Never Knew Fried Chicken Can Be This Good???

Hands down last week I've ate the best fried chicken in my life, currently.

It was a Korean franchise fried chicken restaurant, called Chir Chir. My friends recommended this to me however just last week I've finally had the chance to try, and IT. WAS. SO. GOOD. I thought it will be plain blah like other Korean fried chicken fast food one such as L*tter*a or ridiculous one like *jj*. But hell this one was on another level.

Why ah? Why fried chicken can be so good???

  

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Didn't really remember the menu names that I've ordered, but I ordered the garlic chicken wings (first photo) and a sweet spicy chicken tender, added with ricotta cheese salad to neutralize the buds.

Ordered the beer as well but the taste was just meh. Was hoping the beer will taste like Suntory's Premium Malts one..(you wish)

Plus the fat: whipped cream! Insanity.

Anyway, left with a happy full tummy and definitely craving for more!

Feast.

Anyone with better recommendations than Chir Chir, challenge me, I dare you.

What to Eat in Disneysea (or What WE Eat in Disneysea)

Just so you know that last month I have this amazing chance to go to Disneysea again!! It’s not a big surprise really, as maybe this was already my 5^th or 6^th trip there however this is kinda more special as it was the first time I went there with my brother! It was quite an achievement at least for me, as this year, I managed to bring one family member to my most favorite place on earth (currently) and hopefully I can bring my mom and dad too. Hopefully next year?

However! This time I would like to focus on what kind of stuffs we ate there. Disneysea is quite famous for their food, either heavy foods or finger foods, and bringing my brother definitely gave me chances to try them all especially some of the famous one, as we can share some of the foods together (and a growing lil boy’s stomach is bigger means more variety of food that we can try).

So here we go!

The 1^st food that we tried is this 3 Little Green Men Mochi from Toy Story.

Price: 380 yen
Location: not fixed, around Toy Story area until Barnacle Bill’s (still inside American Waterfront Area)

*At the same time, introducing my lil bro, which will be the model for some of the photos.

You know that usually cute stuff didn’t follow with good taste; however this is the best dessert mocha that I have ever had in Japan! 3 pieces of soft and cute green mochi with generous vanilla, strawberry and chocolate filling. The trickiest part of this cute mocha is that the wagon location is somewhat keep changing. I usually found it in front of Toy Story area (around  2 times), and most of the times I didn’t find it at all (maybe sold out), but this time we found it in the front of Barnacle Bill’s wagon, it was right before the big bridge to Port Discovery area. We were lucky enough to notice a long queue in front of a wagon and bam! We saw that the green men was being sold was and directly queuing for it. Yumyum.

Finished with The Green Man, we went for a wagon called Seaside Snack to hunt for our 2^nd food called Ukiwah Bun.

Price: 500 yen

Location: Seaside Snack Wagon in Port Discovery

This is a swim-ring shaped shrimp filling bun that wrapped in a cute swimming Donald wrapper. The filling is quite a lot, and the bun is very soft. I read good reviews about this, and we can't deny it. It was pleasant and fulfilling. However me and my bro agreed that this was not the best food that we had here. There are some seats available around the wagon, allowing you to enjoy the bun and the pleasant view from this area.

After this, we didn’t find so much good stuffs around Lost River Delta, so we just continued our way for lunch in Arabian Coast, as we were quite starving at that time.

Our 3^rd food is our lunch, which is Curry Sets. If I remember correctly, it was available in Chicken, Fish, Beef and Combination of those 3.

Price: varies from 600-800 yen.

Location: Casbah Food Court in Arabian Coast

We ordered 2 Chicken Curry Sets (780 yen each), Salad (350 yen) and Original Lassi (350 yen), totaling 2,260 yen. We notice that the chicken cut was quite big, and the curry was delicious. What we curious about is the double carbs in one set as it have both rice and roti prata altogether (What’s wrong with Japanese and double carb, they eat ramen with rice too...).  Apologize for not taking proper photos, as we were both ravenous at that time we just remembered to take photos when our food was already damaged haha.

That lunch last for a good 2 hours more or less, and we continued to our 4^th food, which is Potato Churros, since my bro asked for one.

Price: 380 yen

Location: Churros Wagon in Mysterious Island

The least food that we liked here. As it was potato churros, the taste resembles French fries however this is like the big version of it, and the texture is softer than regular churros. However since it was quite a unique kind of churros, this is worth to try too. Maybe some of you will like it?

