Japan Trip 2013 - Day 16

Day 16

Urghhh...One of our least favorite parts of the trip.  Relocation.  Today, we went from Osaka back up to Tokyo by shinkansen and train transfers.  We are both carrying one heavy large suitcase per person and a big bag and backpack.  Well, before the grueling experience of lugging those guys through crowded Japanese train stations and finding room for them on a crowded train, we had some breakfast and lunch.

Takoyaki: Sauce and Seaweed Flakes

Last couple of hours in Osaka and Ducky wanted one last order of takoyaki.  They were just as good as the first ones we got in Osaka.  This time we opted for a simple sauce with seaweed flakes.  The takoyaki had a nice crispy exterior with a gooey interior with a hefty piece of octopus floating inside.  T_T Only $ too cheap...!

Japan is known for their legendary lunch sets. For around $8-10 you can get an entree + soup + salad. + rice. Kitty ordered the beef stew and Ducky ordered hamburger and tempura shrimp with mayo sauce.  Both our orders come with a side of rice, salad, and potage.

Salad and Potato Potage

Beef Stew

Hamburger and Tempura Shrimp

The salad was nicely flavored with a simple vinaigrette that was just a bit tart.  The potage was savory and had a thick and hearty taste of potato.  The beef stew was savory and tasted quite a bit like Hayashi rice.  Kitty could taste a bit of red wine in the sauce.  The stew contained beef, okra, fried potatoes, broccoli, and half a cherry tomato.  Ducky's hamburger was very tender and juicy.  The hamburger was not dry and had bits of onions inside it.  To complement the hamburger, they placed a mountain of sauce infused daikon on top of the hamburger. The tempura shrimp was nicely breaded, but was just like any other tempura shrimp.  The order also came with broccoli, cherry tomato, and fried potatoes.  Overall, an excellent cheap lunch.  Many places in Japan offer lunch specials, so there are many restaurants to try!

Mochi and Red Bean Dessert

For a midday dessert, Kitty wanted to order something from this small Japanese style cafe.  She ended ordering a dessert with red bean, mochi, jelly cubes, and soft serve vanilla ice cream.  Everything in the dessert was delicious and very refreshing.  No one flavor dominated, but each component brought a different aspect to the table.  The red bean was mildy sweet, and the soft serve went really with it. The jellies on the bottom were naturally bland, but balanced with the residual syrup from everything above it. Definitely a satisfying way to beat the heat.

I wanted to have one more bento eating experience while riding the shinkansen...this time I made Ducky get his own bento. He bought his at a department store while I bought mine at the train station. Both were less than $10!

Mackerel and Egg Bento

Salmon and Egg Bento

Both bentos were very visually attractive.  We almost did not want to eat them.  Some common elements in both were the rolled eggs, rice, pickled vegetables, a fish, and some kinds of beans. It's just so relaxing to eat this, chug some tea and look out of the window to see Japanese neighborhoods, cities, and farmlands zoom by.

We finally made it to Tokyo but we wasted no time because we were late meeting Kitty's friend. We decided to eat Monjyayaki which is like...the gooey version of okonomiyaki.

Mix Monjayaki

Like okonomyaki you get your mixture depending on what flavor you wanted. We ordered the pork and onion flavor. Then you go ahead and cook everything separately...afterwards you mix everything and then make a whole in the middle.

Making the Monjayaki

Ducky and I just looked silly trying to do this with our mini-spatulas...but you pour some of the flour broth in the middle and let it cook a bit, mix, make a whole, rinse and repeat until you have no more of the batter. And then with your baby mini spatula you take a bite sized piece, grill it some more and eat it. It definitely tastes good...even though Ducky and I prefer okonomiyaki we think monjyayaki is more fun to eat.

Clams

Konyaku and Beef with Cabbage

Okonomiyaki Made with Green Onions

We also got some sides which were great palate cleansers and things to snack on while we all chatted. All of these things came to a little less than $20. Okonomiyaki/Monjyayaki places are definitely a great place to hang out with friends and drink as well. If only we had more of these types of places in the States other than the one lonely Gaja all the way down in Los Angeles.

Pear Popsicle

Japan loves fruits and fruit flavored things.  Unfortunately, fruits are super expensive here with bunches of grapes costing around $9.  So, the next best thing is fruit flavored things.  This pear popsicle contained only 10% of real fruit juice, but the pear flavoring was very strong.  The pear flavor was almost too strong.  Ducky loves fruit flavored things as well and this popsicle did not disappoint. I mean how can it disappoint......look at that face!  

Cookie Popsicle

I had my doubts about this at first. But I love Country Man green tea cookies so maybe their cookie popsicle ice cream wouldn't turn out bad. I was pleasantly surprised! The outer shell was like a vanilla flavor and inside it was kind of like eating very firm cookie dough.

We both love the variety of ice creams that Japan offers. Never know what you can find when you pop in at your local convenience store.