remembered to take after leaving the temple:

Dinner that evening:

Yes, it's sushi from a convenience store - actually from the 100 yen version of a convenience store (I was tired). But I think it's noteworthy that it was only 350 yen, and for the price, not that bad.

I also had okonomiyaki:

Terrible picture, but great okonomiyaki. This was with squid (ika) and green onion (negi). They included a huge amount of green onion, which gave it a light consistency.

And negitorodon (tuna on top of rice):

And montblanc (I have to have montblanc when I go to Japan):

And curry rice:

This dinner - curry, salad, and coffee, was 550 yen. And it was in a sit down coffee shop where one could take one's time eating. Even with the high value of the yen, it's cheaper than eating out in the US, and better than many/most options.

My last breakfast in Japan was at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel. It's a huge complex that has several restaurants that one can choose for breakfast. There was a long line for my favorite one, Hapuna, which is an enormous buffet style restaurant. So I picked another, the Top of Shinagawa, on the 39th floor of one of the buildings, where the line was much shorter. The breakfast there is a smaller buffet. They had my favorite thing that Hapuna serves, smoked salmon, and I didn't need all of the choices, so I was perfectly happy. And my view was magnificent:

And, finally, the last thing I ate in Japan (other than an ice cream at the gate), takoyaki at a restaurant at Narita:

It was great to be back in Japan.

(more pictures from the trip are here, if you are interested: https://picasaweb.google.com/106890805447100306706/September2011TripToJapan?authkey=Gv1sRgCK-totfAo-C-vQE - Mt. Fuji was magnificent!)

Hayley Casarotto · April 20, 2012

Spring in Honshu, March-April 2012

Hi all! My husband and I just got back from a three week trip to Japan, which was SO GREAT I can't even begin to say. I love Japan so much and I didn't want to leave T___T Here's a post full of all the food glorious food we ate, because we, um, did a lot of that. This is a super long post, so please be forewarned.

We landed at Narita around 8am. The plan for the day was to head to Nikko, which required us to go via Asakusa. This was excitingly convenient for me because I had read that the world's best melonpan is sold by an old guy in Asakusa, and I LOVE MELONPAN. By the time we got there it was 9.55am, 5 minutes before he opened, and the queue was 20 people deep And you guys, it was so worth it. I included a shot of the bag below in case anyone wants to go to their website for directions - basically though, just get almost all the way to Sensoji and then follow your nose.

Our first meal in Nikko was a 3.30pm late lunch that became an early dinner supplemented with conbini snacks. We ended up at a soba/udon place close to the train station. I had sansai soba (mountain veggies = virtuous) and Ant had kakiage udon. I don't know if it was just that we were starving, but this was AMAZING and like 350 yen each. We kept looking at each other, all "can you believe this??" the whole meal. Oh Japan your food is so great.

The next day we went to the world heritage sites at Nikko. It was SO COLD. We had just come from mid-30s weather in Perth, and now we were in Nikko with snow on the ground I had a yummy bowl of oshiruko at a little chaya out the back of Toshogu Shrine. It warmed me up momentarily, and also reminded me of when I was on exchange over New Year in high school and didn't know how to eat mochi and nearly choked. YEAH.

Lunch was a similarly "oh god it's so cold" choice of curry rice.

Ramen for dinner! I had the "stamina" set. Apparently in Japanese, "stamina" means "a metric crapton of garlic, plus some gyoza".

The next day we headed up even further into the mountains, where it snowed like crazy. That was actually pretty awesome because I'd never seen falling snow before. Lunch was te-uchi soba with yuba, which is one of Nikko's specialties (the yuba, not the soba, though the soba was pretty great too.)

We went to a cafe mid-afternoon to thaw, and had cafe au lait and yuba pudding. The pudding was great! It was like soy pannacotta. It was very fresh, not too sweet, and served with black sugar syrup. Ant wasn't a huge fan so I got to eat more than my half. Win!

We had a tasting plate sort of dinner - a big plate of pork and veggie stir fry, kaki-fry and karaage, soup and rice. I know it looks heavy but that's two people's worth, and the veggies were light and tasty. I'd never had kaki-fry before (fried oysters) and I really enjoyed it! I think I like oysters better cooked than raw.

