2016 Japan & HK - ANA (HKG-NRT-YVR)

Time flies by so quickly when you're having fun. Sadly, it was time go back home :(

Leaving Hong Kong International Airport, we boarded ANA to Haneda Airport for our connecting flight back to YVR. On this short flight, we were served one hot meal, being our dinner.

Appetizers: (L-R) Japanese buckwheat noodles with Nameko mushrooms, nori, noodle sauce; Pork ham and pastrami beef with potato salad; Pickled diced veggies; Dinner roll

Entree: Seafood Creamy Pasta

Dessert: Mini Crunch Bar

Drink: Kayanoya vegetable soup

ANA had 2 unique drinks on board. One of them was the "Aromatic Kabosu", a green citrus fruit drink (sort of like lemonade). The other was the Kayanoya vegetable soup. For my dinner meal, I tried the vegetable soup as my drink of choice. It was a delicious savoury broth (reminiscent of a consomme), but a little on the salty side.

Entree: Simmered Beef in soy-based sauce over steamed rice

W opted for the Japanese meal. I think it was a sukiyaki style beef served with rice. Naturally, I had to eat all the peas for him LOL...

Same as when we flew to Japan, we were served one hot meal and one cold breakfast box as we made our way back to North America.

Appetizers: (L-R) Potato salad; mixed leaves with creamy French dressing; Noodles with minced meat and miso sauce

Entree: Seafood, Chicken and Simmered vegetables over steamed mixed rice

Dessert: (not pictured) Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream cup

Drink: Coffee

For the last leg of the flight, I chose the Japanese meal. It certainly looked yummy! Unfortunately, I was feeling tired and cranky so I wasn't very into the food at that time.

I loved the variety in this plate though. The bamboo shoots were marinated well and surprisingly the shrimp and the egg was not that overcooked!

Entree: Tandoori Chicken with Saffron Rice

W had the Indian-influenced rice dish. Not sure of the flavours though since I didn't try it...but with ANA's quality of food, I'm sure it was tasty.

Finger sandwiches (L-R): Egg salad with cucumbers and deli meat; Smoked salmon with cream cheese; Ham and cheese with tomato and lettuce

Sides: Kabocha pumpkin mash paired with cocktail fruit; Bacon and cherry tomato

Dessert: Lightly sweetened plain yogurt, Mini Kit Kat bar

Finally, breakfast was served, which meant only a couple more hours until we land!

I was absolutely enamored with this breakfast box! The little pieces of crustless sandwiches were so dainty and cute! This time, a Japanese-branded yogurt was served alongside instead of the North American produced yogurt cup we had on our first flight. It was just lightly sweetened (no vanilla flavour) but I enjoyed it a lot.

Well, that's the end of my very first Japan trip! I've had a taste of the amazing city and experienced a tid-bit of the culturally-rich country. It has definitely left me yearning for many more return visits!

2016 Japan - Notable Mentions... (Dinner)

This segment of Notable Mentions is dedicated to dinner. On our last night in Tokyo, my family and I headed over to Lumine Ikebukuro in search of good eats.

Lumine Ikebukuro is a large department store within the Metropolitan Plaza Building. There are 2 whole floors just for restaurants alone and many more cafes and eateries dispersed throughout the multi-floor department store!

We headed up to the 8th floor, restaurant level, to look around for interesting places. There were so many options but a lot of them had long line-ups already. We decided to try Keisho-An, a restaurant specializing in Japanese-style chicken dishes.

Hiyashi Tofu

We ordered a bunch of items to share and the first to arrive was the chilled tofu. The fresh and soft tofu came with the cutest, smallest bottle of sweet soya sauce! Eaten by itself, the tofu was super creamy and soft, with a mild yet sweet soy bean flavour. A little drop of the sauce turned the dish into a savoury appetizer.

Karaage

The deep fried chicken pieces were so yummy, we ordered it twice! They were seriously juicy inside, and salty and crispy on the outside. It's a glass of ice-cold beer's best friend!

