Noodles in Tokyo

NB. Photos and edits in purple added 06/06/07


Salmon and natto breakfast set 420 yen

OSAKA to TOKYO: Breakfast at the Meshiya chain again. I had a very lovely rolled omelette with rice. The tamago was wet, soft and sweet, a multitude of layers rolled into a rectangular block.


Tamago set 590 yen


Meshiya


Pork kochijan stir fry set 690 yen


Kake udon 200 yen


Meshiya interior

We travelled from Osaka to Tokyo, enjoying our first proper obento box on the shinkansen. I love the packaging for these lunches on the run. Unwrapping the pretty printed paper, you find a compartmentalised box made from either thin plywood or styrofoam (bad for the environment but oh so very pretty). At 11.00am, most of the more delicious obento boxes had already sold out. We settled for our fourth choice and revelled in delicate morsels of sushi, sugar snap peas, candied sweet potato, tamago, and other goodies.


Obento stalls at Shin-Osaka train station


Shinkansen train departure board


Newspapers


Obento box 850 yen


Obento box 850 yen


Pretty in pink


Obento box 800 yen

It's a three hour trip to Tokyo so there's wasn't much time for sightseeing by the time we'd checked in. There was a failed attempt to book sumo tickets at a Lawson's convenience store (alas all sold out)


Trying to buy tickets for sumo at Lawsons

so we made the trek out to Akihabara for a look around Electric Town. Speedster and I got bored quickly though and ended up browsing the back streets searching for 100yen shops (our favourite!) and food stalls.

A yeeros stand manned by Turkish servers had a crowd of enthusiastic customers, most of them teenage boys. They hovered around scarfing down mini pita pockets filled with lamb that cost 500yen.


Kyusyu jangara ramen

Our travels uncovered a fantastically popular noodle bar called Kyusyujangara. The queue was constant at this tiny noodle bar and you know what a queue means. It must be good! We dragged along the others and pointed at the only picture available. For 960yen we feasted on a rich bowl of sesame broth and noodles, topped with two fat slices of smoked pork belly and thin slices of pork. A hot pink dollop of mentaiko spicy cod roe was a feisty take on taramasolata.

The atmosphere inside the shoe box restaurant was incredible--four men behind the counter yelling out orders, stirring huge vats of soup, refreshing scoops of noodle in hot water and ladling out the toppings for a high rotation of hungry (mainly suited) customers.


Noodle diners


Kyushu jangara miso 960 yen

Dessert was a couple of oobanyaki--chocolate and black sesame--the only ones they had left at 10.30pm (I would have loved to have tried chestnut or pumpkin).


Oobanyaki menu


Watching our oobanyaki being reheated


Black sesame and chocolate oobanyaki 120 yen each

Then a stop at Wendy's for a cup of coffee jelly topped with vanilla ice cream.


Wendy’s


Counter at Wendy's


Frosty coffee jelly with ice cream 200 yen

We ended our evening with a good long browse at the local supermarket. Supermarket? Ha, you might as well call it a fooding fun park.


Rockmelons 680 yen each


Two celery stalks 238 yen


Perilla leaves 98 yen


Ginger shoots 158 yen each


Sweet corn 398 yen each


Fish 88 yen


Fried food cabinet


Kisu fish (sand borer) tempura 88 yen each


Ebi prawn fried 120 yen each


Kyusyu Jangara - Akihabara
2-17-6 Soto-Kanda 3-11-6
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Tel: +81 (03) 3251 4059

Open 10:30am -11.00pm
Map

Wendy's Japan