Japanese food | Howdy Japan

Hidaka-ya, reasonable Chinese restaurant in Japan

Recently an American-style Chinese restaurant chain Panda Express, which is popular in the US, opened a new branch in Japan as their second shot to Japanese market after they had closed all the branches in 2010. However, same as the last time, many people is skeptical that the chain can succeed in Japan.

Panda Express takes second shot at Japan

The reason of the concern is the competitive situation of Japanese Chinese food restaurants. In the US Panda Express has been growing as they serve Chinese dishes with reasonable prices quickly compered to authentic Chinese restaurants. However, in Japan there are many other Chinese restaurants with as reasonable pricing as Panda Express or even more reasonable.

A typical example is Hidaka-ya, which operates more than 300 chains in Tokyo and metropolitan area.

In Tokyo the branches of the restaurant are usually located close to main stations where many people come and go. And they have a lot of seats to absorb all the customers even at busy dinner time.

Their main menu is a variety of ramen noodles. In Japan popular ramen noodle restaurants serve their ramen noodles with own special recipes but high prices. On the other hand, Hidaya-ya serves basic ramen noodles with lower prices, which allows us to eat ramen noodles as a fast food.

But in order to keep the customer’s loyalty, they sometimes create special ramen noodles (but with reasonable pricing still) in limited time only. The below photo is their new menu, ramen noodle with thick starchy sauce and mixed vegetables (with dumpling of course). This is my recent favorite since I can eat plenty of vegetable while ramen noodle is normally considered as fast food with little nutrition.

And they are aggressive to attract foreign visitors to Japan. Rarely as a Chinese restaurant chain, they have a website not only in English but also in English and Chinese. And at the restaurants

http://hidakaya.hiday.co.jp/english/

Moreover while many fast food restaurant chains tend to limit their opening hours in midnight due to difficulty to secure employees who want to work in midnight, many branches of Hidaka-ya in Tokyo still open till 3 or 4 AM. It’s very helpful for Japanese business people who sometimes need to work until midnight while it’s not healthy to eat so late.

In order to lose weight this year, I need to overcome the temptation of Hidakaya’s ramen after work in midnight.

Sushi with heaping fish in Ueno Tokyo

In worldwide Japanese sushi is famous as a healthy food. But some people might feel that a portion of sushi is too small to enjoy the taste of particular fish. Don’t worry. In Ueno Tokyo there is a sushi restaurant which expands your image of sushi by serving you sushi with heaping fish.

In 5 minutes walk from Ueno station, the sushi restaurant Miura Misaki-Ko is located.

This sushi restaurant serves sushi on conveyor belt. Normally conveyor belt sushi is popular among the ordinary Japanese since we can enjoy sushi quickly with reasonable prices. However, in case of this restaurant the people always make a long line to eat sushi on conveyor belt.

Now let’s see how different their sushi is. Even though sushi goes around on the conveyor belt, we can also order to sushi chefs to eat sushi more fresh.

The first one is Zuke-Maguro, tuna marinated with soy sauce.

Gunkan-Maki is a kind of sushi with seaweed surrounding rice in order to prevent fish on the top from collapsing. However, in case of Zuke Maguro at this restaurant, seaweed is not helping so much and tuna is sitting on the top with a delicate balance.

The second one is Engawa, flounder edge.

In this case some parts of fish have actually fallen on the plate. But don’t you think it would show the chef’s generosity?

Finally, the chef’s specialty is Maguro-Nakaochi, left-over flesh on the spine of tuna. It costs only 105 JPY!!! Considering its volume, it’s a incredible price.

Meanwhile this sushi restaurant also serves a normal type of sushi, which is also delicious. Below is Oh-Toro, fatty tuna, which is the most expensive menu in this restarant.

The above fatty tuna costs 630JPY. Even though it’s fatty and tasty, since Maguro-Nakaochi, another kind of tuna at this restaurant costs only 105JPY, I prefer to order more Maguro-Nakaochi to enjoy sushi reasonably.

If you want to expand the concept of sushi, go to Miura Misaki-Ko. They have 4 restaurants in Tokyo and Yokohama.

Below is their website (sorry only in Japanese.)

http://www.neo-emotion.jp/post_kaitensushi/miuramisakikou-ueno/

Sugiura, Japanese French restaurant in Yanaka

In Nippori Tokyo, where we live, there are a lot of cheap restaurants for the ordinary people living here. However, in Yanaka, located in five minute walk from Nippori, there is a French restaurant, Sugiura, named from the family name of the owner chef. Even though it’s a real French restaurant, they serve French menus arranged for the ordinary people in Japan.

The restaurant is located in the quiet residential area in Yanaka.

It’s a small restaurant. The first floor is the chef’s kitchen, and there are a few tables for customers on the 2nd floor where they have simple interior furnishings.

