Zsup~!

When I first saw my beef stew though, my heart sank a bit. Stew, to me, means a healthy helping of soupish portions. The splatter on a plate hardly sufficed. And it was a flat plate, at that, rather than a deep dish... However, the first taste just blew my doubts out of the water. We could hardly believe that the meat in the dish was beef - it was fatty and soft, more like ter bak than gu bak. The taste was all COW though. Tender and just enough to chew on so the teeth can squeeze the tasty juices out into the rest of the mouth. At 1000yen with rice on the side, I felt pain for my wallet, but this was worth forgoing dinner and supper and tomorrow's breakfast for.

Of course, with the restaurant being named as it was, I could hardly pass up the opportunity to try their unfiltered ale. It went very nicely with the stew, although I can't really say it would be good with the noodles. Pilsener for that, perhaps?

Thumbs up to the Kitami TIC for the great recommendation. This was a clear winner - in our two hours there we saw a constant stream of people coming in for the shio yakisoba and beer, though most left before us (we attribute this to their inability to down multiple helpings of salad/dessert/soup/tea/coffee). All Japanese, incidentally... Kitami is a little bit off the main tourist map, I believe?

Anyway, if anyone is traipsing around Hokkaido in future and doesn't mind a little detour for some fantastic food, The Beer Factory in Kitami is the place to be!

We got a recommendation for Fugetsu, specifically the branch at Midosuji Building, right out of Exit 24, Namba Subway Station (also connected to JR Namba). So obviously we had to try it out, since Osaka is the home of Okonomiyaki!

First they mix up the stuff and lay it on the hot plate, right before your eyes!

We were hungry and sort of had no clue what to do since they just toodled off after and left the stuff roasting before our eyes. So we started fiddling with the food...

This earned us a stern look from an upset chef-type chap who told us to leave the stuff alone.

Speaking of savoury, the stunning flavours of Matsusaka beef steak on a stick is still lingering on my mental tastebuds. When we glimpsed this street stall opposite a used clothing store, just down the road from Osu Kannon temple, little did ZsupCreator and I realise that we were going for a life-changing experience. I am NEVER going to eat a satay without dreaming of this, for the rest of my life. The beef simply oozed rich meaty zsup, and rather than being just oily, the fat-rich meat was an explosion of COW-ness that I have only previously tasted on shiny plates, in restaurants that have solid reputations. I have tasted good food from street stalls before, but never restaurant quality, dream making stuff.

The next day, we passed by again on the way to pick up stuff for a friend, and the stall was not there. We wish we were not on a budget and had gotten more, the day before.

Nonetheless, our gastronomic odyssey continued...

We have also eaten loads of noodles. Soba, udon, ramen, instant, in broth, in soup, with miso, soy and pork bone stock. The LOT. And I have to say, we have yet to encounter anything we dislike. From train station shops, both on the platform and in the station, to restaurants in shopping arcades... even a museum dedicated to Ramen (in Yokohama). It has all been fantastic for Asian tastebuds that were honed on the likes of Myojo, Ramen, and world-class wonton mee/hor fun/bak chor mee and etc.




The three pix above are just a random selection from the many many bowls of noodly type foods we have scoffed along the way. I love the way that the udon is always smooth, never overcooked. I favour the textures of the soba, firm and not at all mushy, regardless of the outlet I'm purchasing from. Much respect to all the noodle sellers in Japan!


Special mention #1: Ramen street in Nagoya! Despite my dislike for the city, I must say I very very much appreciate the existence of this place. Hidden in a backalley of the JR station itself, the bunch of shops gathered here represent the various flavours of ramen available throughout Japan. We is loves this!


Special mention #2: Perhaps Yokohama's only real place of interest to me. The Ramen Museum has a nice display detailing the history and makings of the yummy noodle, and traces its development in Japan. This is of course done in Japanese text, making for slow reading and even slower translation in my Chinese-stunted mind. I count myself lucky that I even know the alternate language that allows me to guess at what the Japanese text is really saying...

Note to people who might venture here for the historically accurate and very excellent ramen concoctions at this place: It is popular with tour groups and queues for the little shops in there can run up to 1hr or more! Getting your hand stamped and returning in the evening at about 8ish will be good if you want to avoid queues, but this would mean less chance of sampling all the goodies at the various shops, since multiple queueing sessions before they close at 9 will be nearly impossible.



In Hikone, we caught sight of these biscuits in a convenience store. They were horribly overpriced, of course, but that's what you get for having Hiko-nyan gracing the surface of your food right? We chose not to eat it, but I felt like I would have liked to try it, just to bite off his head for fun!


Despite our tight budget for this trip, deprivation has not always been our lot. The plate of sweet goodies above is from Sweets Paradise in Nagoya, where we dug into several servings of cakes over the course of 80 minutes. The buffet is timed so as to facilitate the movement of the queue, which was really long. We would have liked to stay longer though, all the cakes looked amazing!

Food has also sometimes been a source of amusement for us, especially when we see tantalising shopsigns like the one above. While the pictures look really yummy, I doubt I would buy the stuff from reading the text...

This next picture holds the memory of a night in Nagano, being chucked out of a purportedly 24 hour Macdonald's that was really only a 22 hour Macs (they close from 3am-5am for cleaning) so that we ended up going next door to have a beef bowl to justify our taking up a new sleeping spot at 3am in the morning. With our brains scrambled from shattered sleep, we were faced suddenly with a bowl of stewed beef rice (familiar and tasty), and a chilled raw egg (????????) which we were told to simply stir into the meal. Chilled, so that it wouldn't cook even when mixed with the piping hot rice. With the risk of salmonella firmly stuffed into our one-week-old-socks, we tucked into this with positive comments of "MMM mmm MMMMMM". Kudos to ZsupCreator for scoffing the lot in his determination not to waste food in our impoverished travel conditions.


Better food memories exist in Yokohama, where we had our first Real Burger. McPork does not count - it is practically a sandwich. Everyone who goes to Yokohama should check out the lovely babes at Kua'Aina and have one of their luxurious cheese burgers. This is King of CheeseBurgerdom. Rivalling the portions of Carls Jr, and definitely floating around Uberburger and other gourmet burger stores' quality.


It was also in Yokohama that we had the chance to see a ninja chef literally whipping up a storm as he made the omelette in omu-rice a visual display of his skills. The above picture barely captures his mad skillz in creating an omelette of even texture on the pan, and does not at all show the very cool and accurate flips he makes every single time he creates a dish of omu-rice. We watched him do this nearly 5 times in an attempt to pick up some tips and maybe try this at home!

We started the day today in the supermarket. Being hugely hungry despite the many cups of hot chocolate and drinks and ice cream from the i-cafe (liquids can only do that much, after all), we nearly scoffed the lot without getting pictures.

Another irresistable food tasting attempt came when the dango counter came around. This one's covered in shoyu sauce. I keep wanting to eat them with some honey, but it's awfully tasty even when salty somehow.


Starbucks gets my bomb of the day award though. It being the right season and all, I thought I would be extravagant for once and treat myself to a cup of Sakura steamer. The picture was very tempting, of course...

But somehow the mug made it look a whole lot less appealing. This was when I realised that most of the patrons in Sendai's Starbucks (I peeked at other branches too) were using plastic cups and paper cups or mugs, even when they were sipping it in the cafe. What's with that wastage? And I don't get what happened to all the really cool Starbucksy cups either. I've seen them in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. So what's up, Japan? Or is it just Sendai?

The steamer was reasonably tasty, I guess. But when a person pays for a cup of Starbucks, it's not just about the flavour... the presentation's definitely important too.