July 7th: This was the day I met up with my family in Sapporo to start off our week of vacation!
Right after I finished work at 4, I headed to the bus stop, because there wasn’t enough time to go home, rearrange my stuff, and walk to the bus stop before the 4:45 bus (the next one wouldn’t come until an hour later, and then I’d get to Sapporo super late…). Shoutout to my boyfriend to bringing me my stuff on the way to the bus stop!
I finally arrived in Sapporo around 7:30, and I got dinner with my family. Unfortunately, my dad was feeling a bit unwell, so I went with my mom and my sister to grab something to eat around Sapporo station. We ended up getting Ding Tai Fung, which is located in Stellar Place, and although my family is Taiwanese and came from America where they frequent DTF, for whatever reason they wanted to try it out in Japan. I’m not complaining, because I’ve been craving legit Chinese food and I’ve also been curious about Japanese DTF for a while now. My mom also mentioned that with the current exchange rate, the Japanese one would be cheaper than the American, although most of the dishes did come in a smaller size. We waited around 30 minutes (it was about 8 at this point) until we were seated.
All in all it was super satisfying, and hit the spot for actual Chinese food here in Japan. I’d say most of everything was accurate, obviously not including the Japan exclusives like the crab and scallop and mango xlb. The stir fried veggies was Chinese style, but using the Japanese komatsuna, which is pretty similar to Chinese bok choy. I was also super hungry, so I ate a lot and really enjoyed the good Chinese food.
After that it was pretty late, and I picked up my tickets I would be using the rest of the trip at the station before we headed back to our hotel to rest for the night. Oh, and my family bought Shine Muscat grapes from the nearby department store. Those were very good, but I’m sure cost a bit…It’s kind of funny; they bought a bunch in my local supermarket, a bunch in Otaru, and a bunch in Sapporo, and in that order, is the price and quality. Perhaps price does do something…
July 8th:
This was the day we’d be flying to Tokyo to start the main leg of our trip!
I woke up early to get breakfast with my dad, and we went to Paul, a french bakery located inside Sapporo station. I’ve been meaning to try it for a while, because their pastries and breads look so incredibly good. I went with a pain au chocolat (chocolate croissant), and my dad got this orange raisin bread. We got it to-go to eat in the hotel, so we could have time to get ready before we left for the airport. The chocolate croissant was so good! Flaky, soft, crispy, with just a bit of chocolate, it was perfect. My mom also washed some cherries (fruit is a reoccuring thing on this trip, since my family is used to fruit, and fruit is expensive here so I rarely buy any for myself). My family also had some leftover food we needed to eat before we left, so I also had some macarons.
Our flight was at 1, so after arriving at the airport and checking in our bags we had time to get lunch. On my recommendation, we went to Fukutei, which specializes in seafood and kamameshi (iron pot rice), and a restaurant I’ve been meaning to try at the airport. My sister got a tempura kamameshi, my dad got a tempura teishoku, and my mom got crab. We also got a plate of salmon sashimi to share.
The sashimi was very good, super fresh tasting. I also thoroughly enjoyed my kamameshi, with very good tasting seafood (though the oysters were a bit shriveled up). I was a bit surprised to see the rice was actually mixed with vegetables and sauce (I was expecting white rice), though that’s probably what kamameshi implies (my sister got a choice of kamameshi or ginshari for her tempura, the latter which I assume is white rice). It was pretty good, and having seasoned rice was a nice change. The kettle was full of dashi, which was really good, but it really was meant to clean out the rice kettle and make chazuke (rice soup thing), but I cleaned out all the rice already, so I just had a bit of the broth by itself just to taste it.
After going thorugh security, we had about an hour to kill still before our flight, so I went on a walk through the terminal to get some exercise in, and browse the shops (though I really already knew what was in the super small terminal). I ended up buying a chocolate ice cream swirl from the chocolate shop, and shared that with my mom.
It was good, but melted way too fast. Gotta love Hokkaido ice cream though. The chocolate side was rich and chocolate, and the milk side really tasted like milk.
The flight itself was pretty uneventful, with it being a short 1 hour ish flight. We did fly Japan Airlines, which had this special Sky Juice on their drink menu, which was suposed to be a peach and white grape juice blend. It was actually really good (tasted mostly like grape though).
