Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka Trip Report - Oct. 2024

Regional Dining Discussions Asia Pacific
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I’ve been hesitating to post this here as it’s not super specific - not a lot of actual recommendations (though I am listing some below) because we mostly ate randomly and a lot of the time did not even figure out the name of where we were eating/drinking. Also, my blog post clearly contains a lot that is NAF. It’s also VERY wordy, as I tend to be. So, please, if anyone objects to this, maybe a mod can let me know and I’ll see if i can just cobble the food bits together and re-post.

My sister and I had planned this trip for over a year, but we were adamant about not over-planning/booking ourselves, and we succeeded. We made no reservations, and only consciously sought out, i think, three restaurants on the whole trip (and one of those (Gottsu) was our least favorite meal of the trip. Not bad, just not as great as everything else was. I have no idea where I even heard of it. We did mark a lot of places we wanted to try on a Google map, but didn’t end up using it much.

We were there only 9 days, and next time (next year!) will try to do a little longer trip with less cities. As many of you know, however, we could easily have spent the 9 days in Tokyo and not seen it all. As it was, 4 days there, 2.5 in Kyoto and 2.5 in Osaka was just not enough in any one place.

Restaurants/bars we went to that i remember the names of:

  1. Gottsu, in Shibuya, an izakaya/steakhouse of sorts, which touted itself as being all about the beef. While the wagyu steak I got tasted really wonderful, it wasn’t nearly as meltingly tender as those we had every other time in Japan. And my sister ordered a tomahawk pork steak which was actually dry. Other than that, the meal was good but I wouldn’t go back.
  2. SG Lounge. Friends steered us to a modern izakaya in Shibuya that was wonderful and I’d definitely go back. Playful dishes like spicy cod roe mac & cheese, and white anchovy and cream cheese on nori. https://www.instagram.com/sglow_shibuya/ The owners also have a speakeasy bar just up the street which we went to afterwards, SG Club. Great, inventive cocktails.
  3. KYK - a tonkatsu restaurant recommended by an old man bartender in Kyoto, hidden in a mall basement. Fantastic, cheap, locals only, delicious. https://www.tonkatu-kyk.co.jp/tonkatu/shopdetail/3/ Of course, the website is in Japanese!
  4. Bar in Osaka - we went three times - posh, unlike most of the others we saw (which we did not eschew! We went to tiny, smoky, divey Albatross in Golden Gai more than once) - with bartender/owner Max from Lyon, making his own tinctures, dried herbs and alchemist-y concoctions - the most imaginative, interesting, and delicious cocktails I’ve ever had. Bar Hedonist. https://www.instagram.com/hedonistosaka?igsh=dm90dzRtb2Y2MjMw&utm_source=qr
  5. Rock Stock, a bar in an old man’s garage in Kyoto. Just beer & whiskey, he plays full albums and music videos. Very casual, small, chill. We loved it. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064918830850
  6. Liquid Ruby - the bar mentioned in my blog post, where the only light was from little kerosene lamps and Ruby (the bartender) played opera all night. He told us there was no drinks menu, but that he could make us any cocktail we wanted.
  7. Cat lady bar, also mentioned in the blog in Kyoto, Umineko, run by the super sweet and lovely Keiko. https://www.instagram.com/umineko_nyaao_/
  8. Matsuhisa Morisuiji in Asahi-ku, Osaka. Super locals place, we were told this was an omakase by a young Japanese bar-back at Hedonist, but it was more like an izakaya. Very casual, we had a lovely, leisurely lunch there, with the most amazing sashimi. https://tabelog.com/en/osaka/A2701/A270304/27045602/

Of course we went to Tsukiji, Nishiki and Kuromon and ate our fill. We ate at holes-in-the-wall, had many, many delicious snacks from 7-eleven and Family Mart, and one nicer teppanyaki omakase meal in Shinjuku (which still only ran us about $110 for both with drinks - every place else was ridiculously cheap, even for fantastic, fresh sushi and fabulous A5 Wagyu.)

All in all, a great trip, culinary and otherwise, and we are setting our sights for a mid-April return.

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That was a wonderful post in your blog. Thank you for sharing!

That mound of lettuce wasn’t high enough. They could do better. :rofl:

What I found about snow monkeys is that they are very good in multitasking- running and peeing and pooping at the same time. Often have to dodge their stuff while they pass by. So I am not sure if I want to be in the same onsen baths as they do! :sweat_smile:. Hopefully they know better than to pollute their own baths.

Re: shopping in Japan, we were such amateurs. The pro travellers bring their wheeled suitcases with them to the department stores.

