kahunaville.net

One of my favorite things about traveling is eating food from around the world and Japan is 2 for 2 on number of visits to a country that I would move to - just for the food. Dave and I started off our trip in Tokyo, visiting Mina and checking out an Izakaya in Shibuya that served up some blowtorch seared raw fish, horse meat and skewers served with large amounts of shochu. So good.

15652 15661

The next day, after we wound our way up the coast to find some cherry blossoms, we found ourselves eating okonomiyaki with Mina and her friend Chieko. Not exactly dave-sized portions but it was fun cooking it ourselves and brought back memories of giant spatula-wielding Ukyou from my anime watching days. Hahaha. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you need to catch yourself up on the gender-bender madness of Ranma 1/2.

15721

On Tuesday, we left Mina to her job and traveled by Shinkansen down to Kyoto, wandered around the markets at night and rented bikes in the morning as we toured the numerous temples around the city. Biking around in a foreign country was freakin’ awesome. The only scary thing was trying to remember which direction cars were supposed to come from. We ate lunch at this little restaurant called Kama-Meshi-Kasan where the Japanese woman behind the counter treated us like long lost family. I have only a vague idea where it was but the orange zest seafood rice was excellent and I would highly recommend it.

15772

Also in Kyoto, we tried some bbq’d mochi balls with this sort of salty teriyaki sauce dripped over them. Mmmm… tasted great on a cool rainy day. 15835 One of the recommeneded restaurants from the guidebok I had was close to our hotel near Nijo-jo (castle) so we hunted it down and shared a sort of hot-pot udon. Except they only gave us like 4 noodles. See picture below for an explanation as Dave goes for the gold.

15841

Back in Tokyo, Mina took us around Harajuku where we snacked on octopus balls, ate at an awesome gyoka bar (while drinking Kirin.. mmm) and found crepes for desserts. There aren’t nearly enough crepe places in the US which I find puzzling since there obviously is some money to be made with unhealthly specialty food like that.

15877

15898

15913

Enormous eel sushi near the Tskujii fish market at the crack of dawn.

16162

16147

Our last night in Tokyo, Dave and I took Mina and here sister Maki out to dinner for the king of sushi dinners. Foie gras sushi, uni and all sorts of other sushi. Further reporting will have to wait…

16165

~ by kahunamike on May 1, 2007.