After we landed in Haneda (stepping off the plane felt absolutely gross), we got our bags, trained to our hotel, dropped off our stuff, and headed to a local grocery store to buy some water and snacks, and then to a local fruit specialty store for some bougie fruit. We just chilled for a bit since we had a dinner reservation at 7:30. A bit later than when we normally eat, but it was good to rest after a busy morning, and also take some time to get hungry since it was going to be all you can eat!
Around 7, we headed out too Akihabara, and although it is otaku paradise, we were really only going for dinner, since I reserved at Nikuyayokocho, and all you can eat wagyu barbeque that I’ve seen a few times on YouTube. They do have a wagyu shabu establishment next door, but I think the bbq is more popular. I also think a majority of the customers were tourists…
Oh man the experience was so good. First, they start you out with a platter of a variety of cuts, and then after you finish, you can go up to the meat case and order more of whatever cuts you want. All the sides and veggies were ordered on a tablet, and came out fairly quickly. Drink bar was self serve. I might have actually inhaled everything, since the quality of not only the meat but also the sides were so good (my mom really liked their salad, go figure). It’s ayce, but for some reason they tally how many times you’ve been up to the case. At one point, one guy same around giving out free beef croquettes. I actually think the wagyu of the day was Hokkaido Kuroge, which I found ironic, since we just came from Hokkaido…The staff were all super friendly! Everyone gets a dessert, and I went with the ice cream cream puff. It came prepackaged, which we were surprised by, but then again, fair enough to not make it in house. It was still good though, and refreshing after a huge meal of yakiniku.
After being super full from yakiniku, we took a brief walk around the area, entered a gacha store (my sister has an addiction), and then headed back to our hotel for the night.
July 9th: This was our first full day in Tokyo! We had some plans with some open time in between, so I suppose it was a good balance of going places and taking our time. Originally, we were going to try to go to the Kirby Cafe on this day, but I couldn’t get reservations (sold out immediately, which was crazy), but that might have turned out t be a good thing…
Our first item of business for the day was to get reservations at Benitsuru, a fluffy pancake place in Asakusa. My mom is obsessed with Japanese souffle pancakes, and wanted at least two on the trip. I reserved a different place on a different day, but today I figured we’d try this one out, since it seems famous (it got a TV segment at one point), pretty good, and I think I’ve seen it around somewhere. The problem with this place is that they take reservations, but not by phone or online, but at 8:30 in the morning in person the day of (they open for business at 10).
My mom likes pancakes, and I was willing to get up early to help get a reservation for us, so I wanted her to experience this place. My mom and I went together, left around 8, and arrived a little after 8:30. There was already quite a line out the door! When I finaly got to the counter, the earliest slot for 4 people I could get was…..1:30. Yes. They only have 8 slots every 15 minute interval, and the shop itself is small with only counter seats. Pancakes for lunch then. Good thing we didn’t have Kirby reserved for lunch this day.
It was super hot, and no point in hanging around for a few hours, so we headed back. Before getting on the train back to the hotel, I stopped by Soratsuki for aesthetic dango, since we were still there around the time they would be opening. Last time in Tokyo I was too late, so I wanted to get some while I was in Asakusa.
I got my aesthetic dango skewers, and they were really good! Then we actually headed back to the hotel, killed a few hours soaking up nice AC, I accompanied nmy dad to get coffee (I got an iced chocolate), and then went back to Asakusa, leaving our hotel around 12:30.
We had some time at this point, so I wanted to check out Hat Coffee, a popular coffe spot that went viral for doing latte art, 3D and 2D, since it was also one of my missed Tokyo spots on my last trip. I figured even with a wait I could put my name down and come back after pancakes, but luckily enough, they could take our order right away. We got three drinks, a coffee for my dad and milk tea for my mom and I, 2 dogs, and I got a kirby, in honor of my sister.
The milk tea itself was fine, and was not sweet at all. I think this place probably focuses more on their latte art than their drinks, which I guess is their real selling point. The foam itself doesn’t taste like anything, and the designs are drawn on with chocolate and strawberry syrup. It’s cool to buy, but really only a once-in-a-lifetime necessary buy.
