A staple for most foodies in Melbourne probably, Calia has lived up to its reputation and consistently delivers good modern Japanese dishes. Conveniently placed within the Emporium shopping centre, it’s an easy lunch stop for anyone in the city. Pricey even for Melbourne brunch standard (ranging in the $30s for most dishes, up to $50s), […]
Yonehana (米花)
A tiny shop nestled in the chaos that is Tokyo’s Tsukiji Market. Generally when I visit Japanese fish markets I tend to go for 1 thing: tuna donburi. I usually avoid places with long lines unless I personally hear a recommendation from someone because lines in Japan can be misleading – I’ve seen lines at […]
Omatcha Salon
Had a team meeting here when I worked for a food tour company, and it was recommended by one of the other guides on our team. As the name suggests, it specializes in all things green tea. A pleasant surprise for me was seeing that they had cha soba (green tea soba), which while normal […]
中谷堂 (Nakatanidou)
Quite famous online, Nakatanidou is the small snacks shop in Nara that does hourly public mochi poundings. Speaking with the staff, they say that the mochi poundings are generally only done when the previous batch is almost sold out, however it seems that this happens more or less roughly every hour. Watch the mochi pounding […]
カフェロンロン (Cafe RonRon)
Found this on social media somewhere and thought it was cute enough to visit. It’s located just off one of the side-streets of shibuya and should be easy enough for most to find. Apparently peak hours can have massive lines so I would recommend going sometime between 2-5pm (we went at about 4pm and were […]
あつた蓬莱軒 (Atsuta Horaiken)
A long overdue post of my all-time favourite unagi restaurant, I’m quite proud to say I discovered and ate at this place before finding out that it was a famously iconic restaurant in Nagoya. Going with their specialty Unagi dish will never do you wrong and even if you don’t particularly like unagi much (like […]
ぽんしゅ館 (Ponshukan) [Echigo-Yuzawa]
Quite an iconic place, inside Niigata’s ‘Echigo-Yuzawa’ station, you can find an area nestled in the back called “Ponshukan”. Inside, you can find a variety of shops selling sake (Niigata’s specialty), and even a sake-themed onsen in the back! However, the most notable area is the sake vending machines! Just to the right inside Ponshukan, […]
小嶋屋 (Kojimaya) [Tsubame-sanjo]
I love soba and Niigata being a region specializing in soba, you can bet that I stuffed myself full of soba while there. Kojimaya is a chain-style restaurant in Niigata that is known for their variety of soba dishes, including Niigata’s iconic “Hegi Soba“, which I tried in their famous station branch. I spent a […]
三吉屋 (Sankichiya)
Another local specialty of Niigata was this ‘clear ramen’. It seems that while you can only get this style of ramen in Niigata, it’s not specifically a ‘famous’ dish of Niigata, just something that they make there. Nevertheless, despite not being a huge ramen fan, I wanted to give it a go and found this […]
長岡小嶋屋 (Kojimaya)
This place was highly recommended online when I was searching a good place to try Niigata’s specialty ‘hegi soba’. It’s a bonus that it’s located right by Niigata station as well, so I could easily drop by and have it for lunch. The hardest part was navigating the CoCoLo building that it is inside of […]