Even though it’s a French restaurant, they prepare not only folks and knives but also chopsticks as a part of tableware. In this area there are not few people who are not familiar with French table manner and thus reluctant to dining at French restaurant, but their approach makes French more approachable for them.

Not only chopsticks but they cook foods familiar for Japanese in French way of cooking. Now let me introduce the full course of chef’s selection!

First of all, amuse-bouche including mini tomatoes covered with candy.

Soup with Jerusalem artichokes and lentil.

As a cold appetizer, sea urchin with crab, carrot mousse, consomme jelly and tomato puree. For the ordinary Japanese people, sea urchin is one of typical fancy foods.

As a hot appetizer, sauteed abalone. Abalone is another typical fancy food for the ordinary Japanese food.

As a main fish menu, grilled flounder.

As a main meat menu, steak of Hitachi beef. Hitachi beef is high graded beef produced in Ibaragi prefecture, north of Tokyo.

Lastly as a dessert, fromage bran with kiwi ice cream.

How did you feel? Did it expand your image of French?

Furthermore, the price of the full course is only 9,000 JPY. In Tokyo there are a lot of fancy French restaurants which even got 3 stars by Michelin guide. However, Sugiura is the special French restaurant which serve very approachable French for the ordinary Japanese people.

Below is their website(sorry in Japanese only).

http://www.yanaka-sugiura.jp/

Restaurant serving a set of sushi and pasta

In Nippori Tokyo, where we live, it’s not a single case that we find a strange restaurant. This time we found a restaurant which serves a set of a typical Japanese menu and a typical Italian menu, sushi and pasta. Do you think this collaboration would create a synergy?

East to Nippori station, there is an area called Nippori fabric town where there are many shops of cloth and dress material for those who want to make clothes by themselves.

In this area compared to the number of cloth shops there are only a few restaurants to supply energy during shopping. But today we found a strange signboard. It said in Japanese “sushi and pasta” with bigger characters than a name of the restaurant.

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We went upstairs to the entrance of the restaurant. In the first glance it looked like a small sushi restaurant with a sushi counter.

But when we saw the menu, in fact it said a variety of sets of sushi and pasta. Even though we couldn’t imagine yet how they collaborate, we ordered a set of chef’s sushi selection and spaghetti Neapolitan.

In a few minutes they served spaghetti Neapolitan at first with green tea.

Spaghetti Neapolitan is a menu of spaghetti which has been popular in Japan in a long time. Many Japanese people believe spaghetti Neapolitan is a kind of spaghetti made in Napoli, Italy. However, this spaghetti with ketchup source, sausage, onion and pimento is made in Japan only as one of typical images of the western food.

Then in another few minutes they indeed served chef’s sushi selection.

Kinds of sushi the chef selected were normal, not special to collaborate with pasta. So we wonder how two menus influence each other.

In conclusion, there were no synergy, nor marriage between two menus. Each taste of two menus were quite normal. I guess that this restaurant was originally a sushi restaurant, but they started serving pasta with sushi in order to attract women who come the area to buy cloths and want to eat the western food for lunch than Japanese food like sushi.

We believe there are many other strange restaurants here in the northern part of Tokyo…

Mos Burger, gourmet burger in Japan

In Japan hamburger is a symbol of fast food with low price and short delivery time. McDonald is its typical example. On the other hand, recently the concept of gourmet burger with high quality and high price is getting recognition by ordinary Japanese. Shake Shack from New York which opened in Japan in 2015 is a typical example of such burger.

However, there was also a Japanese burger chain restaurant which has been focusing on the premium quality since 1972 and also focusing what the burger fitting to Japanese is. It’s Mos Burger.

Mos Burger was opened in 1972 by Mr. Satoshi Sakurada who learned the way to make burgers from Tommy’s, an American burger restaurant. However, he didn’t just imitate its way. In order to make the burger fitting to the taste of Japanese, he developed his original recipe and conceived an idea to put Bolognese source on patty. In Japan Bolognese source is often called “meat source” and very popular as a typical foreign taste.

Mos Burger is not a so “fast food” as they cook it after order. And their basic Mos Burger is 370 Japanese Yen (approx. 3.7 USD), while their rival burger chain restaurant McDonald Japan sometimes make a campaign to serve their basic hamburger with the price of 100 JPY (approx. 1 USD).

But Mos Burger stack to their way. As for the vegetable of their burger they bought only from contracted farmers in Japan to get safe food. Also in order to attract Japanese customers they created “teriyaki” burger, which is now popular in the US as well, and even created “rice burger”, a burger on which they put a patty between rice cakes instead of buns.

