初来日観光客が本場の日本食に感動の連続！

Is this your first time in Japan? Yes. Really? How do you like Japan so far? I really like it. Oh, it's really cool. It's very interesting. Do you also enjoy Japanese food? Oh, yeah. Oh, it's been amazing. I haven't tried a lot yet, so... Yeah, right. You just got here. No, one of our main reasons for coming, at least for me, was for the food. For the food. Okay. What is your favorite Japanese food? I'd say omurice. Omurice? You try omurice. I like ramen, but I just haven't had a lot of Japanese food, so... Oh, the yakitori was really good. Oh, yeah. I really like yakitori. Tuna nigiri or ramen. Tuna onigiri from konbini? No, no, no. Like nigiri from the... Ah, I see, I see. Nigiri, ne? Yes. Oh, sushi. Have you tried shabu-shabu before? No. No? You never tried shabu-shabu? Do you know what shabu-shabu is? No idea. No idea? So this is a restaurant we're going today. And actually... Ah, they have hida gyu. Cool, I like the curtains and kind of like the clothes. I know, right? Feels very traditional. Definitely one of the nicest restaurants I've been to here. Do you know what it is? Yeah. Japanese people, we use this before eating. Okay. Did you know that? No, I did not. Okay, so guys, what do you feel like drinking today? Are you drinking alcohol or... Because you told me that you're going back to U.S. today, right? You're leaving. Oh, hmm. Let me see. What are you thinking for me? I like umeshu. You like umeshu? Umeshu. Is that the plum one? Yeah. Have you tried umeshu before? No, I haven't. I haven't had the chance, but I've been wanting to try it. Okay. Yeah, sure. I haven't... I don't know what it is. Okay. Plum alcohol, yes. Let's get umeshu then. Umeshu. It's going to be your very first time trying it. Cheers! That's okay. I'll help you. Thank you. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's really good. Very sweet. I like it. It's definitely a lot sweeter than I thought it would be. Because all the alcohol I've had in America is super bitter to me. So this is a nice change. So you can enjoy that, right? Yes. Somebody's enjoying it. What have you been eating in Japan? We've tried to have a lot of the stuff. We've had ramen. We've had sushi. We've had omurice. We've had wagyu. Like the Kobe beef specifically. Oh, you had Kobe beef? Yeah, we went to Kobe and we had Kobe beef. It was amazing. It was amazing? Definitely a fantastic experience. I remember I tried the... When the chef prepared the Kobe beef and I tried it for the first time, it actually felt like fireworks going off. It was really, really good. Oh my gosh. Have you tried wagyu beef? No, I haven't. No? Okay. You're going to have to. I mean, you can try it today. I want to know what brought you here in Japan this time. Well, so we've been friends from university. We've stayed in contact and we wanted to do a big trip together. We graduated about two years ago. Yeah, right. So it's kind of a reunion thing for us as well. Yeah. How did we decide on Japan? Was it just because we watched a lot of animes? Is that what it was? It was the country in which we had the most collective interest. I think we threw out a couple ideas, but Japan was just the one that everybody was like, yes, I want to go. I definitely want to go. I was the most excited about it. It just felt like everything was a little more thought out. In the U.S., everything is more... kind of disorganized and separate, individual. And here, everything felt like it was created for convenience and ease of use. So it was a much more pleasant experience than I expected. Doing things like getting on trains, walking through cities. Because in the U.S., it's quite difficult, actually. You have to take a car everywhere. Ah, yeah, because it's huge. It's very spread out. It's not even huge, but the cities don't have sidewalks sometimes. So you just cannot walk. Yeah, that's kind of how it is in a lot of U.S. cities. How was Japan? Definitely exceeded my expectations. Yeah, you walk around, you don't see trash on the sidewalks. You don't really see a bunch of graffiti. It's super pleasant to just sightsee. Yeah, one thing I've really liked is, at least in the areas we've been walking around, it's felt very safe, too. Even at night, I've been able to walk around and not feel unsafe or unsure of where I am. It's been really comfortable. Japan was super fun. I think the city I liked the most was maybe Kyoto. Just because I like the mix of city culture and the ancient... We had a tea ceremony there. So we learned about the tea ceremony. Did you wear a kimono? Yeah. I think just how organized everything is. Especially Tokyo. You notice how everybody's organized. It's not like chaos, which is really nice coming from the U.S. Because I feel like if you go to New York City, I've been there a couple of times. Everything is just crazy. People are rude. Everybody's just thinking about themselves