They finished making our lattes just as we needed to leave to walk over to Benitsuru, so after receiving our drinks and taking all the aesthetic pictures, we powerwalked over to Benitsuru, since they said to be there 5-10 minutes before our reservation. We still had to wait a bit before getting seated, but were finally able to escape the heat after what felt like an eternal few minutes. The menu had a few options, but after asking what their current seasonal is, my sister, mom and I went for the seasonal, which was their basic honey butter pancakes with sliced peaches on the side. I think peaches are the big affordable seasonal fruit right now, because I see peaches and peach-themed items everywhere .
I’ve had quite a few fluffy pancakes in my life, but I think these are the best I’ve had. Usually souffle pancakes have an eggy flavor to them because you have to isolate the yolks in a part of the recipe, but in this one there was no eggy flavor at all. They were incredibly soft and fluffy (and huge!), to the point that they almost disintegrated when I ate them, like they melted in my mouth. I’m not one for butter, so I pushed that to the side, but the peaches were extremely ripe and juicy, and the honey was very sweet and had a very strong honey flavor to them. I’d say the experience was well worth the wait.
My sister liked the pants I was wearing, so I found a nearby GU in a shopping center to go escape from the heat and also do some shopping for my sister. When we were done, my next stop of the day was to go to Suzukien in Asakusa, which is not only a matcha shop, but also a place famous for offering 7 different levels of matcha gelato, and I wanted to take my mom here for the matcha ice cream. I hoped that they wouldn’t be too crowded, but when we got there, the employee made us take a ticket that would prioritized our entrance at 4:25…which meant we had an hour to kill somewhere in the area until we could come back.
No one really wanted to wait in the super hot and gross weather, and we considered going back to the hotel, but I really wanted to try the matcha ice cream, so shoutout to my family to sticking it out. We tried to seek shelter in a cafe with AC, but most were full, until I miraculously found a gacha shop with AC around the corner we could kill some time at.
After an hour passed, we made our way back to Suzukien, and entered the line inside for gelato. My dad got a Level 2, my mom a Level 3, and though I debated getting two flavors and trying the Level 7, I just went with a Level 5, which seemed to push both my comfort zone yet not go full bitter. My mom also wanted to try the matcha warabimochi drink, and I believe warabimochi drinks in general have been trending here lately.
The gelato melted super fast, but overall, I’m pretty happy I chose to go for level 5. It was just right for my taste buds, being not too sweet, and just slightly bitter, but with much matcha flavor. I felt I could have tried level 6 (perhaps someday even level 7?). The warabimochi drink, which we got in matcha flavor, was basically an unsweetened matcha latte, with some soft mochi in the drink. I think it was too bitter for my mom unsweetened, but for me it was doable. The mochi was a really nice texture though, super chewy and soft, but not like bad boba. It tasted and felt like proper mochi.
We headed back to the hotel to rest up a bit and put all the stuff we bought during the day down, before heading out around 6 for our dinner reservation at 7. My dad wanted to take us to have a real Japanese teppanyaki experience, and through a YouTube video I found a pretty fine dining teppanyaki place. Casual teppanyaki here does exist, like the famous okonomiyaki, but he wanted a fancy place, so…
The entire dinner took about 2 hours, since there was only one head chef, who was cooking on the teppan for all the guests, and it was a course meal that really took its time to get the dishes out to you. As an overall impression, the whole place seemed so fancy and upscale, and though I know you need to relax in that kind of environment, I couldn’t help but feel super stiff, out of place, and nervous the whole time, as if there was some way to mess up (well, there did turn out to be a few mishaps, but…). We all ordered a course meal, and at first we tried to order a few a la carte items, but the waiter recommended we wait because the course would come with a lot of food. I think we ended up glad we took his advice.
