Hey Hive!
If you missed the last couple of posts, I started recounting my trip to Kawasaki when I went to visit Sean in Japan at the end of May 2019! He was doing an internship with Fujitsu in Tokyo then for about a month or so but we missed each other so much he booked me a flight to go and visit him!
Last week, we completed our journey of exploring the coolest arcade ever - Kawasaki Warehouse! It's a 5 story amusement facility that has probably the most unique design I've ever seen! The interior is modeled after the former Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong and is made to look really worn down like it's in a dystopia.
But as I showed last week, every floor looks a little different. And the upper floors actually looked pretty posh and cool with many different pool and pingpong tables!
It was definitely an interesting and memorable experience. One that I would remember forever for sure! It's too bad that the building itself closed down just a few months after we visited but thankfully we got to experience it before it did.
Continuing on, since it was the start of another week, we sank back into our routine of only going out when Sean was done with work. It's only fun going out when we're together plus I didn't have internet when I left the apartment and I didn't want to get lost.
So during the day I would be at home making myself a nice breakfast and/or lunch, do some work and art while waiting for Sean to get back so we could have dinner together. This was my standard breakfast - my favourite black sugar butter roll, a fried egg, bacon, hot chocolate and a banana.
And he brought me to this awesome katsu place that's both affordable and convenient! We'd always have trouble finding a good katsu restaurant that's affordable in Japan so we were really fortunate to have found this one!
The restaurant is called Matsunoya and shares the same parent as Matsuya, a popular beef bowl/gyudon chain in Japan. I've written about this place many years back on tasteem but this was when we tried it for the first time!
The outlet itself is pretty small with limited seating but follows the typical Matsuya and "fast food" chains where you order from a ticket machine and give the ticket stub to the chef. It does get pretty crowded during dinner time so we were lucky enough to get some seats.
This is a typical set meal which comes with a bowl of rice and miso soup. They also have chicken and pork cutlets. They also have katsudons where it's served with egg and some gravy on top of the rice. I like my katsu crispy so we went with the all pork cutlet set:
While Sean also tried the mix of chicken and pork cutlet:
Both the cutlets tasted so delicious! Freshly deep fried so it was still hot, it was crispy on the outside but still juicy on the inside and the meat was so tender. Tbh I couldn't really taste much of a difference because the breading was the same. They also have a number of sauces at the table for you to mix with the cutlets too. The breading and rice makes your mouth a little dry if you don't add any sauce and it tastes so much better if you do!
I was so happy that Sean found this place and the portion is so much value for the price because one set like ours was only 600-700yen at the time! And you even get coupons for subsequent visits! A double win!
This was definitely one of my favourite meals we had there and it's a shame there aren't more Matsunoya shops around. I don't think we've seen any outside of Kawasaki or in other parts of Tokyo. But if you do come across a Matsunoya restaurant be sure to try the tonkatsu! For those prices you won't regret it at all!
We didn't really have the time to venture out on weekdays since Sean had to get up early the next day for work so we'd normally just stick around the neighbourhood and relax at home. I didn't want to force him to go out after a tiring day at work either. So most days we'd just go out for dinner and head to the grocery store for snacks and fruits.
There was a KFC in the shotengai near the apartment that was featuring this new Slider that looked just like a taco!
The first time we had KFC in Japan it didn't really taste very good and was pretty expensive, so we hadn't had it since. But this taco was really tempting and wasn't too pricey so we decided to try it! Sean decided to get 2 pieces of chicken and a drink too.
This was the chicken taco! It was actually really good! They had a special BBQ sauce and cheese in it along with a chicken tender.
It was soo good, probably my favourite KFC item I've ever eaten! The contrast between the soft tortilla and the crispy chicken was good, and the cheese and sauce gave it a more sweet and salty taste that blended well together!
Unfortunately that was the only time I've ever eaten that KFC taco. When we tried to go back another day it was out of stock, and the next day the whole outlet was closed! I was so disappointed that I never got to eat it again.
I think that's gonna be it for now! Sorry for the short post but the next one is the finale of this trip so tune in for that!
Thanks for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #165 (Japan 8.0 - Kawasaki): From Spooky Arcade to Fancy Sports? 🎯