The Hokkaido soft serves was indeed a revelation. So different than milk elsewhere.

A shot during the day without a single soul at Fushimi- now that’s a feat.

We had some life changing mochi at a non mochi place in Nara. And we didn’t get any extra. :sob:

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Finally.

I feel the same. When I get home I know where in Japan I want to visit on the next trip(s). Though the southern islands are my top priority. It’s different from “mainland” Japan in terms of culture and language etc. The cuisine is a mix of Japanese and other s.e. Asian countries.

It’s officially my #1 country, now that smoking inside restaurants/bars is not allowed anymore. (Don’t think there’s an official smoking ban, though.)

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Looks like you enjoyed your trip, as you should.

SG stands for Shingo Gokan, who’s kinda famous in the mixology world and has outlets around different parts of the world, including NYC, Shanghai, HK…

Famichiki is ALWAYS wifey’s first bite after landing in Japan, and after comparing the egg sando among 7-11, FamilyMart, and Lawson… I’m still kinda torn between 7-11 and Fami and can’t decide which is my favorite.

Shame you didn’t get to pet capybaras. We managed to see capys at two locations - one in a Tokyo cafe where we did get to pet it, and also at a zoo in Fukuoka where we came close but didn’t cross into their enclosure. We love them, too.

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thanks so much!

they came round periodically with a bucket of cabbage to refill you at your heart’s desire, so we had plenty, believe me! :star_struck:

yeah, that Hokkaido milk and milk products were really something else.

i will do even more, targeted shopping come April!

as for onsen with snow monkeys, truly aspirational. I watched a tik tok video and some girl did it and the monkeys seemed to keep their distance, and with all that thermal water, what’s a little poop? :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m sure it’s not going to happen anytime soon, though. just a dream…

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good to know about SG, thanks!

re Family Mart vs. 7-Eleven - 7-Eleven was at the foot of our hotel, so we went there most often, but we preferred the egg sando at Family Mart, as well as Famichiki, of course. there is some overlap on some of the snacks, of course, but 7-Eleven did carry some that i loved that FM didn’t.

and to add to the debate, we finally tried the Lawson’s chicken patty at the airport - didn’t hold a candle.

as for the capybaras - lucky you! We were torn - we’d read a lot about not-great conditions for most of the other animal cafes and didn’t want to give our money to that. we hadn’t found anything bad written about the capybara cafes, so we thought we would try, but we were still a little leery - i mean, capybaras love the water, and there are no pools in the cafes! in the end, the ethical dilemma was decided for us as when we tried to book it was sold out. So, we may try again, unless i hear something definitively bad about those particular cafes. But i still want to do it!

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It is our new favorite country, for sure, for now. and there’s so much more to explore. Tokyo is still going to be part of our agenda, since we really feel we didn’t give it enough time. We’ll take day trips this time, with maybe a few days again in Kyoto.

As for the smoking, we encountered quite a few bars in all three cities that still allowed smoking, unfortunately. I quit completely early this year, and wasn’t drawn to those places at all. but we did sit in a couple, just because everything else was inviting about the particular place.

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Re: egg sando - it’s entirely personal of course. FM has more chunks of egg whites plus egg yolks in the filling while 7-11 blended more of the yolk in with the mayo and was more “creamy”.

I know of 2 cafes in Tokyo with capys. The one we went to was the Capyneko Cafe next to Kichijoji Station. They only have 1 capy Kii-chan, who lives in an admittedly small-ish enclosure that looks like it has a tub that can hold water… although she remains dry during visiting hours. They have more than a dozen cats which have been rescued from the streets and are up for adoption, and there is a wall showing which cats are current residents and which previous residents have “graduated” i.e. been adopted. You get about 1 hour of play time with them shared with a few other visitors. Kii-chan gets fed a couple of times during this hour by the staff. I’ll admit that Kii-chan doesn’t seem to have a lot of space in her enclosure during off-hours, but knowing about the cat rescue part of the operation gives me comfort that they really do love animals.

I haven’t been to the Cafe Capyba which has 2 capys and no cats, because the slots are only 30 minutes. I believe you can buy snacks and feed the capys yourself.