With such many unique efforts, now Mos Burger is the 2nd biggest burger chain restaurant in Japan next to McDonald Japan. Reflecting their strategy to focus good and safe food, there is modest atmosphere inside the restaurant.

They also focus on healthy food. In addition to regular meat patty, they serve “soy patty”, patty made from soy beans instead of meat. Furthermore they also serve “Natsumi”, a burger on which they put a patty between lettuce instead of buns. (I’m not sure if I can call it “burger” though.)

I want to see how Mos Burger will keep developing new burgers by answering the changing demand of customers.

Below is their website (English available).

http://www.mos.co.jp/global/

Tori-Kizoku, a fast growing Izakaya in Japan

Izakaya is a traditional style of dining bar in Japan which serves a variety of foods and drinks with reasonable price and is popular among ordinary Japanese. However, recently there is very strong competition among main Izakaya restaurant chains and many restaurants suffer from decline of sales and profits.

Tori-Kizoku is a unique Izakaya restaurant chain under such situation. They have been increasing the turnover and profit in the past 5 years continuously and expanding their chains in and around big cities such as Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. Then what’s is their advantage?

First of all, as their name indicates, they are specialized with menus of chicken. Tori means bird and Kizoku means aristocracy in Japanese. I believe they include Kizoku (aristocracy) in their name to show their strong adherence to chicken. In Japan by their specialization, they obtained strong brand image as a restaurant chain of Yaki-Tori, grilled chicken skewer and typical menu of Izakaya. Also since Yaki-Tori is one of popular Japanese foods for foreign visitors to Japan, their strategy can attract foreigners too.

Secondly they serve all their menus with only one price, 280 Japanese yen (approx. 2.8 USD). However, it’s obvious that their gross profit of some menus are less than those of the others. For example a photo below is their most popular menu, Kizoku-Yaki, which is a big Yaki-Tori and has good taste at the same time. The menu has the same 280 JPY price as other smaller sized Yaki-Tori.

Moreover, This menu, Tori-Kamameshi, rice boiled together with chicken and vegetables in a small pot costs 280 JPY as well.

Lastly they use the food made in Japan for almost all their menus. Like in other developed countries, nowadays the Japanese people more and more prefer to eat the food made domestically. In their website, Tori-Kizoku shows the reason to use domestic food as below.

-To serve the customers with the menus made of safe food.

-To use fresh food and to serve more delicious menus

-To support Japanese food producers as a restaurant company

Overall, I believe Tori-Kizoku has been rapidly growing not only because their menus are reasonable but also they have clear vision as a restaurant chain.

At the end of this post, one advice for those who are interested to visit the restaurant. They made a small trap for you. Not only Yaki-Tori, but the simpler menu like sliced tomatoes cost 280 JPY, too. Be sure that such menu is less reasonable than other chicken menus, especially after drinking some glasses of beer.

Below is their website (sorry in Japanese only).

http://www.torikizoku.co.jp/

Hot summer and shaved ice with fruits

Like other areas in the world, in this summer it’s incredibly hot in Japan. But Japanese have many ways to feel cooler.

For example, in Yanaka, a traditional shopping area close to our home, they had Hyakkoi festival. Hyakkoi means cool in a dialect of eastern Japan. They put big blocks of ice on the street so that visitors can feel cooler by seeing and touching them.

However, on some days it’s too hot to walk around on the street even with seeing the ice. In such case we can “eat” ice as shaved ice as well.

Shaved ice with fruit flavored syrup, called Kaki-gori in Japanese, is a traditional sweet in summer in Japan. Normally they use an automatic ice shaving machine and pour artificial flavored syrup to make Kaki-gori. I like the taste of such Kaki-gori since I was a child. But in some shops they serve more special Kaki-gori and its special taste helps us to feel cooler.

In Yanaka, Himitsu-do is one of such shops. Even though it’s so hot outside, people makes a long line to eat their special shaved ice, Kaki-gori.

At Himitsu-do they use specially ordered ice and shave it by hand with a traditional ice shaving machine. Compared to normal shaved ice for Kaki-gori, their shaved ice is very soft and it melts on tongue once we put it in our mouth.

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And their specialty is syrup. As mentioned above, it’s normal to use artificial flavored syrup. But at Himitsu-do they pour smashed real fruits with special syrup. It perfectly matches with manually shaved ice.

They have a variety of menus such as strawberry, melon, pineapple and green tea. So we can enjoy not only its taste but also its color. A photo below is shaved ice with strawberry and milk.

After eating Kaki-gori shaved ice at Himitsu-do, we can feel much cooler and continue walking around for shopping in Yanaka in summer.

