Soba/Ueno/Okonomiyaki

Ah, I'm a bit behind in my posts so I am trying to catch up! (Also all the links are to the wikipedia pages for the thing mentioned, I hope this makes it easier for you to learn about Japanese culture! :D) And for anyone curious: I decided to sign with au, neither docomo nor softbank. Yes, it is the company that Arashi and a Japanese actor I like endorses. No, I did not choose that company because of that. To be honest, all the plans were about the same so I signed with the same company as my host family.

The day after we went to Akihabara we decided to meet up for 油そば. I had raved to our Japanese friends about the shop near Waseda and they wanted to eat there. So, we met up at Takadanobaba Station and walked down to the restaurant. I was afraid I might have exaggerated the food a bit too much (it was, after all, the only 油そば shop I had been to), but they seemed to like the food. Then we met up with friends that hadn't been able to met us earlier, but because they hadn't eaten yet we went to Saizeriya. Saizeriya is a chain in Japan that specializes in Italian food. It is well known by college students for being tasty and incredibly cheap.

Then we headed to Tokyo Station to visit the Rilakkuma Store.

A friend of ours loves Rilakkuma, so she had been dying to go. But the rest of us weren't huge fans of Rilakkuma, so we wandered around Daimaru, a nearby department store. The department store was massive! The whole first floor was devoted to sweets, and it was interesting to see what kinds of food were being sold. It was also fun to try to read the signs, although sometimes our readings of the kanji were way off. Eventually we met back up with our friend at the Rilakkuma store, and headed to Ueno.

According to our friend, the Ueno district is famous for three things: a very long shopping street called Ameyoko, a zoo (with pandas!), and a statue of the revolutionary Saigou Takamori.

The sign for Ameyoko/アメ横

The street is right next to the Yamanote Line

As we walked down Ameyoko the cries of sellers promoting their wares was almost deafening.
"This street is well known for being cheap... but fake," our friend told us.
We passed several stalls with cheap Seiko watches and imitation purses. But there were also many food stalls which sold fruit, fish, dried goods, and many other things.

When we got to Okachimachi station, our friend pointed across the street.
"That's the statue of Saigou Yakamori, he was a samurai that played a large role in the creation of the Meiji government." I took a photo.

Saigō Takamori/西郷 隆盛

"So what should we do now?"
"Let's eat!"
"Yeah, I'm getting kind of hungry too."
"What would you like to eat?"
"Anything Japanese!"
"There are many different types of Japanese food... like sushi, ramen, okonomiyaki-"
"Okonomiyaki!"

And so we found an Okonomiyaki restaurant.

The restaurant consisted of low rectangular tables with grills at the center. The floor was covered with tatami mats and there were pillows to sit on. Before stepping onto the tatami mats we had to remove our shoes and place them in a plastic bag. Then I headed to the table, clutching my shoes. Because I was wearing a skirt I sat down on the pillow awkwardly.

To eat we ordered mochi okonomiyaki, meat okonomiyaki, cheese okonmiyaki, monjayaki, bataayaki.

The ingredients for oknomiyaki came in metal cups. Being careful not to spill the ingredient, we slowly mixed them in the cups. When they were mixed we poured the cheese okonomiyaki onto the grill.

Mochi Okonomiyaki before mixing

Meat Okonomiyaki after mixing

The method of cooking okonomiyaki is as follows:
1. Pour onto grill in round shape.

Okonomiyaki/お好み焼き

2. Let cook until bottom is brown.
3. Flip.
4. Cook until bottom is brown.
5. Spread on okonomiyaki sauce.
6. Dribble mayonaise across.
7. Add bonito flakes and other seasonings.
8. Cut and eat!!

Ready to eat!

Because we had two tables pushed together, and thus two grills, we cooked monjayaki on the other grill. The table next to us yelled some advice in Japanese to our friend and he cooked the monja accordingly.

Monjayaki/もんじゃ焼き

Lastly we made the bataayaki. Bataa from bataayaki is from butter. I didn't pay close attention to the cooking method of bataayaki, but it seems that it went something like add butter to grill, add other ingredients, and cook.

Bataayaki/バター焼き

Everything was sooooo delicious!!

Because we were still a bit hungry we then decided to order kimchi okonomiyaki, which tasted like kimchi pancakes (kimchijeon).

Kimichi okonomiyaki!