{"id":34186,"date":"2023-09-18T20:25:06","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T12:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=34186"},"modified":"2023-09-21T20:21:06","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T12:21:06","slug":"fukuoka-matsue-osaka-dining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2023\/09\/18\/fukuoka-matsue-osaka-dining\/","title":{"rendered":"Fukuoka-Matsue-Osaka: Dining"},"content":{"rendered":"

The obligatory post about dining in Japan this trip! Well, what I had for grub varied widely, since it ran the range of hosted multi-course dinners at restaurants, conference banquet, committee buffet dinners, lunch bentos over working meetings, and finding my own grub during the days when I was not having meetings or conference activities. So here we go: there are a lot of pictures in this post!<\/p>\n

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Day 01: hosted dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Nakasukawabata Station.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The food was marvelous. And also likely because this was the first day, we’d had a long business meeting in the afternoon right after landing into Fukuoka, and I was hungry!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Scallops… I think!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Stripes of Kagoshima beef (I think) done medium. Super yummy!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 02: bentos over a lunch meeting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 02 dinner at Fukuoka’s Canal City. I’d visited this Saboten outlet at this mall during the 2019 trip and loved the tonkatsu sets there.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Saboten’s tonkatsu sets are so much cheaper compared to their outlet in Singapore, and they offer free flow of cabbage, miso soup, and rice too. I still think Katsukura @ Kyoto does my favorite tonkatsus, but Saboten’s are a close second!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 03: lunch at Ippudo Ramen @ Hakata JR Station City, and after visiting Daizufu in the morning.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I typically visit these two Japanese ramen chains whenever I’m in the country: Ichiran, and Ippudo. More people prefer Ichiran’s ramen and also its dining concept for anti-social people (haha). I’m the odd ball who prefers Ipudo though!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 03 dinner, and at Ramen Stadium at Canal City. There were a lot of ramen restaurants clustered together here, so I just randomly chose this outlet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The set I opted for had a fried rice set. It was a lot of food. The tonkatsu soup ramen was so-so. But this was also already my second ramen on the same day, so it really did feel a bit much!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 04 at Hakata Station: a quick lunch at Doutor cafe inside before boarding our Shinkansen ride to Okayama Station. This is a teriyaki beef sandwich that cost just under 600 yen. Very average<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 05 Monday and a free day just before the start of conference: there really wasn’t much to do in Matsue itself. This one is a small restaurant inside Matsue Station, and I had cold soba noodles (around 780 yen) for lunch. Very average tasting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 05 dinner inside Matsue Station, and at Naseba-Naru Kakeru ramen. The station had about half a dozen restaurants. There are more dining options at the Aeon Shopping Mall about 10 minutes walk away, but I opted for this joint out of convenience.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I had the Kiwami-aji ramen. The soup was extremely salty: I had difficulty finishing the bowl.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 07: committee meeting and buffet dinner at the Matsue Excel Tokyu Hotel. I normally don’t eat a lot of beef, but the steaks here in Japan were too good to pass up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 08 hosted conference dinner banquet at Yuushien Garden.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Sashimi plate as appetiser.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The only thing I recognized on this plate was the sliced duck meat. LOL. According to the course menu, the other items were – I think – Wood Ear Mushroom, Stripe of leek, and Sansho pepper.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Tempura, Ginseng, Kakiage, and Green Chili.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Crab Rice with “three sorts of pickles” [sic], as said on the course menu.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Cheese cake and green tea ice-cream for dessert.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 09 lunch and during the fourth conference day excursion to Izumo. Had the tempura with cold soba noodle side at 1580 yen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This restaurant. I don’t see it on Google Maps though, but this is what it looks like from the outside.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 09 and back in Matsue after the day excursion. Had dinner at Aeon Shopping Mall, and also a tempura with cold soba noodle set.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 10 dinner and after our relocation to Osaka. I hunted for a tonkatsu restaurant near the hotel, and found this restaurant at the 8th floor of Links Umeda. Or rather, the floor just beside the hotel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Had the Rosukatsu at 1480 yen. Save money!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The restaurant’s tonkatsus are rated higher than Saboten. But I found the latter still better after this dinner.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 11 and at Tenjinbashisuji Shopping Street. The humid weather saw me ducking into this random cafe to escape the heat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Where I had a pretty much forgettable pesto pasta for lunch. The float drink was a different matter though: anything icy cold in this weather was a lifesaver! Lunch was 1,400 yen – rather expensive for somewhat bland food.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 11 dinner back at Links Umeda and at Porchetta Pizza.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Had the onion and mushroom pizza (1,380 yen). It was pretty big at 30cm width, but the pizza needed to had been baked a fair bit longer. It felt almost watery!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 12 lunch at Links Umeda: and at the Hawaiian Pancake Factory.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Opted for the hamburger with pancake set (1280 yen) and kept my fingers crossed!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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It turned out… extremely ordinary. And the waitress forgot to bring out the syrup too. Compare it to the menu picture above. Bleh.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 12: Ichiran Ramen Umeda, which was just across the road from the hotel at Yodobashi. I checked out the place for lunch but there was a long queue then. So, I returned for an extremely 4PM dinner: and found a seat without having to queue.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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And comparing Ichiran’s ramen to Ippudo, my vote goes to Ippudo!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 14 lunch after hotel check-out, and back at the Hawaiian Pancake Factory. Had the Eggs Benedict at 1,180 Yen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Day 14 dinner: we’d finished our last day of business meetings, so headed back to Links Umeda. Ducked into Ocharanya Yodobashi-camera ramen restaurant for a quick dinner.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Had the pork bone broth ramen, with a half-portion fried rice side, and extra noodles at 1270 yen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The obligatory post about dining in Japan this trip! Well, what I had for grub varied widely, since it ran the range of hosted multi-course dinners at restaurants, conference banquet, committee buffet dinners, lunch bentos over working meetings, and finding<\/p>\n

Read More Fukuoka-Matsue-Osaka: Dining<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[679],"class_list":["post-34186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-fukuoka-matsue-osakajapan-2023","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/blog-2023-japan-fukuoka-matsue-osaka-day-08-20230914_184412.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34186"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34246,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34186\/revisions\/34246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}