Eating out

On the next day we arrived Japan, I had dinner with one of my best friend.  I was taken to this neighbor Italian restaurant “Cannery Row”:  one of my favorite place

We ordered cheese fondue, chicken pizza and fresh basil & smoked salmon pasta as main; salad, drinks, entree and dessert are in buffet section, they are “all you can eat”. 

All the food is very nice!!  but the reason why I like this place is their service.  Staffs are so polite and friendly:)  Love their uniform too:)

There are millions of restaurants in Japan and the places I’m showing in this blog are just one of them.  During this holiday I went to buffet style restaurants quite often.  This Cannery Row is also buffet restaurant, and other place I went was an organic and slow food buffet restaurant “Hinano”.  It’s a fusion of Japanese and Western cuisine, and they only use organic food  I think their target is women (as most of their food was vegetable, not so many meat), and I love all the food!(I’m a girl :))  Japanese style salad, udon, grilled fish, tempura, pizza, few kinds of rice, etc etc….   They keep serving different food every 30min so we didn’t get bored.  I ate a lot…  OMG :p

(these plates are not only for me!  a table of my family (9 ppl) :p)

Their interior and plates are also nice; I think this type of restaurants “natural” “slow food” “healthy” “organic” “buffet” are Japanese trend now. (maybe?)  Inexpensive too!

Izakaya

As my holiday to Jakarta/Japan is just around the corner, my friends are organising a gathering for my homecoming:)  The friends are my classmates from a college in Osaka, and most of them went to America to go to university after graduating the college.  Some of them, including myself, chose to come to Australia.  Everyone except me and one girl is now living in Japan and working happily

When they asked me “where do you want to go?”, I answered “Izakaya!” straight away.  Izakaya is a type of Japanese bar and they serve Izakaya food.  Izakaya food is more substantial than that offered in normal bars and snack bars.  They have yakitori, salad, noodle, rice dish and some snack food to accompany the drinks.  They also has dessert menu.  Even though the place is supposed to be for drinking, people sometimes bring their children along as well.  I think Izakaya is kind of Family Restaurant + Drink Bar ÷ 2 .

The reason why I love Izakaya is the atmosphere, as well as the food and the price.  I don’t go to Izakaya by myself, but I always go there with a couple of friends.  We talk loudly, lough loudly and eat & drink!  All the stresses go away

Unfortunately there is no Izakaya In Perth:=(  …Correction, actually there are few, but the food and drinks are very very very expensive.  I have been to this Izakaya-like Japanese restaurant in Perth city once, and I was surprised by their price.  One small tiny salad ( the plate was smaller than my palm) costs A$8.90 (>0<).  In Japanese Izakaya this type of food is usually free (tsukidashi).

I know there are so many Izakaya (quite cheap) in Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne.  But not in Perth :(  …Perth is pretty isolated city compared with Eastern states.  Is there Izakaya in other countries too?

Looking at the pictures makes me really really hungry! ↓↓↓

toho-kenbunroku

Murasaki

RIVER-JO

I love Chu-Hi

And cocktais.

McDonald’s in Australia and Japan

I believe that McDonald’s is the biggest fast food chain in Japan.  You can find McDonald’s everywhere, even in train stations and some sport gyms.  Apparently they have different menus in each country and there are few menus that I can’t have in Perth.

In Japan, their menu is magnificent!  Along with their standard menus, they have campaigns for new or seasonal items quite often and there are always something new/special.

Let’s talk about my favorite:)  I love their Chicken Tazta Burger!  The burger is only available in Japan (I assume so, as Tazta means a kind of karaage) The Chicken Tazta Burger is one of the standard menus and you can buy it anytime.  (There might be a possibility that they don’t sell Tazta anymore after I left Japan… :p)

They sell Teriyaki Burger as well.  Teriyaki is typical Japanese cuisine and other fast food chains like Mos Burger also sells Teriyaki Burger of their own recipe.

