If I’m being totally honest, my favorite dining experiences over 7 trips to Japan have not revolved around sushi, ramen, or tonkatsu, but around wagyu beef. Yes, a sushi omakase can be absolutely sublime, but the environment is typically a lot more subdued to pay respect to your sushi master. A premium yakiniku experience with …
Yakiniku translates to grilled meat, and chef Vanne Kuwahara’s yakiniku restaurant in Ebisu is my all-time favorite place to get it thus far. You can think of it as a meat omakase, where you get course after course of different cuts of the highest grade wagyu beef, with each one cooked meticulously over the charcoal …
I’ve been incredibly grateful to do 3 separate five-day trips to Niseko, a world-class ski and snowboarding destination in the Northern Hokkaido prefecture of Japan. It’s known as the powder capital of the world as they get insane amounts of light, powdery snow every season. Besides the idyllic conditions for winter sports, you’ll find some …
Welcome to Part 3 of The Indulgent Travel Guide to Japan, which highlights my 2 week trip to Tokyo, Kyoto, & Osaka in October 2015. In this part, I’m focusing on tonkatsu, which is Japanese panko-breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet. It’s typically served with shredded cabbage and a thick, tangy tonkatsu sauce that’s similar to Worcestershire sauce. There …
This is part 2 in my Indulgent Travel Guide to Japan, which highlights my 2 week trip to Tokyo, Kyoto, & Osaka in October 2015. In part 1, I gave a recap of all the different kinds of ramen we ate during our travels. This time around, I’ll be focusing on Japan’s other noodles: udon and soba. …
It’s crazy to think it’s now been 9 years since our first trip to Japan, when I first wrote this guide. Back in 2015, we spent 2 weeks in exploring Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, with day trips to smaller cities along the way. And while we saw a ton of beautiful places and experienced many …
