The main reason we came to La Floraison was for their creative custom printing on drinks. It is located in Sydney CDB, very close to Townhall Station which is great location and easily reached. Honestly, I never heard of this place before I saw pictures of those cute drinks which then prompted me to look for their address and made the trip eventually.
So we came here on a Saturday morning only to find that they open from 12 noon. I thought this is a little odd considering this is cafe and people do get the drinks in the morning or at the very least during brunch hours. So we had to kill some time walking around Daiso (luckily just few doors away) for the open time. In that time, we noticed there was also another small family did what we did – came here way too early.
As they opened and we lined up at the cashier for order, I realised this place really must be alive mainly for their drinks. There were just a few cakes available on display, literally mean just a few. The lady in front of me was asking if they had such cake from the menu and was told they had run out. Anyway, I ended up getting a piece of cake to share and a hot drink for each of us. Upon payment, they will ask what design you would like to have on top of your drink. You can choose from numerous pictures available on the tablet and even send your picture to them as well.
The entrance – I think the decor is very pretty with flowers and hanging lights – fairy tale alike!
Here are what we ordered:
Red Velvet Cake
Taro Latte with Gudetama print
Matcha Latte with Sinchan print
The drinks were not bad taste wise, but the cake was dry and felt like it’s been sitting there for too long. We love how the drinks are not overly sweet and can absolutely taste the taro or matcha flavours. Also their price point is fairly expensive – but I guess you pay for the experience. After all, we enjoyed slurping the printed Gudetama and Sinchan over our hot drinks 🙂 Would I be coming back? Perhaps no, mainly because we have already experienced it and apart from the print, everything else was not outstanding.
Click here for our experience at Gudetama Cafe in Osaka, Japan….
Since we tried and happy with Suminoya, I had been wanting to go to its sister restaurant, Rengaya. Located in North Sydney and has the highest price charge ($86 per adult) in the group, naturally we expected superb dining here. It certainly did not disappoint 🙂 Just make sure to have a reservation before coming here, especially during busy dinner times and weekends or public holidays.
We booked for early dinner and when arrived, there were only few other tables occupied. The interior and service felt more upper class compared to the other sister restaurants. It had been a while since we went to Suminoya, so perhaps it has changed as well. The ordering system at Rengaya is by putting your order yourselves via the tablet they handed to each table. Whereas, at Suminoya while we were there, we had to call out to the waiter for order.
Entrance hall
The other good thing at Rengaya was the unlimited order for ox tongue (the best!!!). We ordered so many portions of these super thin slices of ox tongue 🙂 Hubby was a little disappointed that they do not offer unagi rice bowl here, but the other options here kept him happy. The meat quality were excellent – I love how the Japanese style BBQ usually have their meat in thinly slices and their marinate is usually very subtle.
Here are what we had. By the way, these were all for four people 🙂
The ox tongue – super delicious
Salmon sashimi
Various meat cuts – we ordered a few and were delivered together in a serving
More meat and king oyster mushroom
Mushroom with garlic butter
Egg soup
Prawn cocktail salad and Seaweed salad
Salmon & avocado salad and Salmon flake rice
Mango, black sesame and green tea ice cream for dessert
The verdict
I think the place is good for special occasion for that kind of steeper price compared to its sister restaurants and its up class setting. But then again you do get the unlimited order of ox tongue which is such a delight. There are a few options I love at Suminoya which are not available here, such as unagi rice bowl and gyoza. I also heard that it is actually better to dine here a la carte, since some of the nicer meat cuts are not available on buffet options. So, perhaps if we do come back here again in the future, I’d try the a la carte dining.
And finally we are here: the last full day of our 2017 Japan trip! On Day 15 we went to Tsukiji Market and spent the rest of the day shopping and packing. 15-day is far from enough for this trip, but we had really great time and enjoyed Japan much these past two weeks dearly!
Day 15 – 16
The first place we went to this morning was Tsukiji Market, is well-known as one of the world’s largest fish market. Note that the inner market, where the wholesale fish market and tuna auctions take place will close on 6 October 2018 and move to a new location at Toyosu from 11 October 2018. The outer market, where the retails and restaurants are open to public will remain at Tsukiji. For more information, please read here.
