Top 1000 on Tabelog The best udon and tempura I had in Japan. The noodles, broth and tempura are all done extremely well. I was always craving this place and ended up having it 5 times in the month I was in Tokyo.

Just a note that I'm not sure if they have an english menu as we didn't ask and the Japanese menu doesn't have any pictures. I'd recommend using Google Translate if you can't read any hiragana/kanji but if the menu is still too overwhelming (it's essentially a wall of text lol), you can probably just show them the image to the right and that'll do the trick.

My first and best crepe in Japan.

We stumbled here because it had pretty great reviews on tabelog and ramen db and it was a 4 minute walk from Tennoji station. They serve tori-paitan which is an emulsified, creamy chicken broth. Stepping in, I expected a ticket machine and no-frills service but this place was boujee with a sit-down menu and waiters taking your order at your seat. Ordering ramen is probably the hardest transactional food conversations you can have because of the number of customisations you can make, but studying a bit for it (maybe with this guide) before and you'll be right.

Onto the food. Creamy, but light chicken soup. Both shoulder and belly chashu and you get to choose your noodle thickness and firmness. We chose somen (very thin noodles) to make it similar to hakata tonkotsu style noodles and they were great. The broth had a slight yuzu spice and it was very welcome to cut through the rich toppings. The best (and most surprising part!) of the process was that extra servings of noodles were free. Free kaedama!! Incredible.

We got some donuts from here on our first day in Tokyo randomly because we had previously seen a youtuber check it out and the line was short. Turned out to be the best donuts I've ever had in my life!! The donut is fluffy while filling is not too sweet and the perfect custard consistency. Some custards are too thick, others too thin. But