Our notes recording selected things we dined on during this 18-day trip to Japan! This is a long visual record, so it’s split into two parts.
Day 02 Lunch: Hamburger Set with Rice at the restaurant above Fancy Shop at Lake Kawaguchi. We had a lot of hamburgers with rice this trip!The restaurant is on level 2 above the souvenir shop, and you can watch the world go by below.Day 02: cakes and hot beverages at Cheesecake Garden. We got a complimentary hot beverage for every cake purchased.Green matcha cheesecake for my birthday!Day 02 Dinner: Beef Udon at the Kawaguchiko Shopping Center BELL food court.The food court has half a dozen stalls offering different cuisines. Some of the udon items were not available though on the evening we visited.Day 03 Lunch at Denny’s at Lake Yamanaka. These family restaurants were a lifesaver. The kids live on a staple of french fries and McDonald’s, and restaurants like Denny’s were the next best thing!300g Hamburger Set. The kids loved the fare at Denny’s so much we had it twice: once at Lake Yamanaka, and another in Shibuya.Day 03 Dinner at The Park Cafe: Sausage and pancakes. This lovely cafe was also the only dinner option at Nagaike Water Park, and we had to make haste as their last order was at 4:30PM before closing at 5PM. We were the last diners that evening, and the cafe started shutting down for the day immediately after we left.Bacon and pancakes at The Park Cafe.The cafe closed early at 5PM, with last orders at 4:30PM.Day 04 Lunch at Swad Bhanchha Ghar Restaurant near Shin-Okubo. The naans were fantastic and came with generous curry portions. We had naans three times this trip — the kids love them — and the best by far was at this restaurant in Shin-Okubo.We would have loved to return here for another meal during this stay, but didn’t manage to.Day 04 Dinner at Ippudo Ramen Tokyo Dome City. Having Ippudo Ramen (and Saboten tonkatsu) is a standard inclusion in every Japan itinerary of ours!Ippudo ramen is much more reasonably priced in Japan than in Singapore.Day 05 Lunch at Todai Kitchen Deli & Tea at Samuel Cocking Garden on Enoshima Island. There are at least two other cafes/restaurants in the garden area.Curry set with rice. The food was so-so and pricing on the high side. I reckon there are better dining options on the island, especially along the street leading to Iwaya Caves.Sandwich at Todai Kitchen Deli & Tea. Seating is limited near the Sea Candle lift, but there is outdoor seating at the level above.Fish & Chips at Todai Kitchen Deli & Tea. Nothing fantastic about the food, but the kids were hungry.Day 05 Tonkatsu Dinner at 和幸リエール藤沢店 at Lierre Fujisawa. The tonkatsu was pretty good, and you get free-flow rice and cabbage.I visited a similar restaurant from the same chain in Osaka during our September trip this year.Day 07 Lunch at Saboten Keio Mall Shinjuku Station. This is my go-to tonkatsu restaurant for any Japan visit, except when we’re in Kyoto — then we go straight to Katsukura at Kyoto Station!Tonkatsu from Saboten is as good as ever. I brought my colleagues to the Saboten at Canal City in Fukuoka during our September 2023 trip, and they were impressed with the pork cutlets.Day 07 Dinner at Pietro Tokyo Dome LaQua.Shrimp and mushroom pasta. Delicious! We had pasta about four times this trip, and the pasta at Pietro Tokyo Dome LaQua was the best of the four places.Day 08 Lunch after our TeamLab Planets visit: Uomasala, a small restaurant that serves Indian cuisine.Naan sets are about 900 yen, and you can ask for one refill of naan too. Of the three naan restaurants we tried this trip, we ranked this one last. It’s still good — we just liked the other two more.Day 08 Dinner at Spaghetti Goemon, a restaurant opposite Suidobashi Station near our hotel.Cream and mushroom pasta. Yummy too and almost as delectable as what we had a few days earlier at Pietro Tokyo Dome LaQua.
Continued in the next post that covers Days 09 to 18!
