Starting from our Thursday 'lunch' - we figured we would just have something simple and quick because we wanted to go back to some shops in Shinjuku before meeting a friend somewhere else. First, we found this 'New York style' bagel stand inside Shinjuku station. I'm not sure if they have green tea and white chocolate bagels in NYC, but we couldn't resist trying. The texture was a bit different, but it was a good sweet snack.
We tried to find a spot for some quick lunch but didn't find anything too exciting or offered too many options in the food alley type place inside the station, so we decided to go check out the food hall in Odakyu department store (小田急百貨店). Anyone that has been to any Japanese department store food hall would know how amazing they are (sorry Selfridges food hall just doesn't compare). We found the daily dish/bento (惣菜・弁当) section and thought we should be able to find a few things there. This onigiri counter 味の梅ばち(something about taste of plum) caught our attention because we thought we should be able to get some vegetarian onigiri. I showed the lady behind the counter our 'no meat, no seafood' writing, and she helpful gave me the 'X' singal with her arms when I pointed at a couple items that probably contained fish. In the end, we got some inari sushi, big soy sauce & dry seaweed onigiri, and three smaller onigiri with plum, wakame and hijiki (brown sea vegetable). It's a shame that there was nowhere to sit at the food hall (ended up sitting on a bench on the train platform because we were early for our train), but they were all very tasty, especially the plum one, and pretty cheap.
Sorry for the blurry picture!
After we reached our destination and met a friend in Shimokitazawa, we went to the Deli and Baking co. for tea and sweet treats. It was very welcome to get out of the rain to somewhere homely and welcoming and have some tea - warm on this occasion although cold milk tea (ミルクティ) from vending machines was also surprisingly refreshing once you get past the initial weirdness of its cold and sweetness.
Pictured below: caramel cheesecake, strawberry cheesecake and oreo muffin. Each was ¥900 for a set including the drink, but totally worth it, although the oreo muffin was perhaps a little too much chocolate to take in one go. The caramel cheescake even came with edible ball bearings. Desserts are definitely a very big deal in Japan, often far more eleborate and nicely presented than these as well as not as sweet as Western sweets.
Later on we had bubble tea in Pearl Lady in Harajuku (off Takeshita-dori). For those of you unfamiliar with this Taiwanese speciality (also known as pearl tea), it is cold milk tea (or fruit flavoured milk) with balls of tapioca at the bottom that one sucks through a very wide straw. Fun as well as tasty! The ones we had (green tea and milk tea, below) came without the avalanche of ice that sometimes takes up half the cup, so that was good.
Next on our snack tour, some matcha dorayaki (two small pancake-like patties with sweet red bean paste filling) from Family Mart, one of the many konbinis (コンビニ, convenience store) that offer some much better snack food than you might find in equivalents in the west. Not sure about the 'home made' claim on the bag but the one at the top left is more true.
More sweet snacks at Mister Donut in Akihabara - a custard and whipped cream (カスタード＆ホイップ) filled donut, pictured with hot chocolate. Even the one of us who is not usually much of a fan of custard liked this combination, although the appeal of Mister Donut was more in its convenient location and price (¥115 for the donut) than particular amazing food or drinks. Not a bad place for a pit stop though.
And finally, some manjū (饅頭, made from flour/rice/buckwheat read bean paste filling) souvenir that we didn't actually eat but are worth posting for the novelty factor anyway, spotted on the stalls on Nakamise-Dori, where you can find all your Japanese souvenirs, outside Senso-Ji temple in Asakusa. Now I wish I'd bought some.
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