Japan Travel Diary Pt 2

This post is long overdue, but I'm finally going to get around to writing about the best part about my trip to Japan... FOOD!

I think many people can agree that Japan is just filled with tons of good eats. The streets of Tokyo are lined with unique cafés, hole-in the-wall ramen houses, and upscale sushi joints. There are so many great dining experiences in this city. The saddest part is having a limited stomach capacity. Mike and I were seriously considering having four meals a day (plus snacks of course). Alas, our puny human stomachs could not manage to fit that many indulgent meals a day. We attempted to plan all our meals, but that takes the fun out of just stumbling into a good restaurant. Here are some of the meals, snacks, and desserts we ate or encountered.

Cafés

If you're looking for quaint, unique cafés you should definitely check some lower traffic areas of Tokyo. Roy and Saori took Mike and I to a café that Saori swears by called: "Hattifnatt". Its a very small treehouse themed café that serves pastries, beverages, pizzas and other little snacks. To get to our table we had to climb a ladder and crawl into this small nook. It was super cozy and interesting because we were sitting over another dining level and got  to spy on other people's food haha.

Ichigo-chan and Ice cream melon soda

Cute disney lattes

Artsy Cafe

Interesting decor

Backstory: we specially requested this latte art because Roy and Saori wanted us to have a really memorable experience. The barista and waitress spent a long time looking at references and took extra time to make sure it came out perfectly. Such great service, huh? And they don't even accept tips.

Raspberry tea soda, Berry waffle, White tiramisu

Mike and I wanted to try out themed cafes like the Alice in Wonderland cafe or Square Enix cafe, but we didn't have much time for more cafes. :(

Snacks

This was my first meal upon landing in Osaka! We ran to the combini (7-11) and just grabbed whatever looked good. I got a plain onigiri, karaage, a freeze dried strawberry snack and a strawberry milk drink. It was quite tasty! Their 7-11 has a huge variety of snacks, drinks, instant foods that they warm up for you and hot foods to eat on the go.

Fresh Calbee+ chips, Curry & cheese flavour, Cheese flavour

Giant Rainbow Pocky

Assortment of giant Pretz and Pocky

Glico Purin! I brought this home to share with my friends ^_^

Girly crepe at Akihabara

Takoyaki

Meals

Gogo Curry Arrrg so good.

Tendon and zaru soba for me, Tempura and Beer + Sake for Mike

Karaage at Ootoya, Note: really good rice and furikake here

Croque Monsieur for breakfast

Omurice and Hamburg at a Maid Cafe

I seriously wanted to find a good yakiniku place, or any really. It was on my list of must eats in Japan along with Kobe beef. :( I didn't get to try either. We found a place near our hotel that served lunch servings of Wagyu (?? I can't remember :/) beef that was at least affordable for us since our funds were drying up near the end of our trip. I ordered Aitchbone and skirt steak and LORD HAVE MERCY that steak was tender and marbled. I only had three slices of the aitchbone and Mike wanted to try one :(. No, no its okay :( You take it :( :( :(...

 Add yakiniku and kobe beef on my list of things to do when going back to Japan.

Sushi, sushi, sushi. I am one of the few people that just don't really care for it. I like hot flavourful food and to me sushi is just cold and mild. Not really dinner material in my opinion. But of course, we had to try a sushi joint during our stay. Roy and Saori brought us to a stand up sushi bar in Nakano I think. There were self-serve matcha tea stations and leaves for the sushi to be served on.

Aburi it up

Anago, Aburi mayo salmon and abrui mayo ebi

Ok, so the fish was very smooth and fresh and actually quite tasty, but the ABURI SUSHI.......... is just crazy good. It is one of the best things I have ever eaten, and I couldn't stop ordering it. Aburi just means the fish is lightly seared with a blowtorch. Adding mayo on top just made it more fragrant and delicious..... drool.

Well, that concludes my Japan food diary! I actually have some more photos, but this post is getting pretty long as it is. As I was writing this I had to take frequent breaks reminiscing on the trip with Mike, who was working behind me.We really had a blast despite being crazy exhausted. I can't wait for the next time we go back! I hope I inspired some readers to save up for a trip to Japan or their dream destination because it really is worth it!

Signing off for now! :) I have plans to do a post about my face and outfits of the day for winter. I also placed a pretty big order for winter clothes for work, so I'll be posting about those too! Stay tuned, kitties.