Finally Some Food Pictures!
I'll get around to replying to all of your wonderful comments soon >_< Thank you for your patience!
Friday I met up with Tomoya, whom I befriended by way of illusoire last summer :) We bascially ended up having a lunch date, I guess XD He took me to an okonomiyaki restaurant where he recently applied for a part time position, he was actually scheduled to start working there the next day! He decided he wanted to experience the restaurant as a guest before starting XDDDD Tomoya seriously cracks me up, we sometimes misunderstand each other because of language barriers/references not taken, but there's never any awkward pauses, and we just laugh a lot, so it's all good. Next time we meet up, we should do that thing where I only talk to him in Japanese and he only talks to me in English. That would be fun!
The place we went to is called さくら亭 (Sakura-tei), it's in a little back street close to the ever popular Takeshita dori in Harajuku. It's right next to (or connected to) the Design Festa galleries!
We have arrived!
There was gorgeous artwork right outside!!
We also went up a little staircase to look at the Design Festa galleries, here you can see in to the restaurant on the left.
Inside the restaurant!
We got there at around 1PM, I think, the place never got super crowded.
We went for the ALL YOU CAN EAT course. You get 90 minutes and you can basically order as much as you want. I think you are "limited" to ordering 4 different okonomiyaki at a time, but I mean... yeah. Be aware that you have to pay for uncooked bowls of ingredients!!! XDD The all you can eat course came with 1 drink as well, I paid 1200 yen for a lunch that ended up keeping me full the rest of the day XDDDD Very good deal!!
SO okonomiyaki (and monjayaki)! I've had okonomiyaki at festival stalls before, but I've never actually been to an okonomiyaki restaurant. Okonomiyaki (how many times will I be able to cram the word "okonomiyaki" into this post? lol) is usually (???? I think) described as a "Japanese pancake". I've always thought that description was a bit off, but it is flat and round in shape, at least.
It's an omelette of sorts with cabbage, egg, other ingredients I'm not sure of, and TOPPINGS~~~~.
For Sakura-tei's ALL YOU CAN EAT course you choose a base (either okonomiyaki or monjayaki), and then 1 topping (from a pre-set list of options). You could add more toppings if you wanted to, but that would cost extra.
I'd never had monjayaki before, it's basically prepared the same way, but ends up being sort of... moist? Almost like a gratin, I would say. You scrape it off the hot plate and eat it with a little spatula. It was fun (and tasty!!). The okonomiyaki turns into a solid omelette/pancake thing.
Tomoya preparing a monjayaki. A bowl of okonomiyaki ingredients sits off to the side waiting to be prepared next XDD
I was busy eating, so I forgot to take pictures. We ended up eating a lot.
First set: monjayaki with cheese, okonomiyaki with chicken
Second set: monjayaki with mochi, okonomiyaki with kimchi
Third set: monjayaki with ramen snack bits, okonomiyaki with ramen snack bits
This is a picture of the last set cooking XDD
Done and ready to eat!
I think my favourite was the okonomiyaki with kimchi :O Also the monjayaki with cheese was amazing. WOULD NOT DO MOCHI AGAIN, WHY WOULD YOU ADD MOCHI TO MONJAYAKI???? I'm still laughing about this decision. The ramen snack bits worked a lot better in okonomiyaki than in monjayaki, they got sort of soggy and became like.. regular noodles in the monjayaki XDDDD
This restaurant experience was so much fun! I'd love to go back there and try something else from their menu~ (as in, maybe not do the all you can eat lunch deal XDD).
Tomoya had to go to work after this, so we said goodbye. Hopefully we can meet up again soon!
I decided to tourist it up a bit. I went to Kiddy Land, a famous toy store in Harajuku (probably my favourite thing to do in Harajuku, tbh XDDD), it celebrates its 70th anniversary this year!!!
Quick bathroom selfie at Kiddy Land
Then I decided to go visit Meiji-jingu, which I'm pretty sure was the first major tourist site I went to when I first went to Japan back in 2007.
I had more time to kill, so I walked to Shibuya and did some serious window shopping at Disney Store and Tower Records XD;;
While it didn't snow (yayyy), it was seriously cold, hands were kept firmly in pockets for warmth, sorry no pictures.
Here is a picture of the street I live on, though!
It's actually kind of hard to tell here, but for some reason this street has really pretty illumination on at night. It makes it really easy to remember my street XD I should take a short video of it some day!
I got back home, and this thing was on my door:
Missed delivery!
I called the self service number to reschedule the delivery to before noon the next day. The delivery guy showed up at around 10AM the next morning, and I now have my long term SIM card! I'm actually sort of surprised at how quickly I was able to get that sorted, hahaha. I guess the only hurdle left is setting up a bank account.
Yesterday I camped out at a coffee shop and got some work done, I ended up staying there for like 5 hours o_o;;;
I also (finally!) had my first proper bowl of ramen:
BLACK soy sauce ramen (????? this name still confuses me, though I guess the broth is a lot darker than regular soy sauce broth XDDDD). The gyoza were AMAZING, and the noodles were fantastic. This was the first time I had soy based ramen broth though, and I'm not sure what to think... I think it was a little too sweet for me, maybe? My favourite is still the tonkotsu broth~~~
Anddd I finally found something sakura flavoured. Or I should say sakura themed. This Pepsi actually tastes.... like Pepsi. It has some fruitiness to it, but I wouldn't describe it as cherry blossom (I've had cherry blossom ice cream before with real cherry blossom petals in it, and it has a very light, distinct taste!).