Back to Tokyo the next day. I wanted to shop at 109 so we went to Shibuya and had ramen for lunch at a place we had been to a few years ago. OMG best ramen ever. I can't even describe how good this stuff is, and I count myself as well-travelled in ramen-eating. The tonkotsu soup is just sublime.The pork topping is melt-in-your-mouth tender.The noodles are so qq! I could eat this every day and never tire of it.

Ant wanted katsu for dinner (this was a recurrent theme - katsu is one of Ant's major food groups in Japan) so we went to a little hole-in-the-wall ticket machine place. I had mince katsu with meat sauce. It was actually pretty tasty!I was a little dubious from the photo, but I was quite wrong. I also learned this trip that I've done a 180-turn on hojicha and now I love it. Ant has come around on red bean paste, too, so both of us grew as foodies this trip, or something. Also for some reason the frame on this photo is black.

Starbucks for breakfast the next day. Both of us were hanging out for real espresso coffee, and whilst Starbucks isn't the greatest coffee in the world, it's reliably fine, and sometimes that's all you need. Their current breakfast promo was French toast, and it was so good I had it almost every other time we went to Starbucks.

We went to Akihabara to go to the giant Yodobashi Camera so Ant could pick up some gear. Lunch was at a kaiten sushi place on the restaurant floor, and it was really good! Also the chefs were excited that Ant is Italian and kept saying "ciao!" to us all the time.

Next we headed to Harajuku where I had planned to meet a friend for crepes. But that was stormocalypse day in Tokyo (their biggest storm in 60 years or something, all the above ground train lines were closed o_O) and the rain started coming down really hard just as she was leaving the house, so in the end we couldn't meet T______T Hopefully there will be another opportunity in future! So anyways we picked up a quick crepe from Angel Hearts (strawberry cheesecake for me, caramel cheesecake for Ant) and then scarpered back to the hotel, where we stayed all night.

BONUS! Photo of Angel Hearts menu. I looked all over the web for this last month and couldn't find it, so maybe it will be of use to somebody.Click through for the full size.

Went to DisneySea the next day and forgot to take photos of what we ate I highly recommend the Reuben sandwich at the New York Deli in the American Waterfront section. It was really good! I also recommend the black pepper popcorn that you can buy from a couple of carts, AND that you go to the Big Band Beat show. (That's not a food-related thing, but we went in on a whim and it was seriously fantastic.)

Went to Hakone the next day and had curry-pan for breakfast from Picot, the bakery attached to the Fujiya Hotel, where we stayed. It was more like a curry-filled donut. It was pretty great.

Lunch was suiton (a dumpling soup - my first time trying it) at a small shop near Miyanoshita station. This was great! It was full of mountain vegetables, mushrooms and chicken in a really tasty broth. (I am aware that it doesn't look fabulous, so you will just have to trust me. Dumplings never photograph well.)

We took the ropeway up to Owakudani (Hell Valley), which is a sulphurous volcanic spring. One of the local specialties is eggs that have been hard-boiled in the sulphury water so that their shells turn black. Apparently, each one that you eat adds seven years to your life. They just take like regular hard-boiled eggs, though, so I couldn't bring myself to eat more than one. (Soft eggs - yay! Hard eggs - meh.)

This is my dinner. It will probably gross a lot of people out. It's soba topped with grated yamaimo (mountain yam) and a raw egg. It was slimy as all get-out, but super tasty. For most westerners, the sliminess can take some getting used to.

Dessert was pudding from the hotel bakery. Yum.

I also had a collagen drink. I had these every day we were there but for some reason it took me a week to take a photo. Oh well.

The next day we walked around Hakone some more and stopped for a break at Amazake-chaya, a tea house on the Kyukaido (the old highway that ran between Kyoto and Edo aka Tokyo.) Aside from the gas heater, the place looks like it hasn't changed in hundreds of years, including their menu. We ordered amazake, which is a thick, sweet rice drink; and uguisu-mochi, which is fresh mochi covered in kinako. Both were very tasty, but Ant didn't like them so I ended up eating/drinking it all myself so as not to cause offense. That is a LOT of rice right there, and I felt pretty queasy afterwards.

Apologies for the particularly poor quality of the photo, there's not a great deal of light inside the chaya.

A few hours later and Ant was jonesing for some lunch, so we stopped in at a Chinese place in the Sengokuhara highlands that specialized in gyoza. I ordered the "mini set" because I was still full of mochi, but as it turns out mini still means "6 gyoza, a medium sized bowl of ramen, a bowl of rice and some soup." FAIL ME. I pushed off some of my gyoza onto Ant but I still had to eat most of it myself.