Since my and my bro were not satisfied enough with this churros, we went straight for our 5^th food, which is Cotton Candy Churros.

*Last photo so blur, forgive me

Price: 380 yen

Location: Open Sesame Wagon, in front of Sindbad’s Storybook Voyage attraction.

This churros is better than the potato version, and it was saluted with purplish sugar which taste like cotton candy (they said). This version of Churros is limited as it was part of the 35^th year celebration of Disneysea at that time. I assume that the wagon will be selling original churros when there’s no event of it. This was nice and we liked it!

Nearby the wagon is the Sultan Oasis area, which is like a small cafeteria that sells some snack. That’s where we buy our 6^th and 7^th food at the same time:

Easter 2018 version of Chandu’s Tail

Price: 500 yen

Location: Sultan Oasis Cafeteria

Chandu’s tail is one of the infamous foods in Disneysea, and this time they serve it Easter Special with pink ribbons (I can’t figure out what’s the form actually, rabbit?) and curry fillings. The normal version one has chicken cream fillings and orange in color with black stripes, but I liked the curry version as well. Should be considered one of the best food in Disneysea.

Vanilla Smoothie and Coffee Jelly Drink

Price: 500 yen

Location: Sultan Oasis Cafeteria

The vanilla smoothie taste like regular milk shake with coffee jelly toppings and choco powder. What I like is that it was not as sweet as I expected, and it balances well with the Chandu’s Tail. Perfect for hot summer weather. Oh, and this is the specials for 35^th Celebration Food too!

Not stopping there, before we went for our final show in Mediterranian Harbor, we went for snacks that will accompany us to watch the show:

8^th food: Garlic Shrimp Popcorn

Oh helloooo, Nemo!

Price: 350 yen

Location: Mermaid Lagoon

We are tempted to buy this because of the MSG aroma that lingers around Mermaid Lagoon, which area we have to pass in order to go to the Mediterranian Harbor. Couldn’t complain anything about the taste as it was good! Just FYI, the Curry Popcorn in Arabian Coast is much more famous compared to this one, however this time I’d prefer this one to try.

9^th Food: Gyoza Dog

Price: 500 yen

Location: Nautillus Galley

This one, I think, was the best bun that Disneysea’s have. It was a looong bun with lotsa gyoza filling, and most of the people hunted this bun a lot that they decided to move the selling place to a bigger area which is the Nautillus Galley. Since it IS big, I think this should be enough for dinner for most of the people.They have a lot of signage of this Gyoza Dog around Mysterious Island so I think it will be hardly missed. Nautillus Galley itself are quite hidden, as you need to go downstairs to get to the café.

Aaaaand that Gyoza Dog became our closing food that we ate in Disneysea. Since we are NOT like most people, in the end we went to convenience store around our hotel too to grab a very proper late dinner which was around 23.30.

Like I said before, I never had the chance to eat THIS MUCH before as usually I went there with my girl friends, which usually were not a good foodies. However, with my brother and his deep stomach pit, it was glorious! We got the chance to eat most of it and realize we spent 6,130 yen or around IDR 800.000 for all of this. Expensive, indeed, but all in all it was worth the experience! And taste, of course.

I can proudly say that most of the stuff that we ate here are some of the top items that people usually hunting for, so feel free to note them, hunt them on your next trip to Disneysea and share your thoughts!

Tips: don’t forget to take Entertainment & Information called “Today” Brochure when you take the Guide Map in front of the gate, as it has all of the information especially limited edition goods, foods, and special parade according to the event during your visit.

See you on the next post!

MUJI Pasta Series: Pancetta and Mushroom Cheese Cream Sauce

Out of curiosity I’ve finally tried Mujirushi Ryouhin’s pasta sauce that I have been eyeing for such a long time: the Pancetta and Mushroom Cheese Cream Sauce.

And just out of boredom, I kind of want to try to do a quick review about this, so, here I am with this post!

By the way in case that you didn’t know, Muji is considered as a Japanese retail company that sells everything from clothes to furniture, stationary to travel goods, and lots lots of other things including food! I always love their pasta series; as several of them were really nice such as the Peperoncino sauce, Americaine sauce and lots of others.

The one that I tried this time was a little bit different, as the normal series is usually consists only one package of sauce for 2 servings, this one is the reverse; 2 mixing package of sauce for one serving. It’s like the premium series I guess? Considered the price is almost doubled, 450 yen per package compared to the normal one for around 250 yen averagely. Bought it when it was on promo back then, for 432 yen.

