[Vancouver] Japa Dog

Review Location:
899 Burrard Street,
Vancouver, British Columbia

Japa Dog Website 

I'm sure at some point in your life, you've had a hot dog, yes? And I'm sure Japanese cuisine is no stranger to most stomaches.  Now what about a Japanese hot dog? Japa Dog (@Japadog) serves exactly what it's name seems to depict : a Japanese Hot Dog. Japa Dog was the idea of Noriki Tamura when he and his wife moved to Vancouver in 2005 from Japan. He originally had a regular normal hot dog stand, but decided he needed to differentiate to gain more customers. Merging the cuisine from his Japanese background into his hot dogs became a huge success, and now there are six locations with more stores to be opened in the U.S.! Anyways, I finally got to try this out as part of my flight layover between Hong Kong and Toronto. Luckily I have lots of family in Vancouver so they took me around to eat for the whole 9 hours I was there!

[Hong Kong] Neptune's Restaurant + Self-Freezing Coke @ Ocean Park

Location Review:
Ocean Park, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
海龍王餐廳 @ 香港海洋公園

Neptunes Restaurant

Almost every time I visit Hong Kong, I end up making a visit to Ocean Park. I used to love going when I was younger, and to this day I still feel the magic. Think of it as an marine mammal amusement park. Lots of roller coaster rides, aquariums, animal habitats (including my favourite one -- pandas!), shows, and exhibits. I don't know why, but I'm just so captivated by observing and learning about creatures and their habitat. Reminds me that there is something more on this earth than just us humans. Oh, and then there's the food.

In many amusement park, you can't really expect to find gourmet food. A lot of it is fast food, and there is the occasional sit down place that doesn't provide much of a restaurant experience. Fully anticipating this, I was pleasently surprised when stepping inside  Neptune's Restaurant.

[Hong Kong & Japan] McDonald's in Asia

Location Review
Mcdonald's  in Japan & Hong Kong



I don't know about you, but I really love going to different places and seeing a new and interesting Mcdonald's menus. I know it's not fine dining or gourmet food, but something about Mcdonald's just gets to me. I guess it's one of those places that just grew up with you, been through thick and thin, early and late, and no matter what happens you'll probably still eat it. A timeless classic in my books  that you can never get bored of!

So when I went to Asia, I had Mcdonalds a couple of times. It's interesting to see how they have different twists on common North American food items (mango flavoured flavoured ice cream, taro pies, etc), but it's even more exciting when you see an item that you don't find in your homeland.

[Japan] Coco's Restaurant

Location Review
２８−１ Teradai, Narita, Chiba Prefecture 286-0022, Japan

Coco's Restaurant

Have you ever played the game Cooking Mama? It was actually the very first game that I got for my Nintendo DS, and it just amused me so much. It might've been the mindless nature of the game, but I think part of the attraction was seeing all the Japanese dishes and how they're made. If you've ever played it, then you might remember making the hamburg steak. That was probably my favourite dish to make! Anyways, while I was in Japan I finally got to try this dish, and put a taste to all those digital ones that I made!

[Japan] Ganso Zushi (元祖寿司)

Review Location 
Dogenzaka 2-29-14, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 〒 150-0043

Ganso Zushi

I think you can probably tell by the amount of Japanese food posts I have on this blog, that I really love it. That's why this trip to Japan was such heaven for me. Another day in Japan, another day of sushi!. This time around, Rob and I opted to go conveyor belt sushi. I had gone once while I was in Hong Kong, but you can never really have enough sushi. No, especially not when you're in Japan.

[Japan] Grom Gelato

Location Review 
6-31-15, Mansion 31 1F, Jingumae, Shibuya-ku , Tokyo,- Japan

Grom 

Before coming to Japan, it was an unknown fact to me how good the milk is here. I thought living in Canada with its abundance of cattle and other livestock out in the Praries, we'd have incomparable milk. It wasn't until my cousin Dawnee from Hong Kong enlightened me about how good Japanese milk products were, that I made it a goal to have some while I was visiting Japan. I believe her exact words were "I had a ice cream/gelato everyday!". Well then, gelato it is.

[Japan] Gindaco

Location Review
Tokyo Shinjuku Kabukicho 3-24-3
東京都新宿区新宿３丁目２４−３

Gindaco Homepage

I always find myself constantly searching for a good takoyaki place in Toronto. The best I've had is so far probably at Guu. If you've never had takoyaki before, then you're definitely missing out. It starts off with a bite size peice of grilled octopus dropped into a sphere-like mold along with a savory batter. As it cooks in the mold, the  batter cooks and the outside becomes crispy. The result is a takoyaki ball! (This Gindaco page has a pretty neat visual of the creation process) It's then topped with takoyaki sauce and usually mayo along with other toppings. For something that doesn't contain a lot of ingredients, its surprising how different it can taste.  Sometimes its too soggy, sometimes the consistency isn't right, and sometimes the squid inside just tastes downright awful. Lucky for me, on one of the last days in Japan, I was graced with the opportunity to eat some decent takoyaki right outside the Shinjuku nishiguchi train station.