Thursday, January 21, 2010

Wrapping up Japan food

I know I've written a lot about the food in Japan, but that is honestly a big part of why I decided to take the trip.

Ironic as it sounds, the best cheeseburger I've ever had was in Tokyo. A little ways from Melissa's apartment in Yoga is a burger place called called Freshness Burger. We had eaten there earlier in the trip and it was awesome, but the day before we left Laura and I went back and got their double cheeseburgers. This small Asian chain produces the most delicious cheeseburgers I've ever had. Priced at roughly $8, this double cheeseburger blew restaurant burgers out of the water, served in a comfortable cafe/fast food style atmosphere.

One of the most delicious meals we had was at a little izakaya near the Yoga subway station. The food was so good in fact we went there twice, and I got the same thing both times; a very hearty soup that apparently is fed to sumo wrestlers. I just called it sumo soup.
Sumo soup had bacon, tofu, sprouts, some sort of noodles, meatballs, and some other vegetables in a miso broth. the soup is served raw in a clay bowl with a lid, and the patron is provided with a burner to boil it. Three soups, three burners.






















One of my favorite convenience store foods was the delicious nikuman. Since I am a big fan of Chinese dim sum, the sight of these hot buns in the convenience stores filled my heart with joy. I preferred the ones filled with diced pork in meat sauce.









Laura and I went to McDonalds. Twice. It was surprisingly good. One of the times we went because they had a new promo called the "Big America Texas Burger." I don't know if this promo is in the states, but we had to try it.









After about prodding for about two weeks I finally convinced Laura to let us go to this cool looking little beef bowl place on the main street in Yoga. It basically looked like a cleaner, better lit version of a Yoshinoya. The guy working in the place spoke the least English out of anyone we had met at a food establishment, but we managed to point at the ad on the window tell him we wanted 2 beef bowls with miso soup. After a moment of observation I realized there was a little ticket machine in the corner (like the ramen place), where the patrons would push the button for what they wanted, insert cash, and give the ticket to the attendant. Oh well, we still got some awesome beef bowls for only 320 yen.
The last money we spent in Japan: Couple thousand yen at a restaraunt in the Narita airport. We got tempura bowls (shrimp, carrot, and eggplant tempura on rice) with a side of udon soup. Incredible for airport food! Definitely beats the hell out of scary hot dogs and stale donuts at LAX.


And last of all... the food on Singapore Airlines is AWESOME.



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