Tagitsu-ya, teppan-yaki in Nippori Japan

The word “Teppan-yaki” is becoming common worldwide. That’s the style of Japanese cuisine to use an iron griddle to cook food. But in Japan the food cooked in the griddle is not only meat but also Japanese savory pancake such as Okonomi-yaki. And Tagitsu-ya is a popular restaurant of teppan-yaki in Nippori Japan.

Okonomi-yaki, Japanese savory pancake includes the word “Okonomi” which means as you like in Japanese so you can add a variety of ingredients as you like. For example, the Okonomi-yaki below is the most poplular menu “Buta-tama” which includes pork, egg and cabbage.

In the eastern area of Japan it’s normal that customers cook Okonomi-yaki on their griddle by themselves while in the western area of Japan chefs normally cook and serve to customer’s tables. But rarely in Tokyo at this restaurant the chefs cook Okonomi-yaki for us, because they want the customers to enjoy the best of their menu.

Also they have Negi-yaki, another type of savory pancake. While Okonomi-yaki includes cabbage, Negi-yaki includes a lot of green onion. That’s why it looks more green than Okonomi-yaki. The Negi-yaki below includes beef sinew on the top.

In Japan Okonomi-yaki is a cheap food for ordinary people. Thus in each area of Japan they developed different styles of Okonomi-yaki. And the other types of Teppan-yaki have a variety as well.

When you visit Japan, please enjoy several Teppan-yaki restaurants to check the difference of each type of Teppan-yaki.

American style BBQ in Toyosu Tokyo

Compared to the US, there are much less places to enjoy outdoor BBQ in Tokyo. But Toyosu in the bay area is one of such rare spots.

In 5 minutes walk from Shin-Toyosu station of Yurikamome line you can see the entrance which looks like a BBQ trailer in the US.

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This place The Third Park has a concept to operate an urban outdoor park where we can enjoy American style BBQ with all american equipment. They have even cactus like a desert in Arizona.

And more than that we can hang out next to high rise buildings in the bay area in Tokyo. It’s a fun to get relaxed in nature, but it’s also a fun if we can get relaxed just next to concrete jungle.

Due to high cost for parking and narrow roads it’s difficult to have a car in Tokyo. Thus we need to use a train to bring food to a park where we do BBQ, although it’s not realistic to ride a train with raw meat and liquors.

But no problem! At The Third Park they prepare all the foods for you. For example Early Lunch Plan costs 4,500 JPY with a variety of menus; popcorn, assorted seasonable vegetable, American smoke steak, churrasco pork and beer can chicken.

But you don’t know how to make fire? No problem again! They also prepare charcoal and a manual to show how to make fire and to cook BBQ.

Thanks to the practical manual we easily made BBQ like this!

I want to tell you one point, if you are interested on the place. They prepare almost everything but they have only a single kind of BBQ source. So we recommend you bring other sources you like to eat up all the meat.

Below is the website of The Third Park (sorry only in Japanese).

https://the-third-park.com/

Noodle restaurant at a cake shop’s backdoor in Nippori Tokyo

In Nippori, area of Tokyo Japan we live, there is a street called Nippori Fabric Street where there are many small fabric shops along the street.

And around the end of the street there is a small cake shop called Sablon. It looks quite normal as long as we see from the frond side. The word “Feinbackerei” in the signboard indicates that the chef might have had training of cake making in Germany.

However, when you move to the backside of the shop, your impression has totally changed. It’s not so obvious if we can enter into the shop from this side as well. But several people are waiting and there is a simple signboard saying “dip noodle”! Wait, isn’t it the backdoor of a cake shop?

It’s a noodle restaurant indeed. After waiting about 30 minutes we can enter into a tiny restaurant with only 4 seats. And they have a single noodle menu, Tsuke-men (dip noodle). Only one chef is working hard for both the cake shop and this noodle restaurant. He called the noodle restaurant “Ura-Sablron”. Ura in Japanese means backside or secret.

According to an explanation on the wall, when he was young, the chef was a big fan of Taisho-ken in Ikebukuro Tokyo, which is the legendary dip noodle restaurant well known to have created the current style of dip noodle in Japan for the first time. And even after he got training of cake making and started his own cake shop, he couldn’t forget his passion to the dip noodle of Taisho-ken. Finally he decided to start a dip noodle restaurant while keeping his cake shop at the same time.

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By the way, I myself was a fan of dip noodle of Taisho-ken. And the dip noodle here has an authentic great taste. I believe it’s the best dip noodle in this area.

Meanwhile it seems that the chef cannot help serving his original specialty, cake. So with additional price he also serves his original dessert after dip noodle.

The dessert is also delicious but quite ordinary compared to the special dip noodle. Seeing no guest in the front side as cake shop, we are afraid how long the chef can continue this double work…

Sablon (and Ura-Sablon)

5-12 Higashi-Nippori, Arakawa-ku, Tokyo, Japan 116-0014