The appetizer consisted of a broccoli mousse, pate, a quiche, and qagyu beef stew. The next thing that came out from the back was a carpaccio salad, followed by a cold cream soup that we paired with freshly grilled baguettes at the waiter’s suggestion. My mom and my sister got the shrimp add-on, while my dad and I got the grilled abalone. The vegetable plate had grilled Hokkaido asparagus (apparently it’s a thing), Japanese sweet potatoes, eggplant, and a shiitake mushroom. Then our main finally came out, half sirloin and half fillet. We opted to change our rice to garlic rice (which turned out to be their version of fried rice), which came out paired with miso soup and pickles. The final course was Okinawan salt ice cream. I’d sound like a brocken record, so I’ll just say it once this section: everything was so good, and I got to experience a variety of textures, flavors, ingredients, and takes on food. The chef was super nice, and though my family doesn’t speak Japanese, he made an attempt to communicate with them and also made conversation with me.
Oh, and we just so happened to be sitting with a sommelier from a couple towns over from where I live, and his picture was on the wall next to us…kind of wild.
July 10th: This day was kind of a chill day, as we didn’t have any reservations (except the noon Kirby Petit Cafe one I made the day before) or solid plans, and my sister could sleep in.
Now, I also love me some good sleeping-in time, but I’ve also recently been into exploring neighborhoods and starting my da off with good food. My dad also likes to drink coffe, so he also asked me to find a few cafes around our area and go to them with him. This morning we were chilling, so we went out to get breakfast together. I first wanted to stop by this local onigiri shop I found on Google Maps, and I got a salmon onigiri (which I ate later), and my dad got eel. It was pretty big, hefty, warm, and felt handmade, which I love about onigiri shops like this.
We then went to a local cafe that I also found on Google Maps and the cafe of the day: Byron Coffee. I think it’s an Australian style cafe or something according to some Google Review? Anyway, my dad got a coffee, a hot dog, and a banana bread, and I got a matcha latte and a BLT (which is pretty rare to see here in Japan).
I quite liked my spread; the matcha latte was pretty good, not sweet at all, and my sandwich was toasted so it was crispy on the outside while being pretty flavorful on the inside. It did use Japanese bacon though, but I think it’s a lot less fatty than American bacon, which can be nice. I ate my onigiri back at the hotel, and we relaxed until around 11:30, since I made a reservation spot for the Petit Kirby cafe in case. The website recommended it if we wanted to buy their sweets, and since we couldn’t go to the Kirby Cafe, this was the next best thing, and lucky for us, this one opened recently just a few months ago.
It’s located in Tokyo Station’s character street, along with a ton of other character shops perfect for dumping all of your cash. I did forget to take a picture of the Kirby Cafe spread, but all the treats looked incredibly cute, and my sister may or may not have gone on a shopping spree…While I was there, I got a few things from the Precure store, and the Kamen Rider store, because I am a child fueling the capitalist economy.
Since it was a little after noon, I decided to try an udon chain that I found a location of around Tokyo station. Tsurutontan has seeminly gone viral for giving out “free” udon noodles; what it actually is that you get to select how many orders of udon you want when you put in your order (so it’s like free refills, but instead of refilling after the fact, you get to pre-fill, I suppose). I didn’t want to get too greedy, so I got 2, but they go in increments in halves until 3 servings. Since it’s super hot, I also thought this was the perfect opportunity to get some cold noodles (I didn’t realize my soup would come hot when I selected cold, but that was a user error).
The udon was amazingly bouncy, chewy, and amazing quality. The soup, although hot, went very well with the noodles, and it wasn’t too heavy and the temperatures balanced each other out nicely. The beef was super tender and flavorful!
We went back to the hotel since we had an entire haul of goods we were lugging around, and we had no other plans other than soak in AC. We also snacked on our first round of Kirby sweets: I had the maxim tomato chocolate tart, my mom had the shortcake, my sister the Kirby car jelly cake thing, and my dad the mango tart.
Earlier in the day, I showed my parents the video that I found trhe teppanyaki place from, and then they wanted to try okonomiyaki. I found a few places around our hotel that offer okonomiyaki, picked one because it served Hiroshima style in particular.
We got a whole spread of items, and even ordered an extra 5 oysters because my dad loved them so much. It ended up being so much food we barely finished the yakisoba which came out last, but man, this was my first restaurant quality Hiroshima style okonomiyaki. I think I prefer this one over the standard Osaka style because it has noodles, and I prefer the layers of this one over the mix of the other.
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