One of the alleys at Outer Tsukiji Market
We did not come that early to watch the tuna auction, so when we came around 9am, the market had already packed. The lines outside all those famous restaurants were already very long. We walked through all the alleys of the outer market and finally decided to join one of the shorter line. Perhaps it was not the best in the market, but we still had a great meal. But, would I come back and queue up early for the most famous restaurant there? Probably not, just because we feel the restaurants there mainly sell the same dish and being in the market, most likely they all use fresh ingredients anyway. So, yes we were content with what we had at Tsukiji.
The restaurant where we had our sashimi rice bowls 🙂
From here, we went to Tokyo station next. Originally planned to walk to Tokyo Castle, but ditched that plan due to shopping being in the higher priority. I will not bore you about how that went in the post 🙂
Inside Tokyo Station
That’s pretty much covers our Japan trip! I always praise how good their public transport is and how punctual they are, etc. Wait until the last day when we travelled to Haneda Airport: the train actually delayed! And it was not for just 5 minutes, stopped at Shinjuku for about 10 minutes, another 6 minutes at Shibuya and we gave up. We ended up took a taxi to Shinagawa station then took another train to Haneda airport. And that drama with train literally wraps up our holiday at Japan just before we headed back 😀
What we ate on Day 15
We got this sweet tamago roll from Tsukiji Market while deciding which restaurant we should queue up. The tamago roll is slightly sweet in taste and very fluffy. Yummy!
Looks like they specialize in tamago rolls and pudding (or egg products :P). Sadly, we did not try their puddings.
Massive tamago roll – ¥120
And, these were our sashimi bowls and grilled tuna. Delicious and super fresh sashimi!
Sashimi salmon, tuna, (steamed or boiled) crab leg, scallop and sea urchin – ¥3,500
Sashimi salmon, tuna, (steamed or boiled) crab leg, scallop, and fatty tuna – ¥3,500
Grilled tuna – ¥500
And, we thought since we had not tried Japanese curry since we arrived and it’s our last day, we should go for this. We went into this curry restaurant after shopping at Akihabara. It was not a wrong choice, great tasting curry – mind you they were really hot!!! Cannot recall the exact amount these costed us, but pretty sure it was under ¥2,000.
Hinoya Curry – Akihabara
Pork katsu curry rice
Bacon curry rice, very nice and tender bacon pieces
Day 14, the second last day of our Japan trip, we have scheduled for a visit to Fujiko F Fujio museum then Akihabara and lastly, the Michelin-starred eel restaurant in Bunkyo. Doraemon is a pretty well-known manga character we grew up with, and mostly everyone in Indonesia would know, right? Whether or not the younger generations these days aware of this awesome cartoon, I don’t know. Anyway, when I mentioned Doraemon to my friends who grew up in Sydney, they had no idea at all. Seriously, Doraemon rocks with his amazing pocket and all the futuristic gadgets! If you could have one item from Doraemon, what would that be? I would love the magic anywhere door that will take me literally anywhere I wish 🙂 What could be better than that, eh?
Day 14
The day started with a train ride to Mukogaoka-Yuen station and approximately 15 minutes walk to the museum which is located in Kawasaki area. Alternatively, you could get off at Noborito Station and take the shuttle bus which runs every 10 minutes for ¥210. Interesting fact at Mukogaoka-Yuen station: they play Doaremon theme song as trains about to close its doors.
We got to the museum before its opening time, in fact we were the first to arrive. The staffs directed us to wait in line outside the entrance door that they opened exactly on time. As we walked in, we exchanged our prepaid tickets with the audio guides. By the way, they do not sell entrance tickets on site – so the best way to get tickets would be through one of the Loppi machines at any Lawson stores; or, alternatively any online sources. The audio guides will give commentary to various items on the museum when you input the item numbers, this was super handy!
Because the museum is based on Fujiko F Fujio, you will find various art works of his apart from just Doraemon. On the first level, which unfortunately taking pictures is prohibited, displays many of his original art works. Also, the professor’s life story from being a kid until married with kids also on the display photos and explained through the audio guide.
