Good morning! Waiting for friend to wake up so I have some time to kill.
Yesterday we went to Okagean! It seems to be a more upscale Komeda’s Coffee, serving actual food instead of just breakfast bread and sandwiches… I opted to get an oden set and a warabimochi latte. I think warabimochi can sub in for boba pretty well… Maybe this could catch on in the west if someone picks up the idea.
Mustard is quite strong as a condiment, so I’d just go with the dark sauce… I want to say it’s something like hoisin sauce but I’m not 100% sure. It was ok, for some reason I thought it’d be miso oden but it’s a good snack to get started for the day.
For our last day in Nagoya, we chose to visit the Toyota Commemorative Museum! Note that this is not the car museum located elsewhere in Nagoya… This foucses more on the production of textiles and automobiles, rather than showcasing specific vehicles, as Toyota initially started out as a textile company, then branched off into automobiles in the 1930s. When you start to see all of the machinery and technology in play when processing cotton back then… It makes sense that the mechanical engineering knowledge can be applied quite well towards making cars. Unfortunately I’m not an engineer so a lot of the details are lost on me on how the machines work… but at least they look cool!
We head back to Nagoya Station soon after to eat miso nikomi udon at Yamamotoya Honten. The soup is quite rich in miso flavor, but the udon noodles are a little bit tougher than I would like… It’s still a really good dish and worth trying. I opted for cochin chicken as my meat. I think you could go without any meat if you’re on a budget, but I’m not… I was also curious with the tofu – It’s ok. Just focus on the udon here.
My brother wanted to pick up some jp Nintendie points for him…. what the heck is wrong with these denominations???
I asked the sofmap employee in a different section of the store if they had any 10000 yen cards and she must have thought I was a retard or something. lol
I didn’t know it until I scheduled this trip… but Cafe Stella by Yuzusoft has the background CGs taken of places in Nagoya. I only played like 2 hours so I know the main CG of Nagoya Station…
This is on the east side of the station, about where you can come out from the Higashiyama line:
Cool! There’s a few other places in the reddit post I linked, but I’m not too familiar with those… but this is good enough for me!
For my last meal in Nagoya, my friend hates eating chicken off the bone, so I had to go to Tebasaku Musume Osu myself…
First, the restaurant makes you specifically order 1 drink per person. The cheapest drinks start at 400 yen, so it’s kind of a racket… but it’s ok, I’m on vacation, but I could see this turning off regular visitors.
In any case… the presentation for this is nice with the plastic tags for each wing indicating the flavor. I like mayonnaise so I would say I like the mentaiko and mayo garlic ones the most. I probably shouldn’t have eaten the yamitsuki and super yamitsuki ones… I’m not particularly big on spicy food relying on chili pepper, so it ruined my palatte for a bit. It’s definitely expensive for what you get, but it’s a fun experience for every bite to be a different flavor!
demolished those wings…. hehe
I finished the night by doing an additional round of the mandarake and lashinbang nearby, and actually ended up picking uip some stuff from each… good call, even though I felt beforehand I wouldn’t find anything.
shoutouts to homeboy for getting two grim aloe omikuji cards… so now I can have one! hooray
Now onto the most expensive part of the trip… two nights at Kai Sengokuhara in Hakone! I’m a little scared of being disappointed, but hopefully it should be fun doing nothing at all in a ryokan…!