Kiki & Lala

As promised, here is a little glimpse of the things in the Japanese capital that I thought were interesting/funny/amusing/plain weird.

As we know, the Japanese are a very organized bunch and this is none more true than when it comes to their fast food. While there is not much of a personal touch when it comes to ordering your food over the counter, the process is smooth and the food handlers never have to touch dirty bills and coins because you place and pay for your order through a vending machine…

So you pick a picture of what you want to eat, punch it in the vendo and get your…

which appears on the blue side of this monitor…

And when your number appears on the pink side, that means your order is ready and you can claim your…

Not bad considering this was just at a truck stop between Narita and Tokyo.

Check out their Coke bottles in these lovely silver aluminum bottles…

On our last day, we had lunch at a food court in Aeon Mall. They had a similar food ordering set up with the vendo machines…

…but instead of a screen that would tell you if your order was up, they gave us these…

Beepers!

Very cool, I thought. No shouting out orders, no standing and waiting. You can find your table and just go to the counter when the thing sounds off.

In Ginza, the glitzy (read: not suited to our budget) commercial area, we entered

to use the toilet.

And on the way out, I spotted…

Laduree!!! Right after I took this, some guy told me I couldn’t take pictures.

But the true heartbreak was that I decided to try just ONE macaroon. I wanted to buy a whole Y8,000 box to bring home but figured that if I bought it then, the pastries wouldn’t be so appetizing 4 days later in Manila. I was hoping we would be able to go back there but we didn’t!!! I will never forget my first encounter with a Laduree macaroon. It was caramel. Crunchy, flaky outside but moist and cake-y as your bite closes.. and the the sweet just gooey enough caramel in the middle… worth every damn cent, I swear. I was so entranced by this single pastry that cost about P250 that I forgot to photograph it. Annoying.

I know you’re dying to know about the sushi…
Does this look like it could disappoint?

Well, it didn’t.

The tuna was soft without a trace of that fishy smell. The toro was delightful and buttery but I ate it sans the raw quail egg yolk. The most surprising for me was the unagi. Just looking at it, you know it’s different from what’s served here. We’ve come to clasify unagi here as slightly chewy and rubbery and sweet. But in its land of origin it’s very fine and somewhere between soft and flaky and it is not loaded with sweetness.

I also had the kani sashimi. As you can see there’s a freaky dab of grey mush on it. But being a fairly adventurous eater, I went for it and to my absolute satisfaction, I found that the grey stuff tasted somewhat like anchovies or think maybe of a stink-less, “clean” japanese bagoong. Awesome combination.

And last but not least… park food!
It deserves special mention because you know how I detest park food but at Tokyo Disneyland I was happy. They had interesting things like “butter and soy sauce” popcorn which I didn’t get to try but here’s what I did get:

The sandwich was smoked salmon and shrimp with a drizzle of wasabi sauce. It was yummy even when cold (because they wouldn’t heat it for me and it was like 6C out!) Still, it was so much better than the crap in the States which was all fried tastelessness. Then I ended it with a melt-in-your mouth and not-too-creamy strawberry angel food cake trifle/parfait dessert.

Burp…