WARNING: Before reading this post, go grab yourself some food or else you'll be craving for it after you're done reading. I mean it, this post is gonna be filled with food pictures.

I don't really know what's the thing with taking food pictures, but everyone, me included, seems to be doing it almost everytime they eat out. Why is it so much fun to snap a pic of your plate before you dig in? :D Well, I do not know the answer to that, but since I snapped quite a few during my trip I thought I might as well dump them here!


My favourite kind of places to eat at were different izakayas. When you're not sure what and how much you want to eat, it's super easy to walk into one and order a few of the various small dishes they offer for small prices. It was also a good choice when you want to share your food with your friends. It's not a part of finnish culture so share your food, but it's very common in Asia.

A thing worth mentioning about ordering food in an izakaya is that you often have a tablet-like thingy on your table that has a digital menu you can use to order the things you want. This way you don't need to call for a waiter, because your order goes straight to the kitchen and will be brought to you shortly.

I don't know if I should be ashamed, but the sushi in these pictures was the only sushi I ate during the whole trip... :D But I figured I'd try other japanese foods instead of sushi, because that I can get in Finland as well. What I especially liked to eat at izakayas, was 餃子 (gyōza = dumplings), 唐揚げ (karaage = japanese style fried chicken) and おむそば (omusoba = beef and noodles with an omelette on top). The fried avocado on left in the pic above was quite interesting too.

As I mentioned in my post about bars & partying as well,  izakayas usually offer 飲み放題 (nomihōdai = drink-all-you-want menu) too. For a certain price you can order as many drinks as you want for a limited time (usually 2 hours or something).


On one of the days I met up with Jojo and her friends for some shopping time and food, and we ended up going to this 焼き肉 (yakiniku = japanese style barbeque) place in Harajuku. Which basically means you order different kinds of thin sliced meat and vegetables that will be brought to you raw and you cook them on your table grill.

I went to this kind of restaurant on my last trip too, but damn, I still find them scary. It gets quite hot because you're sitting in front of an open fire and at one point the flames got too high and I was so surprised I actually threw my pliers away lol. The blue/transparent glass seen in the pics was filled with water, so you could pour it on the flames if they got too wild.... Still, scary. But super tasty!!


I'm not really a big fan of desserts, but I had a few of those too! One thing I really wanted to try out was かき氷 (kakigōri = shaved ice, flavored with syrup, fruit and condensed milk) because I've heard it's a popular dessert during the hot summer season and helps you to cool down. Well I don't know if helped at all and I didn't really like it that much... It was literally like eating ice and stawberry syrup, ugh. But atleast I tried it!

The cute penguin shaped chocolate thing was filled with mousse and fruits! It was pretty good, but the main reason for buying it was because me and Anna thought they had wi-fi in that cafe in Ikebukuro but they didn't, hahaha.


On the left you can see a pork with rice dish I often had as a take out from Yoshinoya on my way home. They had most of the take away dishes in 3-4 different sizes and they were super cheap and tasty, so it was easy to grab one for a evening snack.

And on the right is a とんかつ (tonkatsu = pork cutlet) dish I had at Jonathan's. I sometimes feel a bit baffled with japanese meals because they often come with so many different things I have no idea what they are and how I'm supposed to eat them... Well, I can always pull out the バカ外人 (baka gaijin = stupid foreigner) card if someone gives me a disapproving look.


Even though Tokyo is full of different theme restaurants, I only managed to visit one, which was the Rilakkuma Café at Tower Recods in Shibuya. And that was kinda spontaneous too, since I just tagged along with Anna and Rena before the GazettE live. When we got escorted to the table for 4 people and there was only 3 of us, the waitress brought a big Rilakkuma plushie to sit with us on the 4th seat, aw.

The cafe mostly served different pastries and drinks, all with cute Rilakkuma designs, but I decided to go with the curry because I was feeling hungry. I don't particularly enjoy curry (or indian food in general, everything tastes like that freaking tikka masala lol), but japanese curry is really good!

I felt bad because I had to destroy the cute food, but let's face it, it was gonna get eaten anyway haha. On the left you can see a regular japanese curry from CoCo's for comparison :'D That was what I sometimes had for hangover food. Both were delicious!


I also had some non-japanese food during my trip, such as T.G.I Friday's delicious avocado burger, where I went with Tuomas, Yameki and their friend Mariko. Instead of nomihōdai T.G.I Friday's had a "limu"hōdai hahah (limu = soda in finnish).

On the right is some avocado dumplings I had as a snack in some bar. Can you already tell I friggin' love avocados :DD



Left: Deep fried "closed down" pizza aka panzerotti which I had somewhere in Harajuku and it was quite weird but tasted OK.

Right: Steak at a restaurant in Venus Fort, Odaiba. You could choose rice or bread with it, which I thought was super weird since the meal already had potatoes in it... like... why do I need two side dishes? Also the blue lights made it look like you were eating in a toilet with drug preventing UV lights, lol.


As much as I love different salads, the ones I ate in Japan were quite.. meh. These were still close to what I'm used to having when I'm ordering a salad, but often it was more like just having grated vegatables. Maybe making salads isn't one of japanese people's strong points.

Anyways, that's what I ate during my month in Tokyo. What's your favourite japanese foods?