Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Shanti Soup Curry Dining

In Harajuku in Tokyo, we had lunch at Shanti, a soup curry restaurant. This kind of curry, I read, originated from Sapporo, Hokkaido, and consists of a light broth made of spring water and various spices with vegetables and various meats added in and served with a side of rice.
I got the special "Black-Eyed Peas" soup curry (yes, the named after the band). It had corn and black-eyed peas mixed in. The flavor was nice.
We had the option of getting the spice 1 to 10. I got a 6 which was really actually quite mild. The Japanese are not much for the heat I guess. We also got a nice side of fried naan with our meal.

Honoraly Harajuku Bldg.2F
3-26-11 Jingu-mae
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
03-5772-6424

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Super Takoyaki Balls in Tokyo

On our first day in Tokyo, we went to a section of town called Akihabara, aka "Electric Town", an area know for it's electronics and "otaku" stores. We walked past some food vans, and I immediately knew I wanted to try a cart that featured giant Takoyaki stuffed with 10 ingredients.



Normal takoyaki, consists of a ball of batter filled with squid, but these takoyaki advertised 10 items including squid, clam, sausage, cabbage, mashed potato, quail egg, mushrooms, corn, and 2 other things I could not identify (sorry). They were also about 3-4 times larger than the usual takoyaki- about 3-4 inches in diameter.
The ball is then topped with okonomiyaki sauce, bonito, and mayo. The cart offered alternate toppings like cheese, kimchee, and onions as well.
It was like eating a giant spherical Japanese hot pocket- yum.

Friday, April 03, 2009

McDonald's in Tokyo


Kelly and I were in Tokyo last week, and I've got a few upcoming posts from the trip, but I figured I'd start with some fun.
With Japan recently winning the World Baseball Classic, the Japan McDonald's was promoting the special McHotdog. Oddly enough, it was meant for breakfast!?!
I ordered it as a meal one morning with a coffee and hash brown. The McHotdog was actually a decent hot dog on a whole wheat bun with ketchup, mustard and relish.



I did not get the try to advertised McPork, which I'm assuming was a take on the Japanese Katsu style deep fried pork sandwich.
Kelly's favorite item was something we got at Narita airport as we were leaving Japan, the Green Tea Oreo McFlurry. It was pretty great- if they had this in the US, I would be in trouble- the green tea flavor complemented the Oreo cookie so well.