constantly. And I feel like being in Japan, that mindset's not as much... We care about each other. Yeah, exactly. I think the thing that surprised me most, we've talked about how it's been hard to find a trash can. Because in America, we're so used to just finding a trash can everywhere you go. You just toss something in. But here, there's more of a cultural expectation around. That's just been an adjustment for me, at least. For me, it's the quietness in general. Buses are quiet. Trains are quiet. You walk on the street, except for car noise, it's quiet. Everything is more serene. And I've heard maybe two honks in total. After being in Japan for two weeks. Even on the metro, it's super quiet. So quiet. And if you think of any systems like that in the U.S., people are talking over each other. It's a lot louder. I see, I see. So there's definitely more of that respect in trying to keep it quiet, too. That's been one big notice that I've really enjoyed here. Being able to not have a car and be able to get on a train, ride somewhere, not even worry about... You can pull up Google Maps and say, oh, I want to go from here to here. And it'll say, oh yeah, there's a train coming in two minutes. Go, just get on it. If you tried to do that in the U.S., the bus would come 30 minutes late. You'd miss the next transfer. You know, it'd get delayed. It'd be all this other thing. Speaking more on Texas specifically, there is no public transportation. It's like you have a car, or you're just finding a way to get where you need to go. And usually that's Uber or something. So it's very nice to just be able to get on a train and go pretty much anywhere you want. It's a lot less stressful, too, because when people drive and there's any kind of traffic on the road, people get really... The road rage? Road rage, like angry. Was it you telling me about, in Texas specifically, they have a section of the driver's education course that's like, don't upset other drivers, because in Texas they carry guns, so you don't want to upset the driver too much. They literally put that in the driver's manual, like, don't upset the other drivers, because who knows if they'll get really angry that day. So I'm going to choose the food for you guys now. Sure. What do you like eating? I'm kind of open to whatever you think is good. Yeah, you told me that your favorite Japanese food is omurice, right? Why do you like it? It's such a weird food for non-Japanese people, no? It's like ketchup and rice and omelette on top. I don't know. I feel like it's simple, but it's also just really good. All the omelettes I've had here are really good. Any omelette, any egg-based thing? I feel like they do egg really well. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think so, too. I think it was one of my biggest surprises, because I expected the fish to be really good. I expected the beef to be really good, but I had no clue that the eggs were coming. Do you remember the konbini? The soft-boiled eggs that you buy in the markets? Yeah. Oh, that's right, because you bought it one time, and you mix it with your ramen. It's not dry at all in the middle, right? Yeah, it's really good. Pretty much every ramen comes with eggs already. Speaking of egg, look at these. Yeah, it looks good. It looks good, right? This is Japanese omelette. It's dashi-maki tamago. And so soft. Broth coming out from the egg. Oh, yeah. Looks really good. Itadakimasu. Oh, it's really good. It is very juicy. I see what you're saying. It's fantastic. It's very delicious. Really? It's Japanese omelette, yeah? It tastes like a different food than American eggs. I know, yeah. Usually, when I eat an egg, it's kind of dry. This is really good. Completely different. Yeah, you definitely taste it. We never see this kind of layering. Yeah, you have to roll it many times. Right. Octopus. Octopus? No. Do you know karaage? Yeah. This is karaage. It's Japanese fried chicken. Have you tried Japanese fried chicken? Never. We love to eat chicken skin, too, so we don't remove chicken skin. When we went to the yakitori place, they had a chicken skin option, and we got that. It was really, really good. It was good? Okay. I think it was one of my favorite options, actually. The flavor is really nice. I haven't really tasted chicken like this before. Really good. Yeah. I feel like it's very easy to make the chicken dry. Right. It's like the egg. It's a lot softer than American chicken, and it's a lot juicier, as well. It tastes a lot less greasy, compared to what I'm used to. A lot of the fried chicken I eat in America is fast food and very processed. Yeah, it's definitely greasier. It's typically in America, when you order wings or fried chicken, you put a lot of sauce on them. But I feel like this works without it. It's a good flavor as a base, instead of having to think about it. Thank you! Look at this! We've had these only at the