Kawaii Japan - Lovely Folks and Great Food Part II

Apart from the freshest sushi you can ever find, Japan is also famous for its breaded, deep-fried dishes such as tonkatsu (i.e. pork cutlet) and tempura. I seldom take this kind of cuisine as I usually find them too heaty for my general well-being and those that are not cooked well often turns out too oily for my liking. Nevertheless, not trying out these dishes will be quite a pity as they are so popular in Japan! As such, we were more than happy when Masako's dad offered to bring us to a couple of well-known restaurants serving such food.

Counter Seat at Tenya restaurant, a well known Tempura Chain in Japan. The menu shows that tempura with noodles is available too!

Special price on the 18 of every month?

Sumptuous tempura bowl!

As you can see from the pictures, the tempura serving is really generous, filling up the whole bowl! We were so sure that we would  really enjoy this meal even before we started! Despite having been battered and deep-fried, the freshness of the food is apparent from the sweetness of the seafood (i.e. prawn, fish and scallop) and vegetable. Yummy!

A couple of group pictures we took at the restaurants:

Kai, Stanley, Bernard and I having a great time with Masako's Dad!

Next up on the list is a restaurant, Tonkatsu Ginza Bairin (银座梅林), with a long history of serving high quality Tonkatsu!

Getting ready to tuck into the food once it arrives!

And not forgetting some beer to go with the tonkatsu!

Tonkatsu set meal with spaghetti, lettuce, rice, side dishes and miso soup

Tonkatsu don set with oozing egg yolk on top of the meat!

We were so full and downright satisfied after the meal! The taste of the succulent tonkatsu is impeccable and way much better than what we have ever tried in Singapore! The price is quite hefty though, amounting to about $30 per person. Thanks so much to Ojisan (Masako's Dad) for treating us to this fantastic meal! We really appreciate your kindness and hospitality once again!

How about some dessert now?

The next place I am going to introduce is the Eggs'n Things Restaurant serving western cuisine from Hawaii. This restaurant is recommended as one of the "must go" places in Tokyo if you like pancakes.

We were having a hard time deciding what to order as everything on the menu looks good!

Hawaii style decor in the restaurant

Waitresses in Hawaii print aprons! Cute!

And here comes the pancakes:

Sweet  pancakes with blueberries, maple syrup and a tower of fresh cream! Oishii!

Salty pancake with hazelnut sauce. Really unique and tasty too!

Apart from their famous pancakes which had us waiting in the queue for almost an hour, the restaurant also serves pretty decent main courses:

Mash potatoes with bacon bits

Grilled Steak

Seafood fried rice

Grilled chicken chop

Nacho chips with avocado dip

In general, the food is not bad at all so really worth a try if you are in the mood for western food when touring Tokyo!

Information of the restaurants in this post:

Tenya
http://www.tenya.co.jp

Tonkatsu Ginza Bairin
http://www.ginzabairin.com/
(We just found out that it is available in Singapore as well!)

Eggs 'n Things
http://www.eggsnthingsjapan.com

Kawaii Japan - Lovely Folks and Great Food Part 1

Part of the fun in traveling includes the delicious food we get to try out during these trips. I have always been a great fan of Japanese cuisine so I was all geared up for a great deal of feasting even before I reached Japan :)!

On the day that Bernard and I arrived in Japan, we were invited to Masako's home in Chiba to have dinner. We were really looking forward to this as Masako's mum had prepared this meal for three whole days! 

An assortment of sushi, including fatty tuna and salmon

Juicy fish egg roe! The yellow egg roe in the middle bowl is usually only served during the Japanese New Year

Pan fried fish with a sweet sour sauce. Very appetizing!

A FABULOUS dish, crab meat coquette. Soft on the inside and crispy on the outside! Masako's mum specialty dish.

Strawberry salad. A wholesome and healthy dish

Yummy French chicken stew!

Savory chicken meat ball. Oiishi!

Prawns with peas, a simple but palatable home-cooked dish

A unique kind of seaweed that we had not seen in Singapore

The home-cooked food were simply awesome! I loved every single dish as I can feel the love and effort Obasan had put in when she prepared the meal. Thank you so much!

And here are the lovely folks we hung out with that night:

My Uni classmate and buddy, Kai, and I

Sahid, Masako's Brother-In-Law, Me and Obasan (Masako's Mum)

Group picture! Sincere thanks to Masako's family for their hospitality!

Great people and food, what more can we ask for?

