Lily Zhen - One Thing at a Time and Conquer the World: JAPAN Summer Trip Day 2 Pt. 2

Okay, I'm on a roll here, so I'm gonna finish up the part 2 of this post.

Here's what I got so far on the travelogue:

DAY 1 | Shinsaibashi & Sinsekai

DAY 2 Pt.1 | Universal Studios Japan Osaka

As I said on my previous posts, we had to leave USJ early because we had a dinner reservation.

AT A FREAKING CHINESE RESTAURANT!!! WTFBBQ.

WHO GOES TO JAPAN AND EAT CHINESE FOOD PLEASE? Especially if you're from Indonesia where we pretty much have Chinese food almost every.single.day.

😑😑😑😑😑

Though, I can't really blame the tour agent here, because there are some members of the tour who don't like Japanese food, so I'm guessing the tour agent kindly tried to accommodate that. To their credit, the Chinese food here were actually really tasty. And I couldn't really be all the pissed, because (other than the fact that it was my dream vacation-Japan ftw)...

It was also my Mom's birthday!!! I don't even know where they got the birthday cake lol. No way the brought it all the way from Indonesia, right? *By "they", I meant my parents' friends, not the tour agent*

Err, I guess this watermelon was particularly sweet and juicy? That's gotta be it, cos I bothered to take an individual picture of it.

Family pic with the Birthday Girl

And full group pic *sorry for the boring caption, what else could caption it with?*

It was only around 7.30 PM when we finished dinner and we were supposed to head to the hotel already, but I REFUSED to 'cos...well, it's only 7.30 PM 😑 So I asked to be dropped off at the Namba area we went to on the first day. My parents and one other family (they're my parents' best friends. Let's call 'em Mr. & Mrs. H and their daughter Irene and son Hans) joined me.

A video posted by Lily Zhen (@lilyzhen168ii) on Jun 23, 2016 at 1:58am PDT

Stopped by Family mart 'cos Japan's convenience store is damn awesome.

I highly recommend you to try the Glico caramel pudding (the first thing picked up by the cashier in the video). It's soooo freaking yummy. My lil' brother and I ate a lot of it while we were there, and also carted a whole lot back to Indonesia. The pudding is so smooth and milky and you can already taste the caramel flavor in the pudding, but then you got the luscious caramel sauce too to go with it. SO. SO. GOOD. GO TRY. PLEASE. 💜💜💜

Also bought this really yummy takoyaki from a store at the street behind the famous Glico running man sign street. Not sure what's the name of the store is, but it has this big octopus statue on top of it. BUT! I think it's different to the super famous one with gigantic octopus statue alongside Glico running man sign. Ah, sorry lah super confusing. There's the address and name on the side of the box if you can read Japanese.

Walked further into the Dotonbori street to find okonomiyaki for supper (also was still looking for motsunabe), but unfortunately most of the shops had either closed or past last order 😞 We did find one place that serves motsunabe and still open:

I think it was around closing time too, so the place was pretty deserted.

Settled in, but then the owner said the motsunabe was sold out (they also have kushikatsu, but I already satisfied my craving for that on the first day), so we skedaddled. Felt kinda guilty tho, 'cos we already pulled the chairs and everything 😖

Walked back to near the takoyaki place (I sorta forget already, but I'm pretty sure it was near the takoyaki place we had earlier) and settled on this random place that serves gyudon.

Beer to accompany the meat 😋

Ordered a plate of Gyoza to share. Looks pretty standard, but..

💜💛💚💙 THIS WAS (and still is) THE BEST GYOZA I'VE EVER HAD 💙💚💛💜

I've mentioned a couple times in this blog of my distaste for gyoza/kuotie/wotie type of food. Mainly because I can't stomach the skin. The skin just tastes weird to me and most of the time makes me wanna throw up. Even the super famous wotie in Jakarta still tastes yucky to me. At the time I went on this trip, the only gyoza in Jakarta/Tangerang that I can enjoy was the one from Chin-Ma-Ya, and even there I can only eat max. 2 gyoza before I feel nauseated. Now I've found a better one (better than Chin Ma Ya, not the Osaka gyoza) at Aeon BSD-forgot the name of the place-.

Okay, back to the dabombdiggity-so-good-imma-cry gyoza!

The skin DOESN'T TASTE AT ALL like the gyoza skin I've tried before. This one doesn't taste "flour-ish" and the thickness is just right. And the filling...oh the filling..it's SO SO JUICY and savoury and just all around delish.

This was the only gyoza I had during this trip, so I don't know whether this place has like exceptionally good gyoza or it's just that all the gyozas in Japan are really yummy. I suspect the latter, 'cos I didn't have a single bad meal here. Even the tour-standard eating places are at least decent.

The above photo shows my stupidity 😅

Here's the story:

Mrs. H ordered the gyudon set with tamago (egg) which comes with soup as well. The first thing to arrive at the table were the soup and a bowl of raw egg. She asked me how to eat the raw egg, so I, being a smart-ass, told her that maybe you pour the egg into the soup and the warmth of the soup will sorta cook the egg 😅😅😅 Soooo stupid I feel embarassed just by typing this lol.

So she did as I said.

Moments went by and the egg was not even cooked at the very least. I said "uhm, just wait, maybe it takes some times."

Then, one of the chef came out to serve the gyudon. He saw the bowl of soup with the raw egg in it and freeze for seconds in confusion. And suddenly he laughed out loud. Like really really laughed out loud. After he's done laughing, he told us in gesture that we're not supposed to mix the egg with the soup.

He then proceeded to take the bowl of ruined soup back to the open kitchen (while still chuckling) and brought back a NEW bowl of soup AND another bowl of egg.

FREE OF CHARGE.

Yup. He gave us another egg even though it was totally our (my) fault that our first batch was ruined. So nice 😭.

It's a simple bowl of egg, but it's not something I see often here where I live and I was just touched, ok? Can't explain it, but i thought it was really nice of him.

He also showed us that the egg was supposed to go on top of the gyudon. I was so stupid 😅, especially because I've seen countless photos of gyudon with egg yolk on top, I even ordered the gyudon with egg yolk in Yoshinoya SG a couple months prior to this trip. *face palm*

Anyway, moral of the story, the chef was really kind. And I was a ding dong.