In Perth, we have few Mcdonald’s products which you can’t find in Japan.  They are trying to have “healthy image” on their products (I guess all McDonald’s over the world are same) and they sell Lean Beef Burger, Avocado and Tomato Mac Burger and Chicken Tandoori on Multigrain etc here.  They used to sell McOz which contains beetroots as well.  I love their concept, but the price at McDonald’s in Australia is unbelievably EXPENSIVE (>x<)

For example, I remember cheese burgers and hamburgers were less than 80 yen (about $1.20 now) in Japan.  Happy Meal was about 500 yen, I guess.  Also, you can easily download coupons from the website and get Regular French Fries, Mac Shake and more for just 100 yen each.  That was normal price in Japan.

However, here in Perth you have to pay about A$3.00 to get just a hamburger.  We rarely get a coupon or special price… actually, it’s never happened since I came here!  So we always pay at normal price :p  Since I know the price in Japan, I feel that McDonald’s products here are expensive…. although it maybe just because of the currency matter.

McDonald’s has McFlurry over the world and I’m a big consumer of it, but the variety is also different in Japan and Aus.  In Japan you can get McFlurry Caramel Macchiato (McFlurry Caramel Macchiato), McFlurry KitKat and McFlurry Oreo Cookies.  In Aus you can get McFlurry M&M’s Minis and McFlurry Oreo.  I don’t know about other countries… but I guess they have different flavors??

It’s actually interesting that you can try out the country’s specialty even at fast food chain.  I hear that there is Rendang (Indonesian Coconut Beef Curry Dish) Burger in Indonesia.  I’d love to try it out (^0^)/

My favorite bakery in Japan-2

 

Boulanger Bakery

This bakery, Naoki’s Boulanger has many shops in Western side of Japan. (around Osaka, Hyogo, Kyoto, Shiga …)  The reason why I love this bakery is not only their variety and the taste, but also their price:)  ALL the products in this shop is 105yen (about A$1.00).  Everything, even a roll or sandwiches!!  And I can’t believe they are all 105yen, the size of the products is not small, and the every product uses lots of ingredients such as mango, sausages, potatoes, egg etc…

Everyday the shop is full of people, especially with mums and kids.  They also have dine-in area and you can order a meal set as well.  

In the kitchen there are 3 sections; one is for baking, one is for wrapping the rolls & sandwiches and finishing the decoration of products(like glazing danishes), and another is for cooking.  Yes cooks work there as well.  They roast the chicken and deep-fry the prawn flitter.  Those food are for meal menu and sometimes used for rolls.

Why I know so much about this shop??  It’s because I used to work there before :p  I know how many denominations of bread they have!

They also make yummy drinks such as iced moca and coffee, smoothies and hot tea.  Further more, they have special sweets menu too.  Parfait and some Japanese style sweets.  They are really really popular!

My favorite bakery in Japan-1

Danishes with fruits

Crusty Bread

Character face

Plain croissant & Anchovy croissant

This is one of my favorite bakery in Japan.  This shop is located in Shiga, my hometown, and I love their variety:)

In Japanese bakery, you usually pick up the bread you want to buy by yourself.  These good-looking yummy-smelling bread make you want to buy all!!  I always get trayful of bread, but can’t get enough:p

In this shop you can dine in as well, of course they serve nice drinks such as coffee/tea etc…  PLUS they do  ”morning service” here: between 8am to 10am 2 buns and drink (coffee or tea, you can ask for refill as many times you want!) for 380 yen.  It’s very cheap, isn’t it??  The bread in the morning is very fresh, just came out from the oven and still warm (>v<).  I go there in the morning, and spend about 30min ~ 1hour there with few cups of coffee and 2 buns.  

Their variety is amazing, for instance…

The left is croque-monsieur, and the right is focaccia with burdock root!!  YES Japanese people eat burdock root, they are high in fiber and very healthy.  I love the texture too.

The left is croissant with Italian pasta chicken, and the right is croissant with vegetable curry.  The presentation is very cute:)

Croissant with hamburg and gravy!

And also!  As I mentioned before I love hard crusty bread, and this shop sells them!:)  Thin French stick is nicely baked, very crusty and chewy inside!  Sometimes it hurts my teeth but I still love it.  They have few variety in flavor as well; thin French stick with cheese, Mentaiko (fish roe), seaweed, chocolate etc…  I love the one with Mentaiko:)  Very nice!

French stick with Mentaiko

If you have chance to come to Shiga….