Super rushed post for Kasahara-saaaaaaaaaaan!! ∑(゜Д゜;)
Might organize this better someday. Might not!
Part 1: Chain stores
Stores that you can find anywhere!
Sukiya, Yotsunoya
The true cheap fast food of Japan – gyuudon chains! Not amazingly surprising food but they’re great if you’re short on money, still great if you’re full of money. Sukiya’s chiizu gyuudon is a fav between my friends, and the chiizu kare is something that doesn’t seem like it would work but it’s quite yummy! The karaage is a secret menu that very few Sukiyas have but their karaage is really good. (the best I ate actually ;_; or maybe I was just really hungry)
Yotsunoya’s karubidon is tasty. (I’m team sukiya in case you didn’t notice)
Tendonya
One of my favorite chains ever. They have tempura donburis, which is basically rice with a lot of tempuras on top. It’s delicious. Amazing. Delicious. It comes with miso and their free tea is yummy. I love this shop. Their mini udon set is quite good too!
They also have a lot of sazonal deals, with stuff like sweet potatoes or pumpkin during fall (depends on whether halloween has passed or not :P)
Saizeriya
One of the other binbou-ni options, it’s the cheapest of the family-restaurant style restaurants. It’s western food, so not so impressive but it’s close to the heart so I gotta put on the list. My recc is the doria with karami chicken, or pizza! (cheapest place to eat pizza, together with Shakeys, but I think Saizeriya’s are tastier)
Chuuka Soba Hidakaya (中華そば 日高屋)
I just found out that’s how this place was called. I ate there like every week.
Probably the cheapest ramen chain I’ve ever seen, it’s still really good. I’ve been to meh ones, but the one next to my house was my saviour. One of them anyway. Why did they have two on the same street? Ca-ham.
The gyozas there are good (dont forget the shoyu with a drop of pepper!) and my recc is the shiru nashi ramen (soupless ramen). It has a bit of soup under it, you gotta break that egg on top and stir everything to get top deliciousness out of it!!
Part 2: Restaurants
Just a few recommendations of good places I went to. I don’t think any is a MUST GO, but if you’re close by and don’t know where to eat they’re good choices!
Basqet
Actually this is a chain too. The one I went is on the restaurant floor of Akiba’s Yodobashi. It’s a chiq restaurant that has a bread buffet. Bread buffet!!! The dishes are really yummy too. I recommend going during lunch time because it has better deals AFAIK, but it also has a bit of a line. A bit on the expensive side.
Tsukemen Rokurinsha
A great tsukemen on the Sky tree shopping mall. It’s a bit on the expensive side (as all tsukemen are) but it’s so definitely worth it. The soup flavour is amazingly deep, the toppings are really good and the noodles are just right. Be careful that it’s a lot of food!! (as all tsukemen are)
Also can have a bit of a line but I didn’t wait much both times I went, so if you avoid eating-rush hours you should be fine.
(also don’t forget how to eat tsukemen properly: never pour the soup on the noodles! you should put a bit of noodles at a time on the soup and eat. You can drop a bunch of noodles on the soup and eat it from there, but never the opposite)
Thematic Restaurants
Capcom Bar
I think this one is a must for video games fans. It’s no big deal actually – the decor isn’t hugely impressive (a few figures here and there), the entertainment isn’t huge (only two tvs with video games to play), and the place is really small. The biggest attraction is that the waiters will often enact scenes of famous capcom video games when engaging customers, but this might not be so attractive when you don’t speak japanese. (and they seem to get a bit shier when you don’t)
But I still like the atmosphere a lot. The thematic foods aren’t as expensive as in other thematic cafes (I think) and they are quite tasty, too. I think whether this will be a good experience or not depends a lot on who’s going to the cafe besides you and how open to having fun you are at that time. I know I had a lot of fun!
Bonus point: You can make reservations online. (a review said it didn’t work out for them, but it worked for me – you could make a call after reserving to make sure)
(turnabout takoyakis and objection onion ring tower is my suggestion! as the GS fag that I am)
FFXIV cafe
This one is a bit bigger and more crowded than the Capcom cafe from my experience, which means you have less interactions with the waiters and strangers around you. The decor is cooler, and it looks like you are in the tavern in Gridania. The food is really, really awesome, but more expensive than Capcom cafe. Making a reservation also costs 1k per head, so it ends up way more expensive. They have a nifty incentive for going more times tho, simulating the Grand Companies in the game.
I think the big thing of going to the cafe is doing a dungeon in the computers they have there, but since we weren’t leveled enough and there’s limited time in the cafe we didn’t look further into it. I had a lot of fun and good yummy food, but if you’re not into FFXIV this might not be for you since it gets a bit expensive.
Recc: The Bomb croquette is kinda small, but tasted really good and was really impressive. ALSO THE MOOGLE HONEY TOAST. Because I’ve always looked at those toasts in all the Pasella resorts and thought “how the hell can they pay so much for bread and ice cream” so thank you moogle toast for teaching me that this tastes good
Baratie
The thematic One Piece restaurant is in the FujiTV building in Odaiba, making the trip itself worth it. Probably the best one when it comes to the decor, it has the whole crew as sculpted 1/1 figures around the restaurant. The menu is also really thematic, although most of the foods seemed to relate to a certain saga rather than being about important characters.
The food….. Was really good, but for the price I didn’t think it was as good as in Capcom cafe or Eorzea cafe. I still think it’s really worth it if you’re an One Piece fan. My recc is the Franky cola – crazy but it tasted really good!
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Ok, that’s it for now! I might add more things when I remember then, and add some pics~