Agedashi Tofu with Chicken

To mellow out the crunchy goodness, we had a dish of fried soft tofu sitting in a savoury broth. Usually, the agedashi tofu back at home just has tofu and sauce. However, at Keisho-An, their version had pieces of simmered chicken and oyster mushrooms. If there was a bowl of rice, this could have been a full meal by itself!

Chicken skewers - Tsukune Set (top) and Yakitori Set (bottom)

Next up, 2 sets of chicken skewers!

The Tsukune Set consisted of 5 skewers of minced chicken meat balls, all with different sauces on top. From left to right, there was teriyaki, umeshiso (pickled plum and a type of Perilla leaf), Nagoya miso, mentaiko (salted pollock roe), and teri-mayo.

The little meatballs were great for sharing but because of its size, the meat was not as juicy as I expected.

The Yakitori Set had 5 skewers of different parts of the chicken: the gizzard, thigh, skin, thigh with leeks and another that I can't remember (sorry!). These were simply grilled over charcoal and brushed with a sweet soya sauce. These went well with beer too! Yum!

Oyako-don

For our starch dish, we chose the chicken and egg rice bowl. Typically, the chicken would be simmered with onion in sweet dashi broth and then topped with soft scrambled eggs. This version actually had a raw egg on top instead of the chicken! This lent a different kind of silkiness to the rice and chicken.

Caprese Salad

Our lone veggie dish of the night was the Caprese salad...though technically, this did not actually have any vegetables in it! LOL... We originally wanted to order a green salad with lotus root but they ran out of lotus root :( Caprese became our second choice. It was a small portion but the ingredients were fresh and helped lighten up the chicken-heavy dishes on our table.

Even though we had to wait a while for a table, all those yummy chicken-centric dishes were well worth the time!

2016 Japan - Notable Mentions... (Dessert)

One of the places that I had to go to, no matter what, was Pablo to have their ooey-gooey cheese tarts! My friend, K-chan, kept raving about Pablo to me non-stop so I had to check it out myself to see if it really lives up to the hype.

I took the whole group to the Omotesando location because it was just a short walk away from Meiji Shrine (which we had just finished visiting in the afternoon). I also chose this location because it had a full-service cafe (some other locations of Pablo were take-out only). This cafe had 2 floors. The bottom floor had a take-out counter with a self-serve sitting area while the top floor was a dedicated full-service cafe space.

We went upstairs to the cafe to rest our weary feet and enjoy a late afternoon snack.

Pablo Cheese Tart (Original Flavour) served with apricot honey sauce and vanilla ice cream

We chose 3 different kinds of cheese tarts to share amongst our group. Of course, we had to get the original cheese tart so we could compare it with the other flavours! The filling was lightly sweet, creamy with a soft cheese aroma while the crust was thin and flaky. No wonder they're famous for their cheese tarts!

Camembert & Quattro Fromage Cheese Tart

The second flavour we chose was the Camembert and "four cheese" cheese tart, only available at the Omotesando location. As expected from the name, this tart had a more intense cheese aroma and flavour. This one had more of a sweet and savoury thing going on due to the different cheeses used.

Chestnut Cheese Tart served with chestnut ice cream, walnuts, cashews and chestnut pieces on the side

For our third cheese tart, we went for the limited edition Chestnut flavour. As chestnuts are typically associated with the autumn season, this one was limited for a short period of time at the shop. The cheese tart had a light chestnut flavour while the top and sides were garnished with candied chestnut pieces. This had an earthy and warm feeling to the cheese tart.

Matcha Latte

Since it was a chilly and rainy day, I had the matcha latte to warm up. It was ok...the milky foam was not fine enough for me =P

Here's what the cheese tart looks when cut. Apparently, one can order the "doneness" of the cheese tart! You could either have it soft (so it looks oozy and gooey, and a bit under baked), or you could have it regular (which is the doneness pictured above). Darn it, if I had known earlier, I would have chosen the ooey gooey version!

I think Pablo was one of the best places we have visited on our entire Japan trip. Our entire group agreed that the cafe was comfy, quiet, warm and relaxing, while the cheese tarts were delicious and indulgent! So glad that we came here!!