This is the packages appearance:

And inside contains of other 2 packages: the Pancetta oil sauce for the green colored one and the cheese cream for the yellow one. (Thousand times I rotated the pic and blogger keep giving me this upside down picture!! WTF. Sorry about this..)

Poured on top of my previously prepared 100gr warm pasta before I mixed them: the left side is the cheese one and the right side is the pancetta one.

Quite surprised of how big the pork slice though! Too balanced it off they only put 3 of it. Smart move.

Mixed it up, and DONE!

Not so much change..

Judging by the looks, it was not THAT convincing either, but I have to say, I’m beat. I finished the whole plate in less than 10 minutes. Yums.

Final judgement??

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It was great and I’m so glad I tried this!!

The combination of both sauce were great. The cheese was not as thick as I expected to be, in a good way that it didn’t make me sick of it until the last bite. The consistency is good; not too oily yet not too creamy; it was just right. The mushroom is not stale too, it was fresh and I can still feel the soft-crunchy texture of it. However!! The one big winning point that I was overwhelmed about this is that how fragrant the pork slices (pancetta) are!! I can smell and taste the roasted, slight bitter taste of the spices on the meat very clear. Was damn niiiiceee. Too bad they only put 3 of it L

It was a fulfilling (symbolically, and literally), one plate of an (instant) pasta for me.

If you’re looking for a little bit of heavy-sauced pasta and the "cheaper" version of it, I think this may be the right choice for you as usually restaurant-made heavy-sauced fancy pasta can cost me like 1000 to 1500 yen per portion here in Tokyo.

For people who are more concerned about the price though, well, it was indeed expensive for instant style pasta. But still it was something that I will recommend to at least try once just for the sake of killing the curiosity. If I have to spend another 450 yen plus for pasta sauce, I will try other flavor or brand instead of repurchasing it.

So, how’s your thought?? 

See you on my next post!

What I Ate in Hong Kong

In this post I just want to share a little bit about what I ate in Hong Kong back there. Since I had quite a lot of photos I decide to make one specific post for this. Enjoy the picture and sorry you can't enjoy the taste. *smirk

To the point! 

I bought this VLT once I reached Hong Kong. I remember last time my friend whose a local bought me this and from there somehow this VLT brand becomes Hong Kong trademark drink (at least in my mind). 

Honestly I think this drink is very sweet. Tried the less sugar one and wahhh still too sweet for me. I don't know. This drink kinda didn't work out for me. All the Japanese brand tea were not sugared one (Japanese think that putting sugar in your tea is VERY weird) so I think I've get used to it and one reason to be blame for too. Bravo for the size, though!

Next was the One Star Michelin wanton noodles with shrimp dumplings by Ho Hung Kee. Ordered the small one, around 40hkd If I correct.

It was.. OK.  I don't knooooow. I just want this food to blow me out but somewhat It fails to impress me. The other day I tried the very cheap street wanton noodle also and If it were to be compared with Ho Hung Kee's one, definitely this one is the winner. However it still not until the point that you wanna visit and eat here over and over again. End of story.

Let's move on.

The next thing that excites me is Hong Kong super unique desserts and so far I'm not disappointed by what I ate at all. However, due to their (mostly) ugly appearance, the photo won't be as delicious-looking as the taste :(

The one that I managed to try was Sweets Dynasty's Mango Sago something. Didn't quite remember the name but It was so refreshing!

The picture was sooo... bland looking hahaha.

Ordered this egg-filled fried sesame balls too to balance the sweetness of the dessert. This one is yum!

Tried the other sweets at Honeymoon Dessert too. I had it in Indonesia before, but it was an honor to taste it in their real origin place; however I forgot to take picture of it. Tried the sesame and almond dessert with nut mochi balls (the name.. I forgot. My bad) and it taste great too!

So far thumbs up for Hong Kong desserts! 

Now next to the worst one in this post:

Yat Lok Roast Duck Rice-Noodle. hkd80. Overpriced and such a pain in the a** to eat.

Looks delicious right. See all the shiny parts here and there HOWEVER the experience of eating this was, what, craziness.

Let's get to the points: Yat Lok is very hard to find for me, as a single tourist please prepare to be moved around even when you're in the middle of eating even when you say n0(happened to me, they just grab your bowl with no mercy and moved me around), no tissue (want tissue add 3hkd, please), the rice-noodle was so slippery and hard to catch with chopstick and what makes it worse was the rice-noodle was chopped here and there so you kinda can't slurp it altogether.

