Food in Japan, Part 7

Food post for days 10 and 11 :3

On Day 10, we went to Kiyomizu-dera, a lovely temple in Kyoto surrounded by beautiful winding streets.  After lunch at an Italian restaurant, we went to Osaka castle and then Nanba, a shopping district in Osaka that looked very similar to Tokyo.

Breakfast was... well, as usual, at the hotel XP

Interesting bar area near the buffet.

We had lunch at this lovely Italian restaurant named "The Garden Oriental Kyoto."  The restaurant was previously a house which was built a long time ago, which was kind of funny, because all the ceilings were pretty low so almost all of the guys had to duck at  every doorway and beam XD  Tiffy noticed it as we were leaving, and when she pointed it out to me, I started giggling... but anyways.

There was soup and salad for appetizers, as well as a dinner roll with olive oil.  The main dish was pasta, and the dessert consisted of green tea ice cream and an interesting caramel-ish... chocolate... something or other pudding.

It was funny to see the guys drinking tea out of these tiny cups.  Matt posed for me, haha XP

We had dinner in Nanba -- okonomiyaki, a pancake stuffed with lots of different kinds of meat/veggies, topped with a special soy sauce and mayo.  We also added some bonito (fish flakes) and... I forgot, I think those were chives?  After that, we had some takoyaki (octopus chunks stuffed inside fried flour balls) finally :3

The takoyaki stand front.  The guy was in the middle of making a 'v' sign when I took the picture, so I didn't quite get that.  They were really nice :3  This is the best takoyaki in Japan, they told us -- go get some!

And dessert was the red bean/mochi thing we got so long ago XD  Along with some green tea.  Nom~

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Day 11 was our last day in Japan :(  We went to Todaiji Temple and its connecting Nara Park.  Todaiji has a huge Buddha statue that was beautiful and well-crafted... so amazing :3  And Nara Park was the place with the deer.  Lastly, we went to Kobe... and had some yummy Kobe beef.

But first, breakfast, which was at an interesting cafe called the Flying Tomato.  It was interesting... but really noisy >__<

Look, our bread has the hotel's name on it XD

Weird pickled... purple-y... thing.

Fancy chopsticks o.o

As we rode to our lunch destination, Maiko-san showed us these interesting seaweed potato chips she had bought.  She gave each of us some to let us try it and used this interesting hand clip thing that she said was actually really hard to use.

Lunch was unagi (eel) that we could eat two ways~  It was pretty yummy.  The unagi was over rice, which we could eat with the pickled vegetables.  We could also pour the broth (in the tea pot) into our bowls to eat it chazuke-style.

Dinner was THE Kobe beef :3  I normally don't like beef, but this stuff is good.  Tender and delicious, which is a lot from me XP  We had cream soup and salad for an appetizer, and then the chef cooked some veggies and then the beef.  I had mine well-done, but it didn't quite come out well-done.  Nevertheless, the ones I did eat (the ones that didn't ooze XD) were very good.  You should definitely try it if you go to Kobe, ignoring the price :3

And of course, we had dessert :3  We went to the romantic spot of Osaka, which was sort of weird for us, but we had fun anyways XD  We got gelato -- the white was Calpis flavor, the pink strawberry shortcake, and I think the last was... mango?  Uh... Tiffy, help me out here.