On the next level, there is a manga corner, and playground for kids with large size of various figures of Fujiko’s works. There is also screen show which you can get in once only per visit. The outside park is beautiful with many characters of Fuji F Fuji’s creation. Generally, if you grew up with Doraemon and P-Man, this is such a nostalgic place. It brought you right back to your childhood adoring those characters 🙂
What we ate on Day 14
We bought some dorayaki from convenience stores for breakfast – again kicking myself for not taking any pictures of these.
At Fujiko F Fujio museum, we had these for lunch:
Croquette
Hotdog
Hot chocolate ♥♥♥♥♥
We also tried their dorayaki, these are filled with red bean paste. Honestly, we both love the convenience store version with butter and maple syrup filling.
For dinner, we went to Unagi Hashimoto – highly anticipated eel restaurant that hubby had wanted to come long before our trip. We just walked in here when we got there, they was just opened for dinner. Luckily we came early, otherwise we would not able to get a meal here at all without making a reservation ahead. The kind old lady told us in Japanese that we had around 45 minutes for the meal, because they were fully booked for the night starting 6 pm. At first, we thought she meant we should come back at 6 pm – I really wished we know Japanese a bit better in such situations 😀
The entrance
Interior
Menu
Hubby’s eel with rice in medium size that comes with eel soup
I opted for a small size
Chicken yakitori and tamagoyaki
Anyway, our dinner here was really good! I personally do not really fond of eel, but ones I had here did not have any fishiness, it was tasty and tender. The eel was flavoursome without being too salty or overpowering soy sauce taste, it just really well balanced meal. We highly recommend this restaurant for eel lovers!
And that was it for our Day 14.
Fujiko F Fujio Museum
2 Chome-8-1 Nagao, Tama Ward, Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture 214-0023, Japan
When looked for AirBnb in Tokyo for the last three nights, I wanted it to be close to a train station that is within JR Yamanote Line. That would provide easy access to places we wanted to go. Other requirements I had were to have laundry facility so we would not come home with too many dirty laundry; also have a lift facility. This is because we planned to do all the shopping in Tokyo and to drag our luggage up/down the stairs in (most likely be) full capacity could be quite challenging.
And with that filters on, I searched on AirBnb for a many weeks before decided to settle in at Shin Okubo. I had considered some other areas like Shinjuku Gyoen, Asakusa, Akihabara, and Ikebukuro – all of which is within the JR Yamanote Line, except the first one. But at the end, we decided Shin Okubo for its close proximity to Shinjuku. The apartment has many positive reviews and it has everything we need as well. On top of those, the price was also really good, we ended up at AUD 270 for 3 nights. Communication with host was great, he promptly responded to our emails and questions. I think all of my communication with any AirBnb hosts had been really great, with all of them being prompt and helpful.
Street in front of the apartment
The Apartment
The AirBnb in Tokyo is located within 5-7 minutes walk from Shin Okubo station, there is one 7-11 store close by and many more near the station. Shin Okubo is sort of well known as Korea Town, where you can find many Korean restaurant and shops that sell Korean brands cosmetics and skin care. With that many restaurants in the main street, the area is very much alive until late at night. The great advantage of the apartment being slightly away from main street is we got peaceful sleeps while there. It was like our apartment in Osaka, where it is so close to Dotonbori, but far enough to not get disturbed by the noise 🙂
Our apartment located on level 5, thankfully there is lift facility 🙂
From our communication with the host, we unfortunately could not check in to the apartment earlier. But the host kindly advised us to use lockers at Shinjuku station which we ended up using. By the time we checked in to the apartment, it had been cleaned and everything is perfect. Of all three AirBnb we stayed at in our Japan trip, this was the smallest; but understandably so are the majority apartments in Tokyo, I believe. The size is perfect for two adults with two big suitcases. Had we have more suitcases, it would probably a bit challenging to walk around the room 😛
Our general experience at this apartment was good, everything worked well and no problems occurred while we were there. No issues with speed or battery of the pocket WiFi either, so was all good. For the price, we were totally satisfied with this place and happily recommend it to first time goers. However, next time we’d love to try somewhere else. It may not necessarily within the Yamanote line, but still close to a subway or train station. The transportation system in Japan is working so well that I don’t think it would be a major issue if we stay outside of the Yamanote line.
View of train line outside of our apartment entrance door