It was very light and refreshing, I liked it a lot more than regular Pepsi (the colour probably helps) XD I'll probably drink more of this :)
Friday I met up with Tomoya, whom I befriended by way of illusoire last summer :) We bascially ended up having a lunch date, I guess XD He took me to an okonomiyaki restaurant where he recently applied for a part time position, he was actually scheduled to start working there the next day! He decided he wanted to experience the restaurant as a guest before starting XDDDD Tomoya seriously cracks me up, we sometimes misunderstand each other because of language barriers/references not taken, but there's never any awkward pauses, and we just laugh a lot, so it's all good. Next time we meet up, we should do that thing where I only talk to him in Japanese and he only talks to me in English. That would be fun!
The place we went to is called さくら亭 (Sakura-tei), it's in a little back street close to the ever popular Takeshita dori in Harajuku. It's right next to (or connected to) the Design Festa galleries!
We have arrived!
There was gorgeous artwork right outside!!
We also went up a little staircase to look at the Design Festa galleries, here you can see in to the restaurant on the left.
Inside the restaurant!
We got there at around 1PM, I think, the place never got super crowded.
We went for the ALL YOU CAN EAT course. You get 90 minutes and you can basically order as much as you want. I think you are "limited" to ordering 4 different okonomiyaki at a time, but I mean... yeah. Be aware that you have to pay for uncooked bowls of ingredients!!! XDD The all you can eat course came with 1 drink as well, I paid 1200 yen for a lunch that ended up keeping me full the rest of the day XDDDD Very good deal!!
SO okonomiyaki (and monjayaki)! I've had okonomiyaki at festival stalls before, but I've never actually been to an okonomiyaki restaurant. Okonomiyaki (how many times will I be able to cram the word "okonomiyaki" into this post? lol) is usually (???? I think) described as a "Japanese pancake". I've always thought that description was a bit off, but it is flat and round in shape, at least.
It's an omelette of sorts with cabbage, egg, other ingredients I'm not sure of, and TOPPINGS~~~~.
For Sakura-tei's ALL YOU CAN EAT course you choose a base (either okonomiyaki or monjayaki), and then 1 topping (from a pre-set list of options). You could add more toppings if you wanted to, but that would cost extra.
I'd never had monjayaki before, it's basically prepared the same way, but ends up being sort of... moist? Almost like a gratin, I would say. You scrape it off the hot plate and eat it with a little spatula. It was fun (and tasty!!). The okonomiyaki turns into a solid omelette/pancake thing.
Tomoya preparing a monjayaki. A bowl of okonomiyaki ingredients sits off to the side waiting to be prepared next XDD
I was busy eating, so I forgot to take pictures. We ended up eating a lot.
First set: monjayaki with cheese, okonomiyaki with chicken
Second set: monjayaki with mochi, okonomiyaki with kimchi
Third set: monjayaki with ramen snack bits, okonomiyaki with ramen snack bits
This is a picture of the last set cooking XDD
Done and ready to eat!
I think my favourite was the okonomiyaki with kimchi :O Also the monjayaki with cheese was amazing. WOULD NOT DO MOCHI AGAIN, WHY WOULD YOU ADD MOCHI TO MONJAYAKI???? I'm still laughing about this decision. The ramen snack bits worked a lot better in okonomiyaki than in monjayaki, they got sort of soggy and became like.. regular noodles in the monjayaki XDDDD
This restaurant experience was so much fun! I'd love to go back there and try something else from their menu~ (as in, maybe not do the all you can eat lunch deal XDD).
Tomoya had to go to work after this, so we said goodbye. Hopefully we can meet up again soon!
I decided to tourist it up a bit. I went to Kiddy Land, a famous toy store in Harajuku (probably my favourite thing to do in Harajuku, tbh XDDD), it celebrates its 70th anniversary this year!!!
Quick bathroom selfie at Kiddy Land
Then I decided to go visit Meiji-jingu, which I'm pretty sure was the first major tourist site I went to when I first went to Japan back in 2007.
I had more time to kill, so I walked to Shibuya and did some serious window shopping at Disney Store and Tower Records XD;;
While it didn't snow (yayyy), it was seriously cold, hands were kept firmly in pockets for warmth, sorry no pictures.
Here is a picture of the street I live on, though!
It's actually kind of hard to tell here, but for some reason this street has really pretty illumination on at night. It makes it really easy to remember my street XD I should take a short video of it some day!
I got back home, and this thing was on my door:
Missed delivery!
I called the self service number to reschedule the delivery to before noon the next day. The delivery guy showed up at around 10AM the next morning, and I now have my long term SIM card! I'm actually sort of surprised at how quickly I was able to get that sorted, hahaha. I guess the only hurdle left is setting up a bank account.
Yesterday I camped out at a coffee shop and got some work done, I ended up staying there for like 5 hours o_o;;;
I also (finally!) had my first proper bowl of ramen:
BLACK soy sauce ramen (????? this name still confuses me, though I guess the broth is a lot darker than regular soy sauce broth XDDDD). The gyoza were AMAZING, and the noodles were fantastic. This was the first time I had soy based ramen broth though, and I'm not sure what to think... I think it was a little too sweet for me, maybe? My favourite is still the tonkotsu broth~~~
Anddd I finally found something sakura flavoured. Or I should say sakura themed. This Pepsi actually tastes.... like Pepsi. It has some fruitiness to it, but I wouldn't describe it as cherry blossom (I've had cherry blossom ice cream before with real cherry blossom petals in it, and it has a very light, distinct taste!).
It was very light and refreshing, I liked it a lot more than regular Pepsi (the colour probably helps) XD I'll probably drink more of this :)