ND Food & Travel Posts

I've been back in the US for a while, so it's time for me to wrap up the SE Asia travel / food posts with the East Asia leg of the trip. These are more of a quick flythrough since you can likely find these in a major US city.

Guangzhou

• Yinji Rice Noodle Roll, which has the "cheung fun" which I had in Flushing. Some Googling suggests that Yinji opened US outlets in NYC and LA in 2019.
• at the mall, choice of pastry and cream filling, I got a cookie crust one
• at Shangxiajiu (上下九) pedestrian street, a chicken wing with bone removed and stuffed with rice
• just north of Shangxiajiu, a type of sandwich from a street vendor

These last two are also available in Taiwan. I don't know what they are called. Really did not know what was going on, and had a low budget.

Japan

Osaka

• Got Xi'an style noodles from Seianmenso (西安麺荘)
• Melon bread street vendor with ice cream
• Nepalese style curry (surprised me how many places are in the city center)

Sadly the ice cream soft serve "franken-ramen" was not available when I visited.

Also it was the wrong day when I passed by Curry Exodus (カリィ酒場エクソダス), this appears to be a new / modern / Jamaican? curry.

Hikone (northeast of Kyoto)

• "I am Jackie" - tasty burger shop, one man operation. Two women were having a gossipy conversation sadly beyond my level of language comprehension.
• Porcotei (ポルコ亭) - premium pork with shredded cabbage and essentials; no curry options though

Plenty of places to eat by the train station. The temples on Chikubu Island have a couple of food vendors, beef dumpling being the signature item.

Tokyo

My Airbnb was in Ōkubo (大久保), Tokyo's Koreatown. On weekends and holidays this, Shibuya, and Harajuku were packed to the gills. Now that the Yen has lower value, there are also many tourists on weekdays, too. Croffle and fried chicken-and-tteokbokki are available from multiple, crowded places.

Wanted to specifically shout out:

• Jongno Hotok - Korean-style filled pancake (get cheese)
• Shinchon Cafe - sells taiyaki (Japanese fish-shaped ice cream cone)
• EggOn - breakfast sandwich (we have similar ones in Chicago now!)

Leaving the neighborhood now...

• You find chirashi in a few places, it's a rice bowl with varied sashimi on top
• Near the Yayoi Kusama Museum, Doughnut Mori had a line of ~10 people when it opened. It's a small shop taking one customer group at a time. I remember a line for at least one other place on the same street.
• The Hawaiian Eggs 'n Things really under-whelmed this time... they give a paper menu and a "classic" board but it has items they don't serve (ahi & eggs); from comments this is a common confusion.
• Book 1st Shinjuku - this is a bookstore. They had a book for fans of Hokkaido cheesecake (which includes a pillow) and a whole shelf of curry boxes. Yes these are curry packets you put in boiling water and then eat, not cookbooks. The curries contain meat, so don't think you can bring it home to the US.

I liked the curry shelf concept, but I was still unable to find Kokkai Curry, an Indian style curry originally served at the Japanese Parliament/Diet. It sounds a lot better than the US Senate Bean Soup.

General Comments

Visiting Indonesia taught me a lot of patience with Google Maps. If someone has their Warung spot on Google, that's progress. Maybe they say it's open 24 hours when it's only seasonal. Maybe a place closed without telling anyone. The hours should be taken as the acceptable range of times when a place could be open. Then check for recent reviews. One of the oddest of these was a deserted pasta restaurant (it was dark, I walked in and looked around) - because someone reviewed it the same day.

In Japan the issue generally was location of map markers. Especially within a train station or mall, the owners could do more to have searches for a place help in finding it. I have to look at images and comments for hints.