Chopped and slippery rice-noodle + chopstick = you're worst nightmare. Maaaaan I can't believe I went to this place! Wish I order some other stuff rather than this.

I don't even want to comment on the duck anymore. Give me back my hkd80 I can buy 4 bowls of desserts for sure.

Luckily, from there, it seems that my over expectation of HK food drop drastically so from here on point the food taste better and better.

The next "big" thing that I tried was the famous Tai Cheong Bakery egg tart.

Shiny shiny egg tart............

...however not my most favorite. I've tried several egg tarts that was definitely better than this. The pie was not crunchy enough; and the middle part was too bland for my liking.

Maybe all HK style egg tart is like Tai Cheong one? Anybody can explain?

I went to Macau and definitely LOVE the Portuguese egg tart more, crunchy and sweeter; just the same as my expectation. I think this is a matter of personal taste already; not that Tai Cheong one was bad. It was nice however not my most favorite.

Moving to the next one was a hot bowl of soy milk and sticky-rice bun that I had for breakfast in Mongkok area. 

When I went here the owner was a very traditional lady in her mid 50 with ZERO english. So I only say "good one, good one" to her and I think she catch it (?) and she brought me this! and DEFINITELY not dissappointed!! You go auntie!!

The hot soy milk was literally the king of all of it; the sweetness was just right and combined with the salty sticky-rice filled bun, everything was just, heavenly morning. 1 thumb up for the auntie, another for the taste, and the rest of my (feet) thumb added because of this healthy style of a breakfast :)

The next before the last one was this recommended French Toast (?) from Mido Cafe near Tin Hau temple.

Love the cafe ambiance, love the taste too.

I never had this kind of food for whole my life to be honest! A bread dipped in egg and fried, eaten with maple syrup and butter. A Little bit oily but it was nice! The milk tea balance the sweetness and washed away the oily feeling. Perfect combination. 

I tell my Singaporean friend about this food and he shocked; he told me he ate this stuff almost everyday as breakfast when he was in Singapore. Seriously. Indonesian didn't know this stuff at all how can hahahah.

And this is the last recommended food that I can remember eating (and the last photo of food that I had) which is HK famous Polo Bun by Kam Wah Cafe.

Taste nice, crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, perfect paired with (again) the milk tea. One is enough to make me full until lunchtime. 

The one thing that concern me with this cafe was the service: zero English and very understaffed, and even some of the staff can scold customer in some ways. Consider I'm used to Japanese way to service customer (which customer is the KING), this one was a mega culture shock for me! Well, what an experience, I have to say.

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For overall, my food-adventure in Hong Kong was quite fun! Got some disappointment and shocked about several things here and there but on the other hand the good one was really good so It kinda balancing everything out in the end.

I've tried to follow people's recommendation here and there using travel books, blog reviews, and stuff, some works for me, the others not. On the other hand when I tried some stuff randomly at some points, it turns out to be better then what I expected it will be. Strange, indeed, but I realized that's the exciting part of a new experience. 

At least I know that I didn't regret trying every single thing that I have tried back there. Well, except the Roast Duck one, sorry. However I still wished that I have much more time (and another stomach) to try several food that I didn't have time to try back there (such as their dim sum, and hotpot rice). 

Maybe I will be back there again someday; definitely won't miss the dim sum and hotpot rice next time!

See you on the next one!

Fujiko F. Fujio Museum

Recently since one of my friend had a holiday and had a chance to visit me here in Japan, I had a chance to go with her to one of the famous tourist spot in Japan known as Fujiko F Fujio Museum.. or most of us called it Doraemon Museum!!

It was located in Kawasaki Area (about 30-40 minutes train plus bus ride to the place) with Noborito Station as the nearest station from the main spot.

I was astonished by how cute the bus to the museum itself (it was all decorated with all Fujiko Fujio thingy, illustrations here and there on the bus wall interior etc) aaand I forgot to take the photos. Damn sad.

However, reached the place, camera is ready!

The staff there guarding the visitor's flow based on the time of entrance. Since my friend and I visited other place in the morning we picked the last entrance time, from 4 to 6 p.m. 

Have to pay attention though, that several points in the museum were closed even before 6 p.m. for example, the cafe last order was on 5 p.m., so have to be very careful on time management since several spots will be very crowded such as their infamous photo spots and souvenirs shop.

When we were waiting for our turn to the main entrance, I managed to take several photos of the figurines that were displayed there.

below is so cute OMFG.

