Kappabashi, Asakusa, Okonomiyaki, Monjayaki

DAY 6 – continued…

After a morning in Tsukiji, Ginza, and Akihabara, we met up with more friends in the cooking supply district of Kappabashi.

We bought a bunch of fun bowls and other kitchen accessories. But my favorite purchase…probably of the whole trip was this Japanese style vegetable knife. I use it almost everyday now and love it!

After shopping the six of us went for lunch in the area. The restaurant was inside of an office type building, not somewhere we would’ve gone on our own.

But it was a great choice, the chef made fresh handmade soba while we waited.

The warm dipping sauce with vegetables…

After our late lunch, we walked over to Asakusa to browse around until it was time for dinner. Eat…shop…eat…shop, my kind of vacation!

Next we made our way along the Sumida-gawa River…

To get to our dinner destination we had to cross over the Sumida-gawa on Sakura Bashi (bridge).

Along the way, our friend (the one who had been showing us around this whole time) showed us some of the roads he designed back when he was an engineer. I thought this one below was really cool. It’s supposed to be pictures of boats on the Sumida River with fireworks overhead!

The Japan National Tourism Organization says that in Asakusa, “the most popular event is the fireworks display along the Sumida-gawa River in summer, which over one million people gather to watch.”

Here is an aerial view of his road showing a better view of the boats and fireworks.

After walking down a few more streets…

we finally made it to our okonomiyaki/monjayaki restaurant called Ha Chan. There are some areas in Tokyo that are more famous for monjayaki (Tsukishima), but we chose this place because our friend is in a singing club with Ha chan.

Here is the menu that was on the wall.

First we had some appetizers…

Enoki Mushrooms

grilled with butter and shoyu…

along with oysters and Japanese onions.

Then came some okonomiyaki. Ha chan helped us mix and grill it.

Next we had some grilled potatoes with shoyu. I thought this was going to be plain, but it was actually really good!

Then we had some monjayaki. The first one was a negi monjayaki.

After mixing everything in the bowl, you scoop out the big pieces on to the grill. Then you form a circle with the ingredients and pour the liquid into the middle.

This negi monjayaki was really good. I didn’t expect to like monjayaki at all. Back home I had heard about and seen monjayaki. And in all the pictures I had seen, it pretty much looked like…well you can see from these pictures. But like others I found out looks can be very deceiving. I think I now like monjayaki better than okonomiyaki!

At this point I thought we were done with dinner but yet another bowl came out. This one was kimchi monjayaki. Also very delicious!

We were playing around seeing who could scrape and scoop the monjayaki the best. There is a whole technique to it that they taught us. You have a little spatula and scrape under the edge of it. Then you come over from the top side and push down while pulling a piece away. Here is one of my best scoops!

To finish off the evening we had something that was like a pancake with sweet beans inside for dessert.

This was a really fun dinner! For those of you hesitant like I was because of the looks of monjayaki, consider giving it a try at least once. I’m so glad I did!

DAY 1 & 2: Meiji Jingu, Harajuku, Omotesando, Shibuya, Ikebukuro
DAY 3: Mount Asama, Shiraito Waterfall, and Karuizawa
DAY 4: Ghibli Museum, Odaiba, Asakusa
DAY 5: Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Ochanomizu
DAY 6: Tsukiji, Ginza, Akihabara
DAY 6 (Part 2): Kappabashi, Asakusa, Okonomiyaki, Monjayaki
DAY 7: Japanese Baseball at the Tokyo Dome
DAY 8: Ueno Park, Yanaka Ginza, Sengakuji Temple, Beer Museum Yebisu
DAY 9: Nikko Day Trip – Toshogu Shrine and Yuba
DAY 10: Fishing in Tokyo
DAY 11: Kanamachi and Shibamata