convenience store. We haven't tried a handmade one. Even at the convenience store, it was already great. Yeah, it was really good. Onigiri! Inside of this onigiri, there's grilled salmon. There's grilled salmon in the middle. I've actually never tried this before. It looks very interesting. You haven't tried the convenience stores here in Japan? We went to one, but I kind of just looked around. I see. You didn't buy onigiri. I'm still kind of shocked, because in America, convenience stores are usually tied to gas stations for cars. It's usually really dirty, and it feels really sketchy and very dangerous. I don't know. 7-Eleven here is really a weird experience. You could get by on the chips at the gas station, but you would not buy anything that looked like it was made by someone. A lot of them serve hot dogs, and they're in a machine. But you've known that they've been there for at least a day. We've had no issues here with the onigiri. Are you guys excited trying this? Yeah! The rice is so sticky. I wasn't expecting that. That's really good. There's loads of salmon. The salmon's really good. It's really well salted. Fantastic. I'm trying to get to the salmon. Yeah, because the rice is so fluffy. Have the convenience stores we've had always been cold? Is that what you're thinking? Yeah, this one's good because it's warm. It was like the same level of difference as normal beef to Kobe beef. This one's really good, yeah. I see. Konbini onigiri to this. It's huge. It feels like a different food, almost. This is wagyu! This is hida gyu, right? Let's put a sauce. Oh, thank you. Very good. Very tasty. Wonderful. Wonderful? Quality steak right there. I feel sad that I finished it. More wagyu is coming, so no more. Now I'm happy. I'm going to come back and go to a wagyu school. It's one of the first times I've ever actually enjoyed the fat in steak. Yeah, because it really brings out the flavor. Normally it's kind of rubbery. I felt like it augmented the flavor. It was just a very welcome part of the steak. It's so tender. That's the biggest thing that stands out. You bite down and it just melts in your mouth. You don't really need to chew. It kind of does the work for you. Very delicious. I don't know how I'm going to live without this. You're almost at a loss for words when you eat it. Because you just kind of sit there and you're like, uh. I have to think about it. You just kind of want to savor it and let all the flavor hit you. Every time I eat part of the wagyu, I want to just only think about that. Yeah. How is your Japanese food experience going? It's been great so far, yeah. It was wonderful. I'm going to be sad. So this is the broth that you cook the wagyu beef. What kind of broth is that? I think it's kelp. Oh, I see. I've never had hot pot before. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. I wasn't really growing up with a lot of Japanese or Asian food in general. Just more American-based food. I see. Oh, wow. That looks really good. Yeah, wow. I'm just noticing the marbling with the fat. You can tell just by looking at it. It's really high quality. I'm too used to cooking with lower quality meat. Have you seen beef like this? No, I have not. I don't want to see it anymore. You want to eat it? Yeah. Okay, so let's cook the beef. Three seconds and it's ready. Three seconds? That's really short. Ready. It's magic. I'll suck it through. Such a nice beef. Yeah, that's really good flavor. If I hadn't seen it be cooked, I might not have believed it was beef. It tastes just nothing like anything. The ponzu has like a sour tang to it. I didn't even have to like... I basically didn't have to chew. You didn't chew. It's like savory. So now you want to try the sesame one? Yeah, no, this one's really good. Yeah, the sauce is really good. I'm going to have to disagree with you. I like the ponzu. You like the ponzu more? I like the ponzu more. I feel like the sourness goes better with the beef than the sweetness. I guess I just like... I like sweet things, so... Inside, really good, yeah. I'm trying to decide which sauce I liked more. They were both really good in different ways, I would say. Right. This is the shabu-shabu, yo. We did it. It's so good. I just wish like I could experience and taste a little bit longer. It just never ends. It's really good. I like the veggies, actually. You like it? Yeah, usually in America, the veggies are like the filler. But they aren't meant to stand out. Here, they stand out. It's so good. Yeah, you tried everything today. How was today's experience for you guys? Amazing. So good. I feel like the mark of the culinary experience here is that I can't choose my least favorite meal. It's like hard to decide. Oh, yeah. Thank you so much for enjoying Japanese food so much like this, you know. Thank you so much. Thank you. Please come back to Japan again. Why are you marking my columns? Say bye-bye. Bye.