As I mentioned before, there’s over 80,000 places to eat in Tokyo – and out of all of them, someone has to be rated number one, according to a well known ratings website. Thankfully, I was on top of things and a tad lucky as when I enquired three months ago, they were fully booked, but a cancellation came up 😀. But more on that in a bit.
Yesterday, we headed to the far outskirts of Tokyo to a place called Kamakura, a small seaside town. There are several small temples to visit and a giant Buddha, which is the main draw for visitors and at almost 12 meters high, it’s pretty big, you can also go inside it, which was interesting, sort of 😕.
It was an enjoyable day trip from Tokyo and the weather as it has been all along, was great.
On returning to Tokyo, we visited the Senso-ji shrine, it’s the biggest in central Tokyo and very impressive. We also walked around the many, many market streets, there’s pretty much nothing you can’t buy here.
For dinner, after our standard pre-dinner drink, we decided to try some ramen, as we’d not had a chance to try it so far. Ramen is a big bowl of noodles, for the most part, cooked in various broths, depending what you’re going for. I opted for the duck and C went for the chicken. Ramen offers three things, it’s cheap, served piping hot and it’s filling – although we still went for a few Yakatori skewers to finish 😉
So today we spent most of the day visiting the enormous Tokyo Museum, you’d need just a day to visit the main building but there’s also over half a dozen other buildings to visit. We’d a very light lunch, but did go for a speciality of Nagasaki – a steamed pork roll, it was tasty.
Now onto last night’s dining experience, did it live up to expectations, yes it certainly did, it was fantastic. It’s called the Molecular Tapas Bar, it’s on the 38th floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, yeah, plush would be putting it mildly, the views were amazing – and one more thing, it only seats eight! So it’s very exclusive.
Basically the way it works is, two chefs create all the dishes in front of you and also chat and entertain the diners. When I get around to uploading photos I’ll explain the dishes and experience better.
Today, we’re going to the Akihabara area of Tokyo – the entire area is dedicated to Tokyo’s Otaku (geek) culture, think Manga, Anima and everything pop culture, the place is meant to be a tad daft, so we should fit right in 😃.
C&J
cjfoodandtravel 