shinkamata

There is a shop called Ogawa in the Shinkamata area.

It's about a 20 minute walk from where we live.

We've had them on our "to try" list since the pandemic, and recently learned they will be closing their doors on June 28th.

There is a huge open kitchen with counter seating for regulars going around the kitchen and there are also tables to eat at too.

I ordered the chicken katsu don...600 yen (tax included)

So ono! the chicken was cooked perfectly 

Satoshi had their ebi fry teishoku...750 yen (tax included)

He enjoyed this as well.

Everything was super resonable, even the alcohol! though we didn’t order any on this day

Their cat was so well behaved.

It was nice to listen to the conversations of the regulars as we ate.

Sad to see them close, but glad we got to have a meal here.

As we walked home, we ran into some friendly feral cats in the area.

Glad the rain stopped for just a bit too

Ogawa

1-15-8 Shinkamata

Ota, Tokyo

Closed Thursdays

Lunch: 11:30-14:00, Dinner: 16:00-20:30

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.

this and that

So…She was originally near a sushi shop at the far end of the shopping arcade, this was near the rotary and noisy whenever there is an election or event.

I think she got shooed away from this spot because she's been here & the sushi shop put all of their bicycles to block her out

Caught this furry one sleeping...but wondering how it got up so high

Tried the taco rice from Cock-a-hoop, not sure what the name of the shop means because the Japanese they use for the shop name is "Cook-a-hoop"

The taco rice had lots of fried onions on top, and wasn't spicy

I felt it was missing something but just couldn't put my finger on what it was.

The taco rice was 880 yen (tax included) plus 100 yen for the takeout container.

I want to try their tacos, I'll be back.

Cock-a-hoop (UPDATE: out of business)

4-20-3 Kamata

Ota, Tokyo

Closed Wednesdays

Hours: 11:30-21:00 

And just as I was talking about Kanto and the rainy season, Kanto (East Japan) started their rainy season yesterday!

It’s been raining since last night so hopefully there won’t be too much damage in the same areas as last weekend.

Have a safe weekend.

keeping cool

"H" (Humidity if you are a new reader to this blog) has started so we've been trying to keep cool.

Weirdly though, Kanto (East Japan) hasn't started their rainy season, yet...

AND Typhoon 3 (Guchol) has been spotted near the Philippines...so they expect rain (again) this weekend...eep!

I made a batch of Yamagata style dashi and we've been putting it on tofu and on cooked meats.

And have been eating ice cream too.

I'm waiting for the price of fresh corn to come down so I can make corn rice and fritters

Since I had a box of "canned" corn, I've already made minced chicken with corn miso butter which I make at least once every summer...

I also want to make a batch of tomato suzuke, but need to free up my jar which is making umeshu, one more week to go!

Hope it is cooler where you are.

making marinated “feta"

I wanted to make watermelon feta salad but didn't want to pay the price for the marinated feta that I usually use for this salad 

So instead, I soaked some tofu in olive oil and spices, to make my own "feta".

Adapted from the Sateto website, makes 1 cup

150 grams momen tofu (firm)

50 milliliters olive oil (1/4 cup)

1/2 teaspoon salt

dry herbs/spices

1.5 teaspoons lemon juice

Take the tofu out of the container and put a weight on it for about 30 minutes to take out some of the water (the longer you keep the weight on the tofu the more crumbly it will get)

Cut up the tofu into squares and put into a bottle.

Mix the olive oil, spices and lemon juice, put into the bottle.

Let soak for at least two days.

NOTES: The original recipe said to add some lemon juice, to make it more "cheese" like, but since I didn't have that on hand, I left it out.

Since I was using tofu, I also used shiso in place of the basil.

(Plus, shiso was cheaper than basil)

Both the tofu and shiso were delicious in this salad.

I'm glad I tried it this way.

The recipe also suggested that you could use different spices and oils like sesame oil or chili oil, I want to try these variations in the future.

yokosuka

The last time we visited Yokosuka was in 2019.

I recently saw something on social media so we went to check out the Iris Garden.

From the Keikyu Shioiri station it is about 15 minutes by bus. 

Luckily they also had a bus that took you directly to the garden (220 yen one way)
 

Not only do they have iris beds but they also have rhododendron bushes and many wisteria trellises (we want to go back next year to experience these flowers)

The park itself is about 3.8 hectares (9.39 acres).

According to the pamphlet, they have 412 varieties and about 140,000 irises.

On this day it was only 50% in bloom, but it was still something to see.

There were also women who were deadheading the plants. (In writing this post I learned a new word too, “deadhead”)

Lots of people just sitting and enjoying the day.

Glad it wasn’t overcrowded.

And because there was a matsuri (festival) going on, what should've taken us 15 minutes to return to the station, took us over an hour due to the traffic jam.

We were starving by the time we got back to the station and had lunch at Alfred.

We both ordered their Gourmet plate…tiny Yokosuka burger, tiny Navy curry and tiny cherry cheesecake...2040 yen (tax included) plus free drink each.

The curry was spicy with lots of pork in it, the burger was juicy and the cheesecake was rich and "American" sweet.

And because I'm a coffe snob, I thought their iced coffee was gross, still, I'm glad we were able to eat without having to wait for a table because we were kinda hangry…

After eating all that food we walked to see the warship Mikasa, which we saw back in 2019 too.

I was admiring all the old buildings along the way.

After checking out the ship, we walked back to the station and checked out all the things going on in the matsuri area.

Even though the weather was blazing I'm glad we got to revisit this area.

If you are interested in seeing some videos and photos, please look here.

Yokosuka Iris Garden

18-1 Abekura

Yokosuka, Kanagawa

Hours: 9:00-19:00

Admission 320 yen adults

Alfred

2-4 Honcho

Yokosuka, Kanagawa

Open daily 11:00-23:00

*cash only

another year

Saturday was Satoshi's birthday.

Luckily the typhoon passed and we were able to get out and about to get him some cake from Maiko.

I chose this cherry tarte...it wasn't too sweet and I loved the cookie layer as well as the vanilla gelatin and chocolate cake layers.

Satoshi chose this mango tarte.

I think the layers are similar except the cake is a yellow cake.
 

For dinner we went to check out Tesshin, a Hiroshima style okonomiyaki shop.

My photos uploaded wonky, so everything is out of order.

Loved the Otafuku imprint on the plates.

The eggs they used were so orange!

Bummer that the okonomiyaki wasn't too good though....1800 yen (tax included)

The shio (salt) yakisoba...portion was a little small...900 yen (tax included)

The fried squid legs were tasty but not crunchy, I saw that they were frying it on the teppan (grill), which is probably why it didn't get crunchy/crispy...700 yen (tax included)

Garlic moyashi..tasty...580 yen (tax included)

This shop is overpriced...with 4 drinks, our bill was 7010 yen (tax included).

AND they have a table charge of 660 yen (330 yen for each person) which they don’t tell you about but was part of the total…boo!

We won't be back.

Tesshin

3-17-15 Kamata

Ota, Tokyo

Closed Mondays

Hours: 17:00-24:00

The typhoon caused lots of havoc, power outages as well as lots of flooding. Lots of trains stopped, especially the Shinkansen (Bullet train) Hoping all the areas that had flooding will be able to return to their daily routines soon. Also, I hope the people that were swept away in the flooding will return to their families too.

Hope you have a nice week.