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Contact:
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We can’t come to Hakata without visiting 屋台 Yatai! We still recalled the very enjoyable yatai experience from many years ago, but we were unable to find the same stall during this visit. Nonetheless, we had read about a couple of very popular stalls, and decided to check out 屋台小金ちゃん Yatai Kokinchan. We arrived around 6pm, and there was already a queue!
We managed to try quite a few items, including:
The food felt rather homely, and we really enjoy the experience of just hanging around the yatai 🙂
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We were strolling along the shopping street when a half price 焼餃子 Pan-fried Gyoza and Beer advertisement caught our attention 😛
We had the 焼餃子 Pan-fried Gyoza (half price at ¥125 for 7 pieces), as well as the 水餃子 Steamed Gyoza (¥300 for 6). Boy, we were glad that we made this pit stop! The gyozas were very juicy and the skin was rather thin. We really enjoyed this snack food 😀
Contact (Outlet-川端店):
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After a day of train-riding, and after dropping our luggage at our hotel, we went in search for dinner. Google suggested a popular Kumamoto ramen restaurant near 熊本駅 Kumamoto Station, so off we went looking for 黑亭 Kokutei in the light drizzle.
Though it was dinner time, there wasn’t much of a queue, and we got into the restaurant after about 10 minutes of waiting. While waiting, there was an English menu available for us to browse.
We shared a Ramen Set (¥1290) consisting of 玉子入りラーメン (Tamago Iri Ramen) Ramen with Egg, 豚そぼろ丼 (Buta Soboro Don) Rice Bowl with Pork and Vegetables, and 特製ギョーザ Special Gyoza. We thought the food was pretty decent 🙂
Note that there are 2 outlets, and you can check its website for the locations.
熊本ラーメン黒亭本店 Kokutei Main Store:
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We were exploring the area near our hotel after the bus tour, and it was rather late by the time our stomachs called out to us 😮
We had wandered to 天文館公園 Tenmonkan Park, and Google search showed us that there was an 居酒屋 Izakaya just opposite us! Despite being so near, it took us a little while to find the entrance 😛
We had to remove our shoes upon entering, and were pretty lucky to get the last table. Once we settled down, we were presented with a 100% Japanese menu without pictures or food models, haha!
We poured over the menu and had a fun time trying to decipher some of the items with our limited vocabulary. The friendly staff also tried his best to explain what some of the items were, and gave us some recommendations.
A trip to 大阪 Osaka cannot be without a walk on 道頓堀 Dotonbori!
We idled for quite a while at a cafe in 難波駅 Namba Station before the skies turned dark and we reluctantly get up from the comfortable seats and made our way to 道頓堀 Dotonbori in the slightly drizzling weather.
The first thing to do was of course to take picture with the famous Glico Man, showing a giant athlete on a blue track as a symbol of the Glico candy (headquartered in 大阪 Osaka)!
A first-time trip to 京都 Kyoto would probably be incomplete without paying a visit to 錦市場 Nishiki Market. Despite being a Wednesday, where some shops were closed, there were actually still plenty to see, and it was less crowded too.
We had fun strolling around, just looking at the merchandise, and also snacking along the way. The popular soy doughnut shop was opened, and we got ourselves some Soy Doughnut (¥300). A pity it was not piping hot, but still not bad. It certainly tasted different from the soy doughnut that we had at 嵐山 Arashiyama.
We had initially planned (with flexibility) to go 河口湖 Kawaguchiko (to admire 富士山 Mt Fuji from afar) by bus either on Monday (1 Dec) or Tuesday (2 Dec). We were more keen to go on Monday, as we needed to get up early on Wednesday to catch the early 新幹線 Shinkansen to 京都 Kyoto.
As we got nearer to the dates, the weather forecast for Monday was cloudy, and sunny for Tuesday… Which kind of determined that we would go on Tuesday, because there’s no way to get a clear view of 富士山 Mt Fuji on a cloudy day.
Big banners
We wanted to try our luck at Teppei because I was attending a course nearby but the queue was incredible! And the place is ridiculously small, and with a waiting list of at least 4 months (and the impossibility of getting through the phone once the reservation starts), I am guessing it will probably be in our next life that we get to dine at Teppei. … provided there’s a Teppei in our next life, that is…
So we looked around the corner and here is Gyoza King! The big banners are really very inviting and since there is no queue, we decided this would be a gyoza night!
This is one of the 5 Ramen Keisuke Tokyo outlets, the others being:
Spread of appetizers
We haven’t been to Suntec City for a long while and boy, so many things have changed! There were also many new food options available, so after some consideration, we decided to try out Kimchi Korean Restaurant instead of the ramen restaurant 2 shops away, thinking that we might want to linger a while longer and the ramen shop is probably not so ideal for a long meal. Both had very good online reviews though!
We arrived just before 6.30pm and requested for a table of 5. The waitress responded that she had a table available but we had to clear out by 7.45pm. We declined and was offer an alternative 4-seater with an extra chair, which was fine, since the table was quite huge 🙂