We have a trip to Tokyo in December and have thought about visiting one of 2 places on the Izu Peninsula south of Tokyo for capys. One is a zoo with a famous outdoor onsen where capys love to bathe - although you can’t go in with them. https://izushaboten.com/kapiroten-en/

The other has a hotel where certain villas have spaces that are open to capys and they may wander in, and you can watch them from inside your room. Those villas also have balcony doors where you can open to the deck and play with capys. Here the villas with capy access are expensive, but you can stay in the cheaper rooms and visit capys at the Izu Animal Kingdom just next door. https://izu-resort-villa.jp/

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we just found that 7-11’s egg sando was a little blander, though very nice and creamy.

capybaras… interesting… a friend of mine was there a month or so prior to us and she went to this place:

she posted pictures of a little cafe with a few capybaras milling about. so this is the one we tried to reserve but couldn’t get into. we looked at their instagram page and found a couple of pictures that seemed to suggest there was a pool of some sort in the back, which is why we decided to try it. I agree that the cat rescue part is comforting, but i would be too sad to know the enclosures for the capybaras are not very spacious. Much as I’d love to pet one, I think we’ll pass.

Good to know about the Izu Peninsula! and that hotel sounds amazing. We probably won’t venture that far on this next trip, but someday! Thanks for the info.

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Wonderful read, Maria. My sis and BIL are currently on a Korea/Japan adventure, leaving Kyoto for Tokyo tomorrow, and I’ve sent your report their way :pray:t3:

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nice! i’d love to go to Korea too…
and thanks! I don’t know how much useful info it has for them, but i’m sure they’ll find their own favorites.

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Another vote of love-fest for travelling to Japan at the moment. Reasonable prices, great food, lovely culture, easy to travel in. A few spots:

  • I also loved the jazz listening room bars, and casual drinking bars. Not surprised to see your hanging out in a garage locals place a favorite.

  • Regarding beef, I randomly found a place in Ginza called “Ginza Cobau”. While it was not “worth a detour”, it had a beef tasting menu cooked at table that I greatly enjoyed. With about 10 different cuts and preparations including some exquisite toung, I was happy to have stumbled in. I think I paid a bit, but y’know, Ginza. I think there was one taste that had gold flakes and caviar on it.

  • Sapporo - I had two reservations by a food co-conspirator in Tokyo, long story, which were exquisite. One was Matsukura, in which a new young chef has started a new kaiseki style place, but his father and grandfather had restaurants, so some recipes are 80 years old. I was quite impressed and hope he has a long career. The dashi, for example, was better than I’ve had. The usual 2 seatings, 8 people at a bar. front of the chef thing. The second was Sushi bar Arima, which had some hokkaido specalties, including something called Octagon fish, and of course Uni, but it was the best uni I had on that trip (and I went to the markets etc etc). Both places are japanese language only (I mean they tried and I tried and we communicated to some extent, but you’ll do best getting a reservation with someone who speaks japanese calling, as it common with the better places).
    http://matsukura-sapporo.com/
    https://zendine.co/sushi-dokoro-arima/

My friend actually was suggesting an Italian restaurant in Sapporo more than Arima, but I said I was much more interested in food that you could only get in Hokkaido, which I think is how we got to Arima.

  • I did not get the soft serve in Hokkaido, sounds like I missed out, but I did have a few meals of Curry Soup, which I loved. One was at a well-reviewed but otherwise just normal lunch place, another one was more famous, both were great, and a bit of a welcome respite from so many other Japanese foods which are far more subtle. I also went to Sapporo’s “ramen alley” but didn’t think much of the particular ramen I had that day - and it was a bit touristy.
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Thanks for all this! I was seriously thinking of going to Hokkaido on this next trip, but we still have so much of Tokyo we haven’t seen, and even Kyoto - we feel like we gave them both short shrift. so, we’re heading back to Tokyo with day trips, and a few more days in Kyoto. But, the next, next time!

I’d read about a jazz club that we wanted to go to, and at the time we thought it was “too far out”, but now we’re thinking we’ll venture away from home base more. We are thinking of staying in the tiny neighborhood of Koenji - supposedly more of a locals vibe, known for live music.

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Yes, at some point it’s time to check out Hokkaido. It has a well connected airport about 45 minutes by train from Sapporo center. Getting to the more scenic and interesting parts of Hokkaido seemed difficult, only worth it if one has about 6 days for Hokkaido generally, and a toss up between renting a car, flying to the coast and taxis, vs some train/bus. In retrospect I would have grabbed a car and headed east across the island. To get to Sapporo, I took the train up - Shinkasen to Hakodate then a fast express regular train the rest of the way - they’re extending the line. That line has “gran classe” which is a step up from Green and the sushi sampler was QUITE good. I flew back to Osaka and there were a lot of flights, and they were cheap. All the vending machines in Hokkaido seemed to have hot corn soup; corn is def. a thing in Hokkaido and I now have the affectation of ordering corn with my ramen more often than not. While I greatly enjoyed Sapporo, there’s so much more of Japan and I might not get back there soon. Damn the food was good though. Enjoy your next trip.

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thank you!! April 2025!!