The Best Place on Earth

For those of you who have never been to Japan, this is a look at what you are missing. And most of this food I bought at a convenience store. "WHAT?" you ask? Yes, the food there is pretty much gourmet. Tasty salads, fancy desserts, unique sandwiches, breads, rice concoctions, everything beyond your imagination. It was nice to be home.

Breakfast on day 1. A pasta salad containing thin sliced pork, julienned daikon radish, red cabbage, corn, and creamy sesame seed dressing with spaghetti; a Japanese rice ball with edamame, buchwheat tea, and a little cheesecake.

close-ups:

While you're there you can't miss the noodle shops. Best stuff ever. I got the leek noodle soup. (aka ねぎラーメン)
A typical bakery in Tokyo train station:
some impressive close-ups:
sausage in a tortilla
sausage baked in a black sesame roll
breaded fried sausage with tonkatsu sauce (yes, we Japanese love sausage)
cheese boule
sunny-side up toast

(you probably think the fried egg looks weird, but I'm telling you, it's the new "it" thing in food these days, and the Japanese have been doing it for a LONG time! So amazing!
edamame bread
fried piroshki bread (above and below)

This was some good food I ate at my grandma's house in Sendai
rice cakes in seaweed
rare cheesecake (beautifully presented in a traditional woven basket)


At the grocery store I found this:

some beautiful sweet dumplings at Sendai train statin:

And THIS is a cream puff! Perfect fluffy, crispy pastry with a smooth pastry cream inside. I've never found anything like it outside of Japan, and in Japan they are so readily available.


another rare cheesecake, but this time with a strawberry topping and spongecake bottom

another convenience store meal:
mikan gelatin, a variety of rice balls, barley tea, and "snow strawberry" (a strawberry swallowed by cream and spongecake and wrapped in a thin rice cake dumpling)--amazing!

here's a rice ball with a fried pork cutlet, also known as tonkatsu:


the snow strawberry:

breakfast on our last day in Japan:
fried egg and bacon on a butter roll

Japanese style grilled chicken sandwich

here's the whole table. Amazing. I should have taken a picture of the chocolate truffle pastry on the far right. It was the best thing I've EVER eaten.

caramel cream bread

Of course, we went out to eat Indian curry. I had the vegetable curry and chicken curry. All you can eat naan. I was stuffed.

At the airport I had my favorite yakisoba pan (Japanese fried noodles in a butter roll).

And onion cheese bread.
Japan is a food-lover's paradise. Seriously.