back to nakano

Satoshi has a tour group coming in August and they want to go to Nakano, Harajuku and Akihabara.

He's never been to Nakano, so I took him around on Saturday.

He wanted to see the Nakano Sun Plaza, it is a hotel with a concert hall in it also.

It is 50 years old, so they will be tearing it down next month and will be rebuilding it afterwards.

Lunch was at Cafe Rainbow, a curry shop inside of Nakano Broadway.

I had their pork vindaloo and chicken masala...1120 yen (tax included) 

Satoshi had their pork vindaloo and veggie 1120 yen (tax included)

This was so spicy...mouth.on.fire.

I had a hard time finishing this because of the heat, but I'm glad we got to try this place.

One of the places that is on the tour's itinerary is the Manga School Nakano...

It is about 10 minutes walking from the JR Nakano station.

Apparently the tour will be taking a manga drawing class here.

Introduced Satoshi to Daily Chiko.

If you remember we went here with V and her daughter last year.

This time around, there were quite a lot of tourists having soft serve here.

Satoshi chose cafe au lait, melon and matcha...340 yen (tax included)

I chose chocolate, cafe au lait and matcha...340 yen (tax included)...brain freeze!

While eating my soft serve, I spotted jars of peanut butter on the shelves of the store next door to Daily Chiko.

298 yen (plus tax) for a bottle!

Since I haven't seen JIF in the stores recently, this brand by Meijiya, is my favorite for now.

Had to get two bottles because the price was so low!

We also checked out the upper floors of Nakano Broadway which have every collectors dream items!

Run by Mandarake, all collections are organized by type, was amazing to see all the different shops.

Hopefully Satoshi will be able to take this group around, their schedule sounds really tight, he’s not too familiar with manga or anime and he has bad sense of direction…eep!

Cafe Rainbow

Nakano Broadway B1

Open Daily: 11:00-18:00

Manga School Nakano : website

2-7-13 Nakano, Nangoku Building 2F

Open Daily: 10:00-18:00

If you are interesting in seeing more photos, please look here.

19691

Met up with V and her daughter A on Friday, it was a beautiful day. We went to Boulange D316 picked up some baked items for brunch and walked along the Tamagawa...saw Mount Fuji who was a little shy.

This chestnut scone was delicious....there were bits of chestnut as well as chestnut paste mixed into the dough.

I also had a fish sandwich...

The leaves were still turning but I loved all the different colors.

While eating, we were talking about what to do next.

V mentioned that she has always wanted to eat the 8 layer soft serve at Nakano Broadway.

She looked up how to get there and we were off!

Strawberry, pistachio, vanilla, chocolate, yakiimo (roasted sweet potato), ramune (carbonated drink similar to 7up/Sprite), cafe au lait, goma...there is also a sign that say you should eat this carefully because if it topples over, they will not make re-make it again!....1000 yen (tax included)

The small was 340 yen (tax included) and you could choose 1 to 3 flavors...so of course I chose 3!

Goma (sesame), chocolate and yakiimo (roasted sweet potato)

So good and the cone super crisp!

Oh and if soft serve isn't your thing, Daily Chiko also has a stand and eat udon shop next door....

We had to stand and eat our soft serve but V said that Daily Chiko also has some chairs to the side of their shop (which were being used when we were there)

The basement also had many tiny grocery shops and knick knack stores...I could see myself spending a lot of time here and will come back to explore the upper floors...

JR Nakano Station wall art

Then we went to shop at Shinjuku...everyone in Christmas mode...Louis Vuitton's lego display

And while A shopped at Sekaido, V and I went to Oiwake Dango Honpo to get dango!

I bought the “adult” mitarashi for Satoshi which has shichimi (7 spice) and sansho (Japanese pepper) mixed into the sweet salty mitarashi sauce and I also got him the yomogi (mugwort) which was topped with tsubuan (chunky bean paste)

For myself I bought yuzu an (citron mixed into a white bean paste, so good!), and kuri (chestnut sweet bean paste topped with whole chestnuts)

I hope V and A had a nice day and got to do, see and eat everything they wanted to.

Thanks for today V and A!

Daily Chiko

5-52-15 Nakano, inside Nakano Broadway B1

Nakano, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3386.4461

Hours 10:00-20:00

p.s. if you are interested in seeing other photos from the day click here

p.p.s. V, thank you so much for all these goodies!