Ikebukuro Tokyo Street Food Tour and Restaurants / Japan Travel

Nine perfect street foods in Ikebukuro. Samurai Junjiro channel. Hi, I'm Samurai Junjiro, born and raised in Japan. In today's video, we'll be exploring Ikebukuro. We'll be checking out nine street foods from classic restaurants to newly launched stores. We'll also be touching on izakayas and restaurants in Ikebukuro, so don't miss out on the information. Now, let's get started. We are here in Ikebukuro. Ikebukuro is situated four stations away from Shinjuku Station, and the ride is about nine minutes on train. It'll take 24 minutes from Tokyo Station. Before we'll explore street food in Ikebukuro, let's first check eight of popular izakayas and restaurants. Let's first check on Taishu Shusen Terumae. This place has taps that let out alcohol. Here, you get to enjoy more than eight different kinds of liquor for all you can drink, from classic lemon to coffee, and even sesame-flavored liquors are available. This place can't go wrong to those good liquor lovers. Of course, they host numerous dishes to match drinks. These inert stir-fries are very fatty, and it melts in your mouth. Fried shrimp with mayo is very creamy and addictive. One of my go-to is cheese hamburger steak. It comes with egg yolk, and you can enjoy creamy and rich flavor. Now to pick up on Sweet Paradise, located in the fifth floor of this building. Here, they serve buffet of cakes and other desserts for all-you-can-eat course. They also serve main course menus like udon, pasta, and Japanese curry rice. Next, let's check out Bakudan Yaki Honpo. Here, you can try huge takoyaki that is literally in the size of a fist. Inside takoyaki are classic octopus, sausages, and more than 10 other fillings, so you get to enjoy multiple flavors at once. Now to placing our eyes on izakaya on fifth floor of the building, called Rokunen Yonkumi, as the sound of its name. This izakaya bases its theme on Japanese school. You get to dine at the setting of Japanese school environment with actual tables and chairs that students use. There are displays of the classic school bags that any Japanese student would have, and you can take pictures of it, too. The snacks on this rack can be eaten as much as you like. Now, the next follows. The following place is called Haneda Ichiba. This place gathers seafood from all over Japan by air, so you can enjoy it fresh. This seafood bowl in this wooden container called hitsumabushi is very rich in its toppings. You can enjoy it as it is with simply adding soy sauce, but trying it with broth soup of bonito flakes is my favorite. When you order tempura rice bowl, it comes with mountains of topping. Shrimp and sea eel tempuras are in perfect harmony with that sweet broth sauce. Egg tempura are cooked to medium softness. You can enjoy this with the broth soup, too. How about we check out cafe that specializes parfait on the first underground floor called Momobukuro? This is a store by Okashi Gaku, the same producer that runs the Varo Desserts vending machines in Japan. You can try out their vending machine desserts here without the fuss of going to Shibuya and Tokyo Skytree, which places its machines. Its whipped cream made with ingredients from Hokkaido is on perfect sweetness and tastes clean. Now to patrolling Nikuzushi. As the name says, you can enjoy meat sushi here. There are even sushi menus with foie gras and truffle mushrooms. Surface-grilled meat sushi literally melts in your mouth. There are abundant meat menus other than sushi, too. I highly recommend this ground meat cutlet. And lastly, to introducing Izakaya Kinokura. You can eat and drink here for all fixed price. Drinking beer here is like half the price of other place. It's cheap, but the food here is pretty good. Pork ginger has bold flavor and would make you want to eat with rice. These huge pizza toast and fried tofu in starchy broth soup are also great to have. And that concludes restaurant's recommendation. Now to trying out some of the street foods. First, we are checking out Ringo. This is an apple pie specialized store and there are 14 of it in Japan. The store catches so many people to line up on weekends. Inside the store, it's filled with sweet apple scent and it definitely increases appetite. We'll be trying its number one seller, custard apple pie. The pie crust here is made up of 144 layers of pie sheet so you can't get enough of this crispy mouthfeel. It includes plenty of butter so the aroma and sweetness are definitely there, too. The filling is packed custard with caramelized apple. They use apples from Aomori Prefecture which is naturally very sweet and they are perfect with custard cream. Now, moving on to the next store. Next, we are introducing Sakagura Riki at Western Ikebukuro Station exit. This people-attracting izakaya has 13 tenants in Tokyo and Saitama regions. Here, you can order fresh grilled yakitori to go. From these menus, we'll share two for now. We are starting off with kashira. It's a cheek part of pork. It's moderately chewy and very juicy. Dreaming of a pint of beer to go with this. The next one we are trying is a meatball yakitori with gristle. Loving the crunchy texture and in perfect harmony with its sweet