Tonkatsu

If you love pork, and you love anything deep-fried say a big hello to tonkatsu! It's a popular dish in Japan, which is basically breaded and deep-fried pork sliced into bite-sized pieces served with miso soup and shredded cabbage. Eating at a tonkatsu restaurant had yet to be checked off our to-do list until we found Tonkatsu Wako, which specially focused on tonkatsu dishes. Here, they used the tonkatsu batter on pork (fillet/loin), eggplant and shrimp. Even Rosario, who's a vegetarian, got to enjoy the experience. Luckily enough, this place had a translated menu which made ordering easy. Because the restaurant was pretty focused on a single type of cooking, it was simple to choose what we wanted. I think all of us got a combination tonkatsu meal; mine was pork loin, pork fillet and eggplant. Everything was served like a set meal - rice, soup, cabbage, and tea all included. Don't forget to eat your tonkatsu with the sauces provided, one is a thick sauce (Jon said it's called bull sauce?) and the other is spicy yellow mustard. I combined my two sauces into one and it worked for me... OISHI!!

more FRESHness

If I didn't convince you the first time to check out FRESHness, here are some of Jon's photos that should do the trick!

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon

After an active day of walking around Tokyo Mid-Town and Roppongi Hills, we decided to kick it at one of the many food establishments in the vicinity. Roppongi Hills is a massive complex that fuses together retail space, great architecture, design gardens, high-rise apartments and promenades - this all creates a lively urban landscape in the Tokyo area. We stopped at what was a very cute Parisian patisserie/cafe called L'Atelier de Joel Robochon. The bakery smelt of fresh breads and pastries, which led us to pick a little sampling for the 5 of us. Oh carbs, you kill me every time...

Tokyo: Meal #1

Our flight to Narita arrived circa 8pm, which meant that by the time we got into the city, checked in our hotel and got ready for dinner... it was the next day. Not really, but almost... We made it to dinner around 11 pm Tokyo time, 10 pm our time. Jon's friend Yuki was extremely hospitable and showed us a secret spot nearby for dinner. One minute we were walking along the busy Shibuya streets and the next we were taking an elevator and being transported into a Japanese garden. Yuki did all the ordering (obviously there was no Ingrish menu here) and left us to eat alone. If you're asking why we didn't invite him, he had a club event to go to for his *birthday* He ordered pretty "safe" dishes for us - an interesting salad to start, followed by a fresh sashimi platter, then came some yakitori sticks and we finished up with steamed fish. The fish was first served raw, and we steamed it ourselves. You can see the transformation below :)

"One Person, One Order"

In search for something sweet to cap the night off, we found a restaurant that was still serving late-night orders. We originally wanted crepes, but none of the creperies were open :( I forgot where we ended up, it was a loungey like place serving what seemed to be Western food. We headed straight for the dessert menu, which was in English accompanied with pictures - score! This made it easy to order a few desserts to share... Until our waiter told us, "One person, one order." Ohhhhhh, so each person has to order something. Here I am thinking *Yes! 5 people = 5 desserts* Looks like we stumbled into my kinda place ;)

Hazelnut Tart

Warm Chocolate Cake

Cinnamon Apple Pie

Chocolate Banana Waffle

Berry Waffle

FRESHness to Death

If you want to take a meal off from Japan's local cuisine, at least try their take on Western fare... We took a chance at Freshness Burger, and WOAH our stomachs almost thought we were at an In-n-Out! Freshness Burger is a [semi] fast food joint that makes burgers fresh to order, using all natural and organic ingredients. Throw in there the original potato fries, organic coffees, teas and freshly squeezed juices! The World Spice rack I assume is popular for those who have their own personal favorites when it comes to condiments and sauces. Im gonna need me some more freshness when I make my way back to Japan!

The website is here - for those of who you can understand...

Ain't no PopTart

The Japanese are very creative with anything involving packaging and presentation... Look at how they laid out these berri-colorful fruit tarts, they practically made our eyes pop. We were at Shibuya Seibu Loft, needing a little sweet-fuel to keep us going until dinner time when we saw Cafe Comme Ca. How could we pass this up! The tarts are prepared whole and a slice gets cut off once you place an order. We chose two: a chocolate berry tart and a very berry tart :)