Showing posts with label iron chef. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iron chef. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Day 8 (22nd July 2011) - Shin Ookubo, Sze Chuan Restaurant

KOREA TOWN!! Can't believe I'm getting a taste of Korea in japan <3

And there's so many fan goods!!!<3 managed to find my lee Jun ki stuff and even ate at their coffee prince<3<3

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jang geun suk earphone is so cuuuute

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and finally a HUGE LJK poster!! WHEEE

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i bought my LJK usb / figurine here :3

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Ate at the coffee prince. There were 2 of them, no. 2 which is a cafe and waffle place, while no. 3 is a bar and restaurant.

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We went to no. 3 and ate the waffles just to see how the place is like.

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Since we saw 2 of them just at the beginning of the street, we thought that maybe all the cafe's will have the same name but turns out that that was all that we found. Wonder where's no. 1?! Nevertheless the Waffle was nice and the butlers were all Korean!! 8D~ this must be better than a butler cafe!

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Walked down the street and chanced by a snack stall with a long queue, so the Singaporean habit kicked in and we joined the queue. Bought dokboggi and hoddog 호떡 (something ms was trying to tell me that he made all along, and I kept thinking it's hotdog). The cup holding the dokboggi has oolong tea underneath, cool!!

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Passed by a restaurant with 3D menus. wooo

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Shopped around some more and found another restaurant with along queue, and came back to it later on when the queue dissipated.

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Seems its listed on some Zagat food as one of the delicious and value for money restaurants, and it really was! We waited for about an hour (queue on staircase was gone but didn't realize there's another round just outside the restaurant =.=) and got in later on. BBQ set was sold at 980 yen each (really cheap) and there were tons of side dishes. We also ordered a cheese rice and ginseng chicken (written as limited to 20 set per day, but we were either lucky or it's just a selling gimmick -.-). Ginseng chicken soup wad really diluted but the rice is nice!!! Love the BBQ!! :D

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After we were done with the street we realized that we haven't actually been walking the actual Korean town ~.~ there was another street that was indicated on the map that Should be the actual one. We walked to the street and it was just not as interesting as the previous, but still with lots more goods shop and restaurants and snacks! Think it's not as easy to find this street..., and the station is nearer to Higashi-shinjuku 東新宿駅 instead.

We headed to our sze chain restaurant at Nagatacho 永田町 for dinner from there.

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Had a bit of difficulty as we went to the wrong exit and couldn't find the building (forgot the name to start with). So I called the manager who helped us and he was nice enough to come over to drive us there! Turns out it was at exit 4 and just around the corner of MacDonald, and the car ride we had was less than 1 min (;´Д`A feel like such fools.

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Anyway we reached the restaurant and ordered our courses at 10+k yen and 13+k yen each (mr she just had to order the most expensive stuff, Bish "$&$+^) and the food was just amazing!! Love the shark's fin and dessert especially.

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the spoon/fork is so big

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SHARK's FIN!!! <3 MUAHAHAH. and we got a signature from the chef too! SO NICE!

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mabo tofu

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DESSERTS!!! love the lychee sorbet mango pudding combo.

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The chef, Kenichiro Chen, was also around as Katsuyama-San promised, and he took a walk around the restaurant before dinner was served. We got to take a picture with him and even received his signature!

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Felt like we achieved a certification of completion of course at an iron chef's restaurant. o.O also, since he flew back that day, it seems that Sakai-San of the French restaurant was back as well and visiting all the restaurant chains to greet customers too. Love the chef's attitude here. The fact that you can show your face and greet everyone is already a symbolism of the confidence in your food taste, ain't it! (",)

After dinner, we bought the restaurant's pudding again to try and headed home, tummy stuffed with treasures today. What a sinful day!!! Dxx

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Day 6 (20th July 2011) - La Rochelle, Takarazuka

We finally got to taste the Iron chef French cuisine! Reached the building only to find that there was actually a university fair going on at level 24, so we popped in to register and have a look for a while since we were still pretty early. Wasn't able to look much as our reservation was at 12. here's how to get there

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and here's the waiting area when we reached:

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This is the most posh and awesome lunch for me ever (",) (not to mention expensive). We took almost 4 hours to finish the whole course (set lunch at 5-9k+yen) and went off close to 4pm x_x|||

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We had free flow bread, champagne, appetizer, soup, main course, Pre-dessert, dessert wagon and post-lunch teabreak and sweets. Then we bought the chef's pudding home to try. There was a wine connoisseur and the waitress serving who tried to explain all the dishes, and during dessert you could choose the mix you want and they will design and arrange it on the plate nicely for you <3 here's all the food pictures!

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our juices

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some anchovy broth with lobster

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She's appetizer platter

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can't remember these

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foie gras

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cold corn soup, didn't know cold soup can be so nice!

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cheese platter

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and desserts from the wagon!

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post-dessert tea break sweets

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The marketing manager, who was probably the only person with the best English, came to talk to us and he was very friendly. He gave us his name card and helped us book the Chinese iron chef's restaurant! He even printed the map for us to go. Awesome. It seems that chef Sakai and chef Chen was away playing golf and we would be able to meet Chef Chen when we went over to the Chinese restaurant on Friday. Exciting!

So after our lunch, we went to ginza for a short tour and looked for takarazuka to watch. Most of the other shows were already either sold out or closed for the day, but thank goodness we could still buy tickets for takarazuka. The only show available was A Beautiful Life, set in the ancient Japanese era and featuring people like Ishida Mitsunari (super shuai main lead), Chacha (female lead) and other Sengoku characters (nobynaga, hideyoshi, Tokugawa, etc). Since we had an hour before the show starts we walked to Sakura-mon to look at the Imperial castle.

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It was really just a look because you can't enter unless you go there during 2 special days - one is a new year and I can't remember which is the other. Went back to the theatre for takarazuka and shopped around the souvenir shop.

Since I'm not yet a fan, I grabbed their free magazines for a brief look and wowed around their spectacular costumes. The theater is an all-girls troupe and the main leads are such bishonens!! *_*

we watched Life is Beautiful, set in the sengoku baasara kind of era

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Photos/videos are not allowed but i still took a few anyway. too irresistable...

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the main lead walked out with an awesomely dazzling coat at the front

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after break time, the second half was mainly dancing and singing

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i love the arab setting!

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and then there's a huge mix of a variety of people coming out from different eras..

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finally the finale. ostrich feathers spam...!

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Love their show so much I think I'm gonna make it a must-do everytime I come japan! went to snap lots of pictures of their past works as well till my batt ran flat...

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After the show we went over to Roppongi to have a quick look at their night scene. It was raining and late, so the sky aquarium wasn't opened (heng ah, observatory tower + aquarium, double nightmare). Neither was the movie (yay! Mo expensive movies!) as the timings all ended before 10. So we walked the clubbing area to look-see look-see. Too bad I couldn't remember where the club I went to with Stella was that had the 2 free coins for food, if not my dinner would have been fixed. We tried to walk to Tokyo tower but was pretty lost so walked back instead and ended up going to First Kitchen to eat their new burger and shaker fries.

Boarded the train back to the hostel around 11+ - the last train back was actually around 1, nice of them to cater to the party crowd! I think I miss hoeman and stella when we were here, it was so much more fun...! still, this picture was worth the night lol

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