sauce. Now, we have arrived at Don Quijote Ikebukuro. Baked sweet potato at Don Quijote is super popular and it sells more than 12.3 million per year. They control potato sweetness to its highest by leaving a month after harvest before they are grilled for sale. Slowly baked sweet potatoes on specialized heater has literally melting textures. Its price is very affordable for a size. Now, let's check out Yatsugatake no Tamago. This is a dessert specialized store with its key ingredient being the store-developed egg. This store is operated by the famous patisserie called Chateau Reise. If you haven't heard of them before, Chateau Reise has more than 600 stores in Japan, 100 in places like China and Singapore. My favorite is strawberry on sweet red bean paste stuffed mochi. Filling of the red bean paste is on perfect sweetness and really elevates the flavor of mochi. Getting back to introducing the original Yatsugatake no Tamago, the store serves menus like pies and cream puffs, but we wanted to highlight the custard pudding. The pudding is made with store-developed egg with fresh milk. Whipped cream made from Hokkaido ingredient and Madagascar's vanilla are also key to creating that characteristic rich and elegant finishes. The creamy touch is so addictive. The sweetness is on the perfect spot. It comes with caramel sauce at the bottom and its slight bitterness goes really well with the custard. Next, we are bringing your attention to Tenka Torimasu. This is fried chicken specialized store with 17 chains in Japan and Cambodia. There are 30 and more topping menus and you get to enjoy the chicken in many different flavors. But we decided to get simple one for now. The smell of soy sauce is in the air. Chicken here has very thin batter coating so it has light finish. Chicken breast is used for less fat and healthy mouthfeel too. Tender and soft. We are next checking out Koike. This is a takoyaki store which is run by Seafood Izakaya. Its business hour starts from three in the afternoon and does not run through lunch so watch out for the opening time. There are four takoyaki menus to choose from and we picked this one out. This is takoyaki with green onion in salt-based dressing. I'm sensing the garlic aroma. It comes with six balls and the price is great for the quantity. With crispy outside and creamy inside. The kick and texture from green onion is really hitting off. I'm catching great scent of black pepper too. The size of the octopus is big and filling. From here, we'll be picking out stores in Sunshine Ikebukuro, a mall that symbolizes Ikebukuro. It's the same building with Nanja Dumpling Stadium that we previously covered in the video. We'll start with stores in second floor. This is Pikachu Sweets that began in 2019. The store hosts desserts to go and the adorable Pikachu really catch your eyes. We found new Pokemons other than Pikachu too. And believe it or not, these Pokemons right here are dust box. There's countless to choose from but we picked the top selling menu. This is a waffle in the shape of Pikachu face. Its ear coated with two different colored chocolate really brings out the cute look. I'm also catching sweet smell of honey too. The waffle itself is very moist. Chocolate tastes like custard pudding. It tastes sweet and heavenly. A little to note that this store only serves menus to go so you can't eat inside. You can take pictures inside though. When trying out, make sure to eat outside the store. Where we are sharing next is located in Sunshine Underpass that connects Ikebukuro Station to Sunshine. It's in the eyes of where escalator leaves us. It's called Mamemono to Taiyaki. As the name implies, it's served fish shaped pastry which just started this November. There's only two stores in Japan and its head store is in Kyoto. The store has three different Taiyaki. Let us pick up unlimited one that can only be eaten here. This round and cute shaped Taiyaki are made with high quality flour and it smells divine. Within its freshly baked pastry, you find sweet red bean paste with butter. The melting butter is absorbed to the pastry and it's amazing. The salt in butter helps to make the paste stand out more. Red bean paste and custard stuffed pastry without butter can be both to go. The next store we'll be talking about is just next to where we left off and it's Sanrio Cafe. As some of you might have already guessed, the cafe is operated by Sanrio, famous for characters like Hello Kitty and Kiki and Lala. You can find multiple and adorable Sanrio characters inside. The cafe had so many sweet options with its character motifs. From the lineups, we picked the one that had most delicious reputation. This is a stuffed bun in the shape and imprinted face of Hello Kitty. This is a collaborative work by Sanrio and Chinese restaurant with history of 60 years in business. Let's check inside. Inside, it's stuffed with juicy pork. The good and sweetness from pork and onion are really hitting off. The bun is so fluffy and moist. It's adorable, but the taste is definitely real. If there's a restaurant you'd like me to introduce, let me know in the comments. Please like and subscribe to my channel too. Well, that's it for today. See you in the next video.