Food Tours Japan

23/04/2024

Happy St George's Day! 🤺🐉🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🍸😃

22/04/2024

My favourite Japanese curry! Tonkatsu (deep-fried pork cutlet) curry 😋

18/04/2024

Japanese Bakeries - Today's Lunch

Today's lunch from the bakery (front to back):

- Pork fillet katsu with mild sweet mustard sandwich
- White fish (Aji > Horse Mackerel) with Japanese-style tartar sauce (tartar sauce & mayo mix)
- Hot dog sandwich with cheese, tomato ketchup & mild sweet mustard

Japanese bakeries have all sorts of weird, wonderful and delicious products. While cakes are usually based on European-style classics (and bought from dedicated cake shops), bakeries have their own distinct style.

At standard bakeries you won't find sourdough, granary or wholemeal loaves, you'll only get white bread and baguettes. Still the rest of the bread more than makes up for it 😋

18/04/2024

Yoshino in Nara Prefecture is Japan's most-famous place to see cherry blossoms 🌸 🌸🌸

17/04/2024

Wagyu Yakiniku Don

I made dinner with Wagyu beef and rice with yakiniku sauce and wasabi on the side 😋

16/04/2024

Homemade Okonomiyaki 😋

My wife’s delicious homemade okonomiyaki (savoury pancake) 😍🙏. One of Osaka’s three famous soul foods, okonomiyaki, is made from batter and cabbage. Other ingredients are used to make the batter, and you’ll always get pork belly or seafood (shrimp 🦐 and squid 🦑).

I had it with classic toppings of okonomiyaki sauce (a savoury brown sauce), mayonnaise, nori (dried seaweed) and katsuobushi (also called bonito flakes made from skipjack tuna 🐟).

If you’re wondering about the bear-faced shape, that’s one large and two small okonomiyaki pancakes. Well, I wasn’t going to let them go to waste!

I highly recommend you try it if you’re in Osaka 😋

#お好み焼き

14/04/2024

Cherry Blossoms with Mt. Ikoma in the background, shot a few days ago 🌸🌸🌸

The Ikoma Mountain range splits Osaka and Nara Prefectures. It's very popular for hiking and also mountain biking.

There's two famous temples on the mountains called Hozanji and Chogosonshi-ji. They're as atmospheric as any you'll find in Japan. I highly recommend a visit.

13/04/2024

Japan has many springtime sweets, however, it's more famous as the season when many sweets turn pink 🌸🌸🌸

12/04/2024

Osaka 😍

10/04/2024

Ekiben 😋

08/04/2024

Sakura - Makino Sunny Beach, Lake Biwa, Shiga

Lake Biwa looked magnificent, adorned in a kaleidoscope of colours with pretty white and pink-hued cherry blossoms, a spring blue sky, a patchwork of green and sakura-coloured mountains, and the shimmering light of the lake. Marvellous 🌸

#琵琶湖 #マキノサニービーチ #知内浜 #桜 #櫻 #さくら #高島市 #滋賀県 🌸 🌸

07/04/2024

Sakura 🌸 - Lake Biwa

Cherry blossom 🌸 close to full bloom today at Lake Biwa. The photo was taken at Makino Sunny Beach in the north west part of the lake.

Biwako (Lake Biwa) in Shiga Prefecture is Japan's largest lake. It looked majestic today surrounded by sakura 🌸 on a sunny day with blue sky.

07/04/2024

https://www.instagram.com/foodtoursjapan?utm_source=qr&igsh=MXQwMHBieW5lbWQ5cA==

06/04/2024

Sashimi Moriawase - Uotoku, Nagoya

I always start an izakaya meal with sashimi 😋 Most of the time I'll order 'sashimi moriawase', which means mixed, as you'll get an assortment of seasonal seafood.

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of dining (and drinking!) twice at Uotoku izakaya in Nagoya. I was looking for a place to eat and saw them advertised as a 'Kansai-style' (Osaka) izakaya.

Here's the sashimi we ate on the first night 😋

I highly recommend Uotoku if you're in Osaka. They serve tasty excellent-value food with great service. It's an authentic local place and you'll be looked after.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/uaokpK1yjQsaTHa96

05/04/2024

Lake Biwako

Japan's largest lake. Looking stunning this evening 😃

03/04/2024

Aji (Horse Mackerel) Fry 😋

Butterflied and deep-fried served with a tartar-like sauce. Nothing is wasted with the bones deep-fried and salted. Classic tasty izakaya food that goes great with beer 🐟🍻

One of the endless things to love about Japanese food culture is when you ask 'osusume wa nandesuka' (what is your recommendation) they recommend dishes they think you'll love irrespective of the price.

So happy to find 😍 an Osaka-style izakaya 3 mins from our hotel in Nagoya 👍

cc Tiago Lima

02/04/2024

Ninja 🥷 - Iga, Japan

Today, we've had lots of fun playing ninjas 🥷 and learning about them at the Ninja Museum Igaryu in Iga, Mie Prefecture. Iga is home to one of the two most renowned ninja clans 🥷🥷🥷 in Japan.

Highlights of the museum, include:
- Ninja Show (live performance by ninjas 🥷)
- Ninja House (revolving doors, secret tunnels, hidden rooms & more)
- Shuriken (throw throwing stars at targets)
- Comprehensive displays about ninjas 🥷 (culture, weaponry, stealth, history etc)

I highly recommend a visit, especially for families 5⭐️🥷

01/04/2024

Aji (Horse Mackerel) is a delicious and versatile fish. It's fantaatic eaten raw as sashimi and sushi and is served with grated ginger and spring onion, instead of wasabi.

Ironically, in my home country the UK, they're known as Scad and fisherman throw them back into the sea as they're not deemed a quality fish. 🤣

Aji (horse mackerel) is popular throughout Japan, served deep fried, dried and grilled, or best of all, caught fresh and sliced into sashimi. ⬇️
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/shows/6057010/?cid=wohk-fb-org_vod_6057010_dps-202403-001

Trails to Oishii Tokyo
AJI

31/03/2024

The history of hanami 🌸 Fascinating and something I thought about recently. Plum blossom starts the blossom season and they produce something useful!

30/03/2024

🌸 Sakura Today at Sayama-ike Pond, Osaka 🌸

No filter. Most cherry blossoms are white with a touch of pink 🌸

29/03/2024

¥1,000 beer set at my local izakaya 😋🤣🙏

28/03/2024

Dotonbori, Osaka 🐙

#道頓堀 #南 #難波 #大阪市

27/03/2024

Otsukuri Moriawase

Otsukuri (sashimi) from an izakaya in Nara that specialises in seafood. I always start an izakaya meal with sashimi if it's available.

The master at this place is a fisherman. He'd caught the hirame (flounder) and saba (mackerel) himself off Wakayama earlier in the day.

Sashimi is known as otsukuri in Kansai. Moriawase means assorted or a selection.

#刺身 #お造り

23/03/2024

Dango are one of my favourites Japanese sweets 😋 🍡

09/01/2021

Shinkansen 😍😍😍

Sakura Shinkansen 😍🚅

Riding JR West's Sakura (Cherry Blossom) Shinkansen N700 series from Osaka to Okayama. Love this train with its extra comfort and stylish interior.

#さくら #山陽新幹線 #新幹線