Another time we went to this okonomiyaki place.

Salt pork?

They bring okonomiyaki ingredients like this, …

…and cook right in front of us.

We get to choose many ingredients.

In one of our okonomiyaki, we chose to put mochi and cheeze in it.

It was different, but gerat.

I had a chance to go Denny’s (or similar family restaurant) once. If they serve something like this at Denny’s in the States, I think I’ll be going there at least once a week!

My friend took me to this soba noodle place near her work. A restaurant that specializes in soba.

She got mushrooms tempura soba.

I got oroshi ume soba? I’ve never thought of putting ume (Japanese plums) in soba, but it was pretty good – I guess I will be doing this when I eat soba at home ^_^

Some light meal stuff… I wish I could’ve tried out all of them!

Sugakiya, a ramen restaurant, was my favorite restaurant when I was in high school. Now that I think of it, I didn’t go any ramen restaurant this time… but hopefully when I go there next time, I’ll get to have some of this!

Actually I did get to eat takoyaki, except I forced myself to eat this when I was full v__v;

More of Japanese bakery should come to the States… I want to try them all but that is just so hard T_T

Look at this quality of McDonald’s in Japan… Sooo much different from the one in the States.

I had filet o’ shrimp? Always gotta try something I cannot find in the States!

This is breaded deep fried shrimp sandwich. Aaah I want to eat it again already +_+

This, apparently, is my parents’ recent favorite restaurant.

I like how Japanese restaurants have displays outside to show what kind of dish they serve.

They only serve cutlets. Different kind of meat including seafood though.

They let us make our own sauce. Left is daikon (white carrot radish), right is sesame for you to grind.

Mom’s order.

Mine.

And dad’s.

The meat was so soft.

In Japan, many stores and restaurants do some kind of point system. This restaurant was no exception. Every 4000 yen you spend, you get some points. Since our bill was a little short of 4000 yen, we thought, oh let’s order some dessert and get our points!

And so we got our dessert. Supposedly it was about 300 yen, so we will have 4000 yen bill and get our points.

…And of course, nature always works against us. It was lunch time service, so our dessert was 1/2 the price, and we didn’t meet our 4000 yen goal by mear 21 yen. That’s like 21 cents USD. orz

We ended up ordering another ice cream, and paid our 4136 yen bill.

At least ice cream tasted good, and tonkatsu was great and big potion, too, so we left there happily ^_^

Oh yeah, they have unlimited free refill of rice, salad, and soup, too!

This meal is from my favorite restaurant that I *have to* go every time I go back to Japan.

This restaurant have counter seats only, and chefs cook the tempura right in front of you, and serve them right away.

Special order ooba (Japanese herb). I looove it.

When I was in Japan, of course I had some sushi. We went to a sushi boat place (except that they don’t serve it on boat).

Sushi boat place is considered cheap, compare to the real sushi restaurant that chef serves in front of you, but it was still much more tasty the ones I eat in the States.

This amaebi was huge o.O!

I’m not a big fan of kanimiso (crab brain), but just for my husband who loves kanimiso, I ate it. Too bad he couldn’t come with me to this trip.

I love soup, and want to have soup with every meal if possible. This one was good, too.

I didn’t like uni when I was living in Japan, but started to eat it after seeing my husband loving it so much.

Hotate… I forgot the English name for it… I don’t think I’ve ever seen it served in the States as sushi. Mmm :9

I don’t usually get desserts when I go eat sushi, but this was exception. It is a type of mochi with kinako powder. It was soooo good +_+

Japan also have some good variety of drinks.

This is kon’nyaku (some kind of bouncy yam thingy) jelly apple juice. The package looked appealing, but actual taste was just okay v__v

At the airport, they sell Houji-cha Latte. Hrm, Japanese tea and milk… … Not that great combination x_X

There are various kind of alcohol drinks, too. Since I’m not much of a drinker, I always get something closer to fruits juice. 3% alcohol “horoyoi” (bit drunk) apple drink.

Soy bean milk coffee. I liked it a lot. I felt this is much healthier than drinking plain coffee… Caffeine wasn’t strong, either.

They now sell “hot calpico.” Why do I keep buying something strange like this? xD

But yeah, drink line up in Japan is really amazing. I wish I had more time to try them all.

Before I left for Japan, one of my friends kept telling me how he and his wife got this great cake “baume couhen” in Japan, and people line up long time to get that.

Since I am not a big baume couhen person, I didn’t bother to look that up, but my friend in Japan also told me about it and how she’s wanting to get it, but had no chance because the line is always long and she didn’t have enough time.

And this is what I am talking about.

The line was too bad, probably because I was there earlier in the morning.

This is how they make the cake. This roller pin thingy gets dipped into the pan, and I guess they bake it before dipping into another layer.

Eventually, it gets thicker and thicker…

…and this is what you get. I had no idea how they bake baume couhen, so it was very interesting.

The “log” will get cut into slices…

…and get packaged.

They said they even sell the “log” upon special order.

The package is very pretty, too.

Layers.

It was delicious – not too sweet; just enough sugar coated on outside layer.

When I came back, I found one of my coworkers who also went to Japan, also got this (same brand) back to the States, too. So yeah, it is really popular. (Is it, still?)

More food pictures!

My friends in Japan took me to this buffet restaurant in Japan. (Too bad I forgot the name already x_x)

Their dish is really awesome. It has grid, so that the food won’t get mixed.

Though I wonder, by having the grid, will people be eating less? (Cause you will have to make more trip than when you pile up your food in one dish… When taking longer time to eat, people usually eat less… I think.)

Desserts were of course great, too. I was telling my friends that I’m not a big fan of redbeans, but I ended up getting 4 desserts that has redbeans in it… My excuse was that I miss eating Japanesey stuff when living in the States too long o:)

Another thing I started to do is take pictures from airplane window. They are so amazing.