Tokyo - Food

Everyone says that eating in Japan is expensive. I guess it's true if you eat in the restaurants. We explored the restaurant levels at Isetan and Takashimaya in Shinjuku and they were expensive, which explains why there wasn't anybody around. The buzz was at the basement food halls where rows and rows of different food stalls offering all kinds of Jap food can be found. Here's a list of places where we settled our meals:

Breakfast
There are bakeries everywhere offering all kinds of bread and sandwiches. Even the 24 hr convenience stores carry a wide variety of bread that are rather tasty. My favourite is Hokuo found at the South Exit of Shinjuku Station. You can get their pre-packed bundle of 3 different kinds of bread for only 300 yen. Their drinks section also carries Meiji fresh milk which my girls love.

Ramen
We had ramen for lunch in an eatery in the middle of the streets of Asakusa, ramen for supper in one of the back alleys of Shinjuku and ramen in a ramen specialised food court in Aqua City, Odaiba. Daren's favourite was the one in Shinjuku called Santouka, which I think is the same one in Singapore at Central. Ramen just tasted better in Japan. Daren thinks it's the water they use and the pork. I liked the one in Asakusa. It was the least salty of the lot. We didn't manage to try a popular one that has wooden plaques, engraved with the noodle name and the price, hanging on its doors. We saw it in Asakusa and another in Shinjuku. Both have super long queues. Moreover, everything was written in Jap and there wasn't any pictures so we weren't sure how to order.

Santouka at Shinjuku

Aqua City, Odaiba

Food Halls
Our first food hall encounter was at Isetan. It was mind boggling. We were there near closing time, which is 8pm, and people were grabbing all the food to take away. Stalls were giving discounts and we were at a lost what to get. We finally settled for some futomaki, a fried pork bento set, a set of 3 triangular sushi and 8-10 yakitori. The yakitori was sticks of meat pieces, meat balls. We couldn't figure out whether it's chicken or pork. One was supposedly beef but turned out to be some beef innards which Daren found yummy. I forced myself to swallow it. One of the triangular sushi had a whole larva egg inside. It was the best I have eaten. The yolk literally burst out and the sauce used to marinate the egg was very good.

Our second food hall experience was at Takashimaya. We were there in the late morning and had plenty of time to explore and savour the many samplings offered. Besides the usual cooked food, there was cold cuts, desserts like fruit puddings, and an array of Jap tidbits like rice crackers and muah chee. We chanced upon Fuchon, the famous bakery that uses French butter. We tried their famous crossiant and it really melts in your mouth. We also bought a packet of baguette pieces smeared with raspberry jam. They were fantastic. They have a stall that sells the famous Castella cake that I used to eat when I was young. We saw it earlier at Isetan but didn't buy cos it expires in a few days. While I took Chassa to the toilet, Daren secretly bought a box to surprise me. We polished off the cake within the next few days. It's a very sweet and dense cake. My mum used to make English truffle with it as the base. We decided to take away lunch from the food court. We bought 3 bento sets that cost only 500 yen each. One was fried chicken, another was some meat balls covered with sauce and the third was a meat patty. The portions were huge.