Japan travel guide : Kobe beef

Cos what’s a trip to Kobe without having their famed Kobe beef right?

This trip was kinda satisfying for me in terms of food I guess, despite some hiccups and arguments with my mum.

Anyway, we went to eat Kobe beef cos I really wanted to try it and it would have cost an arm and leg to eat it in Singapore if it’s even available here in the first place.

I went to google and while there’s the cheaper option Kobe steak land with set from 2900 yen or something? The cuts don’t look that good in terms of marbling and all but others were either too expensive (10,000 yen or more for lunch?) and so we decided to head over to Steak Aoyama which is featured in the Kobe tourism website and provide lunch set at about 5900 yen (excluding tax).

This meal might be one of the most expensive meals of the trip but we totally don’t regret it at all.

Firstly, the restaurant is actually kind of far from sannomiya station, probably about 15-20 mins walk if you don’t get lost. I would suggest getting a pocket (portable) wifi and saving the places you wna go in google maps and use it to navigate around Japan especially if you don’t know the language or is going to Japan for the first time. This is really useful and it really helped me especially since this is my first time going to the kansai areas. I will talk about the pocket wifi in a separate post.

The restaurant is kind of small, similar to many stand-alone restaurants in Japan (normally chain restaurants will be bigger) so it will be good to make reservations in advance if you are going in a big group.

The meal started with an appetizer and a soup and then you get to choose between the sirloin and the fillet. We ordered one sirloin and one fillet and the chef helped us to split them equally so we get half sirloin and half fillet each. I personally feel the sirloin is better as it has more fats and hence will melt in your mouth more but the fillet is good enough as it is soft and tender but I guess I just prefer unhealthy stuffs? We got about 8 small cubes of beef each together with vegetables and mushrooms. They gave us pink salt for dipping and it’s really good (& it’s healthier than normal salt as well right?). You can choose either rice or toast to go along with your meal. We chose rice but the toast look so good too. The chef will cook the toast with butter on the teppenyaki grill if you ordered toast. The butter melting on the toast and all is just… I really wished I ordered and ala carte toast just cos it looks good lol but I don’t think I could finished it and I didn’t know if they sell it ala carte too.

Ah well, after a satisfying meal which my mum said took damn long cos the chef cook the food slowly and with dedication infront of you, we were moved to another table to have our after meal coffee or tea which you can choose. I think Kobe is famous for coffee or something but I had tea though cos I’m not a coffee person lol. The meal was really good and I love the meat.

Now that’s the thing about meat in Japan, I don’t know if it’s only a Singapore thing but sometimes when eating beef and lamb, especially lamb in Singapore, there’s this smell of the meat that they can’t handle well enough which then turns people off. My mum doesn’t like to eat beef, at least in Singapore but after eating beef in Japan she kept asking me if we are going to go back to eat the Kobe beef again cos it’s just that good.

If you are not in a hurry, I will recommend you to go for a Kobe beef lunch (tips: lunch sets in Japan are definitely cheaper than dinner set even if they are the same thing. Don’t ask me why.) and enjoy the experience. I don’t know about steak land but I read online reviews and it has positive reviews as well and so if you are on a budget you might want to check that out but there’s always a long queue for steak land though and I guess the queue will be quite fast though cos it is bigger?

Anyway here’s the link for
Steak aoyama
Kobe steak land

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Japan travel guide: Pablo

There are two famous/ popular cheesecake/ cheesetart shops in Osaka and one of them is Pablo.

Pablo cheesecake primarily come in two kinds - rare and medium and only offered in one size (about 15cm in diameter?) and is 800 yen each. The medium is slightly more cooked while the rare one is less cooked and meaning when the cake is freshly baked, the insides of the tart will flow out when you cut into it.

They also sell pudding and seasonal cheese tarts with fruits etc on it, together with cheese snacks and so on. They also have the limited quantity premium cheesetart which sold out very quickly. The premium cheesetart and seasonal cheesetarts/ all other with toppings or fillings will obviously cost more but they are really worth it.

I got one rare cheesetart to share with my mum. At first glance, it seems very big and filling and my mum was harping on how we will never finish it as she doesn’t really like cheesecake/ cheese stuffs. However, we finished it really easily and my mum who doesn’t even like cheese that much find it nice too as the cheesetart is really light and the texture is something I have never eaten before. I was regretting that I only got one but ah well.

They have various outlets at dotonbori (namba area) alone so getting it is easy although there might be queues but I went just before closing hours and so I didn’t have to queue for long.

More info here

P.S. Pablo has opened in Tokyo (Shibuya & Shinjuku)


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Japan travel guide: Eggs n Things

So this time round, I finally went to eggs n things for pancakes!

There are various branches in osaka, tokyo, Yokohama and so on but I went to the one in Tokyo which is near Harajuku. More info here

It was raining when I went there so we couldn’t dine alfresco but there’s wasn’t a long queue probably cos we went early too and so we were directed to the 2nd level which was already packed when we went in.

You can check out their menu here 

When we went they were still having the Halloween special menu but I didn’t order that as I wanted to try the original pancakes with strawberry. We ordered one steak with egg and one pancakes with strawberry and whipped cream.

We were given options to pair our steak and eggs with toast or pancakes (think we have to add a couple hundred yen) or potatoes. I opted for the toast. Surprisingly, despite being a pancake restaurant, the steak still tasted quite decent and the eggs and cooked well to your liking (you can choose if you want sunny sides up, runny yolks and so on, which I thought is pretty good and considerate of them). I enjoyed the meat and eggs.

The pancakes, well the pancakes are awesome. The whipped cream is fluffy and light although they give you loads of it, like seriously a mountain of it, I managed to finish all of the whipped cream (yes I know it is fattening but it just tastes so good). This is totally worth the calories and money.

They have various sauces on the table incase you get sick of your pancakes. Think there’s the maple, guava

and coconut or something (i can’t exactly remember all the syrups) but I think it is fine without the syrups as there’s ample whipped cream to pair the pancakes with and thurs the pancakes don’t seem dry. However, when you are halfway through the pancakes (I think there’s like 4-5 pieces if I am not wrong), you might get sick of the same rate and that’s when the syrups come in handy.

A satisfying breakfast and it’s about 20 sgd each. Don’t regret it at all seriously and if I happen to visit Japan again, I will definitely go there again early to avoid the queues.


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Cheap Kobe beef: 2000 yen Kobe Beef

2000 yen Kobe beef

There's lots of food in kuromon ichiba located at Nipponbashi which is like one station away from Namba and Nagahoribashi. It is a good place for breakfast (lots of affordable sushi/ sashimi/ crabs compared to restaurants and even Tokyo Tsukiji fish market).

Kuromon ichiba sells a wide variety of stuffs, it's practically like a shopping street with shops selling household items, cutlery, snacks, cooked food, seafood and so on and the prices there are cheaper than some other places in Osaka, so it's worth checking this place out if you are visiting Osaka.

I have written a post previously on my Kobe beef experience in Kobe and while that meal (a set) set me back at more than 6000 yen per person, Kobe beef at kuromon ichiba is cheaper by a lot (rice and soup not included). 

Maruzen at kuromon ichiba sells Kobe beef for 2000 yen (SGD23/ less than 20 USD) and while the beef portion was obviously a smaller and thinner version than that of a restaurant that specializes in Kobe beef, it is enough. The marbling on the beef looks good and there's like about 7-8 pieces of beef for one serving which is very worth the money that you are paying for imo.



We ordered one portion each and my mum loved it too. 


Kuromon ichiba map here
Map of the shop here