Then before we enter the main museum we were gathered in one spot to be briefed about the do and don'ts. Some spots were prohibited to take photos because several of Fujio's real artwork were shown there. It comes with English subtitle too so no worries :)

The main purpose of the museum is indeed to be dedicated for Fujiko F. Fujio who dedicated his life to create artwork that can be enjoyed both from a kid's POV and from adult's POV.

Doraemon, is just a tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny bit of Fujio's whole artwork. 

That's why some of the tourist were disappointed with what's inside; they expect it will be some kind of museum that really explain all of Doraemon's magic tools etc, but in the end what they see is different from their expectation.

Most of the things showed here (to give you a brief image) are something like sketches of Fujio's art, his technique on drawing his art, his life and his family, etc. (Come to think of it) That gave us another reason why the museum's name is not Doraemon Museum, But Fujiko F Fujio Museum.

However however!

There are so much interesting spots to be enjoyed too such as this beautiful-version-of-Giant well! 

All the kids pumping the lever there and the beautiful-Giant will show up for several seconds and before it went down again they took photos! Since the queue were so long I decided to just peek and go.

After enjoyed ourself touring the main hall, we reached the spots which (finally) photo were allowed:

The Reading Hall.

Leisure Hall.

It was just a normal leisure hall with tiny door as a bait for kids!

Next to the leisure hall were the theater. Since we didn't have so much time at that moment we decided to skip the theater. It plays 10 minutes special movie for several times in a day however it came only in Japanese audio which resulting in why my friend skipped it since she can't understand Japanese at all too. 

Then we just walk a little bit more and found an open space that leads to the main photo spot!

P-man enjoying life...How nice.

And here are the main spot!! 

From here pardon my oily face and hair; its a little bit too humid and hot that day since the week before were always raining quite hard.

The field that Nobita and the gang always play.

The famous pink door hahaha ( didn't go nowhere though.. pass the door arrived on the same field -___-)

And the dinosaur.

Have to pay attention that even though I managed to get some "clean" photos without all the crowd, to be honest, it took me and my friends THAT MUCH of an effort to took these photos. The crowd (and the kids) were running everywhere it's crazy. It was a mental battle between embarrassment and eagerness to take cute photos!! 

See this if don't believe me:

See ah. All the parents and the kids. Wahhh. 

And it's only one small part of the battle. Small part. *sigh*

Finish with the photo battle (glad it's over!) we went straight to the cafe and ordered meal as soon as possible since the order hour are soon to be finished. We ordered karaage set (fried chicken set meal), the cheese risotto (?, forget the name) and art coffee latte (standard taste. Again, only for the sake of its cuteness!) 

The meal's taste is OK, not like WOW but very acceptable. The price ranged from 1.000 yen for standard meal to 2.000 yen the really fancy one, I didn't quite remember. The karaage set is around 1400 yen, forgot about the risotto, and the cafe latte were around 400-500 yen.. memory blur but it was around that price I'm sure.

Satisfied and finished with our meal, we have no other time besides rushing directly to the souvenir's shops. 

It was near closing time so the souvenirs shop were so crowded sorry can't take proper photos. I managed to take this photo only! 1.080 yen.. not buying.

All the kids wear this on the museum!! What a hype.

Finished with our shopping marked as the end of our trip here. We went back to the station by the bus and reached Noborito around 19.00. Then from there we went to Shinjuku to go back home.

And this is my shopping spree result for that day! Take a look at it once again I realize it's quite a lot actually (ooppss!)

The blue box and the bus can were cookies for my work colleagues since they know i'm visiting this museum that day and allowed me to take day off so I splurge them a little bit alright. The Dorami Doll for my boss' little daughter. And the rest is for myself hahaha. The coaster are free souvenirs from the cafe though! 

Well, for overall, I really enjoyed it a lot!! 

Since my expectation about this museum were not THAT high (I didn't expect it to be ALL Doraemon from the start) it was really a fun experience!

Me myself quite enjoyed the moment of when the museum showed me how Fuji's artwork being processed, what kind of tools he used to draw his comics, how did Fujio's enjoyed his everyday living etc. It was worth a visit; seeing how amazing one person can share so many happiness to all the people through things he love the most: art.

The question is, like him, how can I share happiness to people through things that I love the most?

Still, an unanswerable question indeed, but I always believe that I will find the answer someday.

Fujiko F. Fujio, thanks for all the fun today :) You will always be remembered.

See you on next post!