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Japanese Food

Breakfast - Tokyo

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Breakfast - Tokyo

Found a random restaurant to eat at while surfing around Tokyo Station. This place is huge if you've ever been. Not sure the name of this restaurant, but it's close to the North Gate of Tokyo Station. It's on the main level, not downstairs where the restaurant rows are.

I eat soba here like no other. It's so common to find like any other noodle dish. It's just so comfortable to dip the noodles in tsuyu mixed with wasabi and green onions. This is one of those dishes that disappears. It's common during a meal that people don't really talk. Since everyone is in a hurry, all you hear is slurping. This goes down quick. Before you know it, your plate is empty.

Chicken Katsu with curry udon. Perfectly fried katsu in a rich luscious curry broth. Udon noodles were perfectly al dente. Slivers of onions are topped to cut the richness.

Combinations come with sushi. Here you have bonito, aji, and tamago. Flavors are very traditional. If you've had bonito, you can imagine the flavor to be very rich in fishiness with a meatlike aftertaste. The aji itself has a slight brine with the typical grated ginger to mellow it out. I eat the tamago at the end for sweetness.

I ate this kind of stuff a lot. I do wish we had more restaurants like this, within reach, which caters a lot to the "Salaryman". What a treat this was.

Explore your way. As zimmern would say "If it looks good, eat it".

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Sarabeth's - Japan

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Sarabeth's - Japan

Sarabeth's first opened their doors in 1981 in New York. It makes perfect sense that they are now in Japan if you understand how the restaurant culture is now. There are 5 locations now: Tokyo, Lumine Shinjuku, Nagoya, Shinagawa, and Osaka. People love cafes in Japan. There are so many French and German inspired ones more so now than I remembered 5 years ago when I visited Tokyo. Maybe 10 years ago, we can agree that Japanese food is better in Japan. Even though I'm sure in some cases, that is still true, we can certainly agree to those that have explored Southern California enough to confidently say our Japanese cuisines (sushi, izakaya, yakiniku, etc) is comparable. 

This time around, I wanted to check out more cafes and unique spots. Honestly, it's inspiring to be at these restaurants than to hit up all the sushi joints. That's not what Tokyo is about. You will soon realize that your journey begins once you start exploring without the restriction of places you should be eating at. To me, that defeats the purpose of finding little gems that gets outshined by word of mouth publicity. I'm not about that. 

And even though Sarabeth's is a chain, my experience was by accident. This restaurant was stumbled upon as we were headed to Tokyo Station. This experience however, is still my first.

We were probably the 3rd group to arrive at around 10. By 11, the cafe was pretty much 75% full. 

Cappuccino 

Cappuccino 

Lemon pancakes. Slightly dense, but the lemon flavor was nice. It's one of my favorite flavored pancakes so I wanted to see how this was done.

Classic eggs benedict. I would say this is one of the best if not the best, eggs benedict I've ever had. Simple, but the execution is always important. The hollandaise sauce was rich and lusciously wrapped over the shall I say, perfectly poached egg. They used British muffins instead of English which changed my whole view on making these. So much better as the egg yolk seeps in. Yeah try and picture that. The ham is slightly charred to bring out a slight smokiness from the ham. 

1-8-2 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo TEKKO BUILDING. 2,3F

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Hana Ichimonme - Little Tokyo

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Hana Ichimonme - Little Tokyo

This restaurant has been here for decades and I've only been here a handful of times (less than 5 to be exact). My last visit will make me come back for more. There's just a certain charm to this place you won't find at any other hour wait lines. They have a pretty extensive list of ramen options though they aren't that different from one another.

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I ordered their Spicy Tonsai Ramen. It's not a ramen I would normally order, but I really wanted to try something different instead of the tonkotsu. Their Tonsai Ramen is a soy sauce based soup with stir-fried pork and vegetables (normally cabbage). From their level of Mild to 1-5 levels of "spicy", I picked level 4. For 1, I can eat spicy. 2, in case that shit is spicy, I'm assuming I should be able to handle level 4 without dying. I'm already anticipating butt fires, but that's part of the fun of eating spicy foods. Not really, but the eating part is freaking amazing.

To start, just some typical Yakisoba... And this was because they ran out of curry. Decent. Nothing spectacular, but comforting.

The devils bowl. I called the server's bluff when she warned me it was spicy. Almost went with level 5 just because of that. How dare she tell me that their spicy ramen is actually spicy? That's blasphemy I tell you. But, she was right.

But... I was not slain. I was sweating.. a lot.. This had a good kick to my throat, but it wasn't so spicy that it was NOT delicious. Because this was the opposite of that. This was pretty freaking tasty. The chili paste or whatever they used had great flavor. It didn't just taste spicy and bland. I wouldn't drink the soup though... I still don't want to die. Will I do level 5? maybe.... Level 4 felt just right. It had the spiciness I craved without making it unbearable. And the best part? No butt fires.

333 S Alameda St Ste 303

Los Angeles, CA 90013

Little Tokyo, Downtown

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Delicatessen By Osawa - Pasadena

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Delicatessen By Osawa - Pasadena

Delicatessen By Osawa just opened in Pasadena not too long ago. I stopped by after finding out Foodie Cube was closed during the weekends (will blog about that later). I've never been to Osawa, but heard many great things about that restaurant. Knowing the Delicatessen is walking distance from my work, I've decided to give this place a shot.

The menu can seem confusing. They offer meals and plates similar to Lemonade such as picking your items.

I just went with the simple choices such as curry and soba salad.

Their beef curry is luscious and definitely one of the best I've had. The curry has a lot of depth and goes perfectly with the white rice and lightly fried potato. This definitely hits the spot if you're craving a good curry.

Soba salad did not disappoint either. A hefty portion, but so refreshing you won't feel a coma afterwards. The shrimp tempura is lightly fried. The buckwheat noodles are perfectly cooked tossed with mixed fresh greens. I also really enjoyed the sesame soy sauce this was tossed in. I would also get this again.

851 Cordova St Pasadena, CA 91101

 

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Santouka & Gyutan Tsukasa - Costa Mesa

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Santouka & Gyutan Tsukasa - Costa Mesa

Hokkaido Ramen Santouka

- is my favorite ramen shop here in Los Angeles, hands down. When I went to Japan a few years ago, it amazed me how delicious the ramen was. People rave about sushi in Japan which I don't disagree but, I can honestly say you can find compromisable sushi here as well. Going back to ramen in Japan, I was blown away with the layers of flavors within the broth. A lot of soup bases here are imported or have fat delivered to recreate the umami-ness you would expect in a tonkotsu broth that have been bathing for 12+ hours. A lot of times, you would just find the soup to be heavy and fatty. Say goodnight after breakfast. At Santouka, the broth is clean, rich and deep in depths of flavor.

Shio Ramen

Shio Ramen

Shio Ramen (salt ramen) is my favorite. This is their white tonkotsu soup with melt-in-your-mouth charsiu pork.00

Char Siu bowl

Char Siu bowl

You can create combos with your ramen. I'm not sure why, yet, but I will do research later to why the sets are so ginormous and loaded with carbs. Literally. In Japan and Japanese restaurants here, you can get chirashi with a side of udon. Oyakodon with a side of udon. Why?! I don't mind. I love it actually but, just curious.

665 Paularino Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626 Mitsuwa Marketplace Costa Mesa Store

21515 Western Ave., Torrance, CA 90501 Mitsuwa Marketplace Torrance Store

3760 S.Centinela Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90066 Mitsuwa Marketplace Santa Monica Store

More locations >>HERE<<

Gyutan Tsukasa

665 Paularino Ave Mitsuwa Marketplace Costa Mesa, CA 92626

I've talked about this place before. So nothing much about this besides they are amazing. Delicious beef tongue grilled over binchotan served with wasabie, pickled veggies, miso nanban and a heaping of steamed rice.

 

 

 

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