Japan 2014

Just before leaving Tokyo - bought a box of limited edition Tokyo Banananohana! Apparently it's banana purée with chocolate cream filling. When I returned to Singapore, I realised it's also available here - albeit at more than double the price.

Definitely some of the freshest oysters I've ever had. Grilled ones, and deep fried oysters (kaki). Hiroshima doesn't have many attractions, but it's a city with deep historical value. One striking point that I noticed when I visited their Peace Memorial Museum was how the Japanese "conveniently" forgot they were the antagonists of WW2. Instead, they just said "Japan walked towards the path of war" and they would like to promote international peace. Hmm.

Okonomiyaki at Okonomimura Hondori street. Hiroshima styled okonomiyaki contains soba noodles!

Kobe Beef @ Kobe Steak Land. Kobe's infrastructure looks spanking new, with few remnants of the past (1995 Hanshin Earthquake). I only spent half a day there and didn't manage to see much, apart from visiting the earthquake museum (since we did a detailed case study on this case in NYJC) and having Kobe beef. It was a rainy, windy night so the weather hindered plans to explore the city further.

Mochi at Nakatanidou 中谷堂！I was surprised that the red bean filling inside was COLD (but not hardened). The mochi was QQ but not over the top. Not bad.

Having visited 8 Japanese cities/towns over my 12 day stay, I notice Tully's Coffee is everywhere! It's like the Japanese version of Starbucks, but slightly cheaper. Of course I had to try. Had their hot dog with uber smooth avocado, spag and a ice cold matcha latte (with pearls!). ^^ One more thing I noticed, the Japanese automatically return all their used cutlery, trays and what not. We seldom see this in Singapore's self-service cafés like Coffee Bean.

'Nuff said, this is THE place to go to for Japanese curry. CocoIchibanya has the best curry rice, and the most well fried, succulent pork cutlet for accompaniment. The curry gravy has great consistency. Satisfying lunch at Nara.

Another must try at Osaka - takoyaki! To be honest, I very much prefer Osaka as compared to Tokyo. Osaka is more compact, on a much smaller scale - but still has lots of things to do and see. Tokyo, on the other hand, might be too overwhelming for first-time visitors.

The BEST place in the world for Okonomiyaki? Mizuno! Had their best seller Seafood Yam okonomiyaki. The scallops were fresh, served hot. What a gratifying meal. I gobbled down MY okonomiyaki at top speed. This place deserves its hype.

The reason why I went to Osaka was largely because of the food. This city is known for being Japan's food haven. Of course I had to research on where's the BEST place to eat the famous Kushikatsu. And here it is! At Daruma with their iconic 'grumpy man' mascot. These skewers of goodness were deep fried till light golden brown, but didn't taste oily at all. Perfect. The golden rule applies: only dip ONCE in the accompanying sauce. Ordered quite an array of skewers to try - from beef to prawn, on to fried cheese and rice cakes. Pic only shows the first serving ;)

Visited Kiyomizudera at Kyoto and sat down at this retro cafe Oggi for afternoon tea. Most of the furniture - the wall clock, tables, cashier - are antiques. The cafe owner and staff were friendly. The larger cake of the 4 is tiramisu.

Japanese donut brand Mister Donut! I bought this at their Kyoto station outlet one night. Was intrigued by their "Japanese special" which had so many different mini donuts for me to try :) Their donuts have a QQ, mochi-like texture which wasn't really to my liking. And the "toppings" were mainly just icing sugar. Krispy Kreme / J CO donuts still the way to go for me.