We did a lot more walking, but come dinnertime I was still mostly full and just wanting an onigiri or something. Ant wanted something a bit more substantial but we figured we could find a cafe or something that could suit both of us. However, as it turns out, the only place open in Miyanoshita was a Korean place. That seemed great to me, because they had some legitimately small dishes displayed in the window, so we went in. And once we were seated, we found out that for dinner they only serve a full course, and all you get to choose it what type of meat you get on your bibimbap, so this is what I got.

DIE ME.

And you know what? It was so freaking delicious that I ate it all (I paid for it though, I was awake most of the night with a stomach ache.)

Skipped breakfast the next day and was sort of hungry by lunchtime. We were on the shinkansen bound for Kyoto at that point so I had an ekiben. Don't even know what it was exactly - pork, but not sure what cut. It was mercifully small and really yummy.

I had a sakura and green tea flavoured soft cream mid-afternoon up near Kiyomizu-dera which somehow filled me right up again, so when Ant said he wanted tempura for dinner I obliged him but ordered the mini-set. Will I never learn?? Because a mini-set looks like this:

Chawan-mushi, a bowl of ten-don with only one less piece of tempura than the large set, a whole bowl of udon AND THEN ICECREAM TO FINISH. Ant had the icecream and I couldn't even touch the udon. I think I offended them, they seemed surprised when they came to clear the table

Next day we went to Nara and Ant wanted katsu AGAIN (I wanted MOS burger after skipping breakfast but stupid google maps led us to McDonald's instead Did I type マクドナルド？ No I typed モスバーガー stupid stupid.) Anyway this katsu place was right next to McD's and seemed super popular so we went in, and it was really good, so eh. Plus my serve was happily quite small, which seemed to bring my meal body clock back into line thank goodness.

Strawberry parfait! That is all.

More ramen. It was at Kyoto station on floor 10. We queued up for a while and it was pretty great. The more memorable thing about it, though, was that the guy sitting next to me a) had the most amazing ramen slurp I've ever heard, and b) ordered three additional noodle bundles o_O And lemme tell you, they were not small bundles. Anyway. Moving on.

We had MOS burger for lunch the next day and I was so hungry I didn't take a photo at all For the record, Thousand Island burger and onion rings FTW.

The evening after MOS burger we ate at Kyoto station again. I had wagyu and it was AHMAHZING. They brought it out to me raw with a personal grill, and I gave it a quick sear on each side and called it a day. I've never had beef so amazing and I probably won't ever buy beef again and it's ruined everything else for me. The sashimi, pickles and sides (not pictured) were great too, but let's face it - this dish was really all about the beef.

Picked up a packet of collagen gummies at Hiroshima station. They were rose flavoured and tasted like chewy Turkish Delight.

And some Calorie Mate, maple flavour. Calorie Mate has been around forever but I'd never tried it, so I bought this. One bite in and I'll never try it again It's so dry! The flavour was fine though.

Hiroshima okonomiyaki! Yes, there is okonomiyaki under all that. Hiroshima style is layered, as opposed to Osaka style, which is mixed. The layers here are, from bottom to top, okonomiyaki batter, cabbage, yakisoba, cheese, fried egg, toppings. This was huge and I only made it about halfway through.

Our next meal was really special - a proper kaiseki meal at Kurayado Iroha, the ryokan we were staying at on Miyajima.

First course - fried tofu with miso sauce. Very light and flavourful.

Tastes of the sea! The star of the show was definitely the anago (conger eel) sushi in the middle, but the garlicky conch "pie" on the left was a close second. The fried ama-ebi at the bottom were tasty too.

A fresh and light soup with bracken fern, bamboo shoot, and a steamed fishball made from a river fish whose name I didn't catch Real fresh bamboo shoot is unbelievable. The canned stuff isn't even the same species as far as I am concerned.

Sashimi! There's tai (bream) at the front, a chewy white fish layered with seaweed on the left, and cuttlefish-wrapped uni at the back. This uni was great - it tasted sweet and clean.

At this point the waitresses lit our individual nabe burners that were sitting on the table, and gave us these charred broad beans to nibble on while we waited for them to heat up. (Erm, just nibbled on the beans, not the pods.)

And here's the nabe! It was eel, leek and amazing.

Surprisingly we weren't fully yet, which was good because there was still more coming. These were Hiroshima beef cabbage rolls, and they were just as good as the wagyu I had the night before if not better. So yeah definitely can't have beef in Australia anymore. As with all the courses, the presentation was exquisite, and the dish it was served on was beautiful.

Tai served with lily bulb in a sweet-ish sauce. I think the sauce was just the stewing liquid from the lily but I'm not sure. Tai was a theme to the night's dishes as it was in season.

Here's some more tai - this time in the form of tai-meshi (mixed rice), served with pickles and miso soup to signify the end of the meal. The rice was perfectly seasoned and just slightly crispy in places, and it was probably my favourite part of the whole meal. I had a second bowl of it *^^* (And I hoped they would served it for breakfast the next day too.)

A light dessert to finish - strawberry yoghurt pudding and a slice of melon. This might look simple but it was utterly perfect. I actually teared up a little bit at this point from how amazing everything had been. Yeah.

Breakfast the next day was also at the ryokan. It didn't include tai-meshi as I had hoped but it was was great all the same:

Tamagoyaki and clam miso soup

Salmon, carrot and orange juice, MENTAIKO, stewed potato and pickles.

Mentaiko closeup <3 This mentaiko was damn spicy! Had to eat lots of rice with it. I <3 mentaiko. This ended up being the only time I ate it all trip T_T

We had hoped to see Hiroshima that day but it was absolutely pouring with rain, so we just got on the bullet train to Osaka instead. More ekiben!

Anago-meshi, another local specialty. I've said this a lot but it was sooooo good.I almost wished that I had bought two.

Went to Tako Tako King that night for takoyaki. Super good! I understand why they have a reputation for World's Best Takoyaki.

Grabbed some lunch the next day from a couple of yatai at Osaka castle park - okonomiyaki and torikawa gyoza. Torikawa gyoza, if you don't know (I didn't) is seasoned chicken mince wrapped in chicken skin then fried o_O so of course it was damn good. This was the only hanami we did and it was so, so beautiful. My heart was very full that day.

We also got this from another yatai - strawberries coated in a thin layer of hard sugar syrup. The crispness of the toffee contrasted with the softness of the super sweet delicious strawberries was out of this world. Japan has also ruined Australian strawberries for me - these were like nothing I've ever bought here.

More katsu! Like I said, Ant ate an awful lot of katsu (usually in the form of katsu-don). I was the only girl in this place and I felt super conspicuous. Good food though.

Honey toast! One of my food goals for this trip was to eat honey toast and I succeeded on the last evening. Ant had French toast with berries though and frankly it was a better choice. Look:

Yeah. Yum.

Last dinner - okonomiyaki again! This place is a sentimental favourite for us as it's the first place Ant had okonomiyaki (and the first place I liked it at - I'd only tried it once before and it was so salty I almost never had it again). Mine has mochi in it. That's right.

And that was it! Coffee at Starbucks the next morning and then home again, with an extra 3kg of me thanks to all the eating So right now it's all green tea and rice crackers here, but that's OK because it was SO worth it.

Thanks if you made it all the way to the end! If this has made you keen for a Japan food trip of your own, I can't encourage you strongly enough to DO IT. You will have an amazing time and not regret it at all.There were many fewer foreign tourists there this trip than the last few times I have been, which is really sad.So if you have the urge, PLEASE GO.

(And PS, apologies to anybody who say my eGullet rule breach earlier when I linked to my blog instead of posting this here. I didn't mean any harm Sorry.)

rotuts · April 20, 2012

Wonderful long post! thanks for the hard work. new to thread. and a Cat Cafe! to boot!

**Shelby** · April 20, 2012

Thanks for posting these great pictures! Looks like a great trip. I'm now drooling.

rarerollingobject · April 21, 2012

Wonderful long post! thanks for the hard work. new to thread. and a Cat Cafe! to boot!

I think the cat cafe was from my pics, unless my boyfriend is really getting around on me :wink:

Fantastic photos, Hayley. I think I recognise some of the places you ate in Tokyo! Japan really is addictive, no? Every year we come back and I think "That's it! No more Japan for awhile! We should see somewhere else" and then inevitably, the yearning begins..

Hayley Casarotto · April 22, 2012

Thanks all for your comments! rro, I feel exactly the same way about Japan! My "gotta buy a ticket" impulses are so regular I could set my watch to them.