Over the course of our Japan trip, we were also fortunate to have patronized a number of fantastic restaurants serving really good food, so I will recommend a few of these places for anyone who will be visiting Japan:

Main entrance to Sushizanmai Restaurant, which operates 24 hours!

Group photo at Sushizanmai Restaurant

Tuna sushi and don with meat from different parts of the fish

Refreshing snow crab Miso Soup!

Delicious sushi and handrolls

Sushizanmai is a well-known Japan chain with fifty branches. The restaurant serves mouth-watering sushi using the freshest ingredients and the branch we visited is located right at the famous Tsukiji Fish Market. If you love raw fish or seafood and well-made sushi that does not break into pieces when bringing it into your mouth, this is a place that you should definitely visit! In case you are not aware, a small amount of wasabi is already placed between the fish and the rice, as covering the wasabi before the sushi is served will help to preserve its flavour. The restaurant operates 24 hours, so no excuse to say that you have no time to try out the sushi there! You can visit the official website for more information (i.e. http://www.kiyomura.co.jp), however, you need to know how to read Japanese (or know someone who does)!

Will recommend a few more restaurants in my next post!

Kawaii Japan - DisneySea!

I believe every adult has a childlike quality hidden in their heart which when triggered, will resurface.

As a child, I was a real romantic at heart and enjoyed watching Disney animation such as "The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and The Beast" and "Aladdin" etc.. It always brings me joy to see the male and female protagonists living happily ever after and witnessing the good triumph over evil in these stories. Although my childhood days are long over and I know that what was portrayed in Disney animation will not always be translated in real life, the characters and plots in these cartoons still have an endearing place in my heart. Perhaps this is the "magic" of Disney at work!

DisneySea is one of the places where everyone in my group unanimously agree to visit when we were in Japan. I guess I was not the only one mesmerized by Disney!

Magnificent Mickey Mouse Sorcerer and Globe statutes at the main entrance

DisneySea is already crowded at 8.30am in the morning on a Wednesday!

Impressive volcano!

Group picture with the volcano as the backdrop

Loving this Minnie mouse hairband

Mickey mouse meets Pirate

Mickey mouse meets chipmunk

We had so much fun trying on different hats that we spent more time then we should in the store!

Time for Europe And Mexico!

We are in Venice! Emm... Actually, the part of DisneySea that looks like Venice :)

Looking great, boys!

We had reached Mexico! Pinatas at Donald Duck's abode.

We queued up for about twenty minutes before getting the opportunity to have a photo with Donald! 

Princess Jasmine's friendly tiger in "Aladdin" welcoming the guests visiting

Group picture taken at the peasants' quarters where Aladdin grew up in

The palace where Princess Jasmine in "Aladdin" stays

Wonder whether a real camel is of this size?

 Magic lamp! Grant me my wish please!

Bernard and I taking a picture outside the sea palace, where Ariel (The Little Mermaid) resides

Kai taking a picture with the King of the Sea before entering the Sea palace

We are "under the sea" inside the sea palace

More Kawaii stuff at "Under the Sea" gift store

Attractions at the newly built "Toy Story" City

Kai and Stanley riding on Ms Piggy and Mr Donkey respectively...lol

Check out the cowboy hats!

Before we knew it, night falls on us...Group picture outside the theater of the spectacular cabaret show, "Big Band Beat"

Time for dinner! We were quite hungry after all the fun we had so we went to the nearest cafe for a bite:

Crispy donut sticks and sandwiches at a deli near the theater where we watched the "Big Band Beat"

And time to say goodbye!

Waving bye to DisneySea with Kitty's paws...Meow!

Last group picture taken near the exit.

The visit to DisneySea really brought back a lot of great childhood memories and I was really happy to be around the company of fantastic people, which really make the whole visit a lot more meaningful! Apart from all the spectacular buildings and structures in DisneySea, we also watched a couple of impressive live theatrical performances including the "Mystic Rhythms", "The Little Mermaid" and "Big Band Beat". All three performances are superb and simply amazing! In particular, "Mystic Rhythms" was so powerful that it almost brought tears to Stanley's eyes! Unfortunately, picture taking is not allow in the theaters so I am not able to post any photos up.

Due to time limitation, we were not able to finish touring DisneySea :( .... If you like taking photos as much as we do and at the same time, hope to watch all the shows and take all the rides, then it may be better to get a 2-day pass. For more information on DisneySea, I would suggest you have a look at their official website - http://www.tokyodisneyresort.co.jp/en/tds/entm/index.html

Will be blogging more on my Japan trip later! See you.