Tokyo Day 4

Tokyo Day 4 was quite interesting... to me the entire country is interesting, so bare w/ me.

We started out with Ikebukuro, which is the northeast part of Tokyo metroplex. You get to go out of the train and you see Seibu department store as you try to exit the station.


My mom and I love Seibu because we are used to having that in Hong Kong. It's a great department store and we can spend the day at the food court. Yes, we love food... But it is a special treat to be in Japan's original Seibu because they are really neat to the max.


When we exit the train at the station, the floor we first come to is the food court... not just a regular food court with different cuisine, it is all sweets, cakes, gift boxes. We are talking about bakery and patisserie from all over the world to have a booth there. We are talking about French macarons by at least 3 famous makers and I ended up buying from Pierre Herme's macaron, hello! It's just awesome!

They have another floor of food court, except that's more like a grocery store/food market. Most of the food are from farm or catch to the store, they are ready for you to take home and cook. Definitely can get all your shopping in one place. Oh, and don't forget to check out their top floor, which is ususally their clearance and/or special market. When we were there, one section were all clothes, and another sections were prepared foods like jerky, cookies, and such. Of course, check out the neat stuff Japan has to offer in this giant department store, but I digress.

Anyway, the goal is really to go to Ikebukuro, supposedly they have the largest Tokyu Hands and couple of stores that I wanted to peak at. The thing is that we needed to find the Sunshine City.

On the map, it doesn't look very far from Seibu, but when you actually walk it, it is quite far. It's the giant city blocks that kills ya. But, it's a nice walk nonetheless. By the time we got to Sunshine City we were starving. This place contains the famous Tokyo Prince hotel, the place is older than the pictures I've seen, but it's near the food court, so we journey on.

In reality, Sunshine City is a giant mall with few food courts, several on the top floor w/ the Observation Deck, also higher end, couple in the midst of the shopping. But the other food area are tucked away in an annex. We came across a teppenyaki restaurant. As you can see, the fake food looked good... how can you resist?

Well, when we actually come to it, it is actually a you-cook-it type of place. The poor waiter seeing that we don't speak a lick of Japanese and pointing pictures, he felt bad and cooked it for us. While we were more than happy to experience the cooking procedure, since they have pictures and all, but he just saw how pathetic we were, he just cooked it for us. We had ordered a teppanyaki dish which has meat, and egg, and noodle. But it dosen't turn out like they did w/ the fake food. It was yummy nonetheless... told you, it was an experience.

One thing, total side bar, I have to tell you is that there are several cats houses/playground. This one in particular is on the top floor of Tokyu Hands in Ikebukuro. As a matter of fact, it is called Nekobukuro.

You pay $6000 yen, go thru these cat doors, and you entered to their playground. Cats run around or sleeping, you can pet them, and play with them. It is the oddest thing to see in person, but also the funnest, and very true Japan. So, if you are a cat lover, make a point to go there. If you don't want to go to the crowd of Tokyu Hands (which can be listed as a department store type place), they do have a Cats Apartment/Cafe you can visit across from the Complex.

Later in the day, I headed over to Harajuku. That's more of a young speed, also more foreigners hanging out there. One thing I do see alot of are these crepe stands. In Texas, finding a crepe stand is like finding that diamond in the rough. They are very few and far between. If you have a good one, you better hold on to them.

That said, there are crepe place everywhere. I'm guessing it has the thing to do with Japanese love the French culture. Kid you not, my baby French knowledge I had, actually came into small use when it comes to reading a few menus, and no I wasn't having French food in Japan... go figure.

I did consult w/ a Japanese native, and she did say that Japanese people love their crepes, which is why you see at least 30 different varieties at each stand you walk by. Trust me, you don't have to purposefully go looking for them. You can smell them near you by any main area you walk around... (you can definitely find them by the Tokyo Tower). These booths are mostly small 2 people operations, but as I said, they can handle more than 30 different type of crepes, don't you worry.

At night, we decided to have dinner by where we stayed down in Hanzomon. We've been eyeing on their dumplings and Chinese food for quite some time, and finally decided to walk in and give it a try.

The funny part is, the staff, with the exception of the head waiter, are all authentic Chinese. By their accent, we guessed that they're from Shanghai. Of course, their cooking also gave that away.

We weren't able to speak it, and can only point to pictures, but the entire Chinese cuisine were cooking in Shanghai style, so we figured it out. Their dumplings are fine, and you could easily find these yummy dumplings if you walk around mainland China. But in Japan, it's really rare and strange to find such great artisan in a tiny neighborhood.

From the looks of it, they do most of the business w/ delivery, which is also in competition with the Indian food and Steakhouse across the way. But, it is very good and interesting to find the diversity in food in a neighborhood that no one speaks English.

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In case you didn't know, I have this big obsession on macaron. Don't ask me why, I can't explain it, and I'm playing w/ recipes to try out different things.

As I said before, we were at Seibu, and they had several booths selling the world famous, top notch macaron the world has to offer. I've heard so much about Pierre Herme that I just HAD TO try them out for myself. Since I'm not going to Paris anytime soon, Japan will do.

Here's a very nice box, and in it, are the very nice macarons. They're light, not overpowering, flavorful and when you get the flavor card you can really appreciate the artistic love that went into the cookie. Every single one of them were delicious. I got overdosed on the sugar, but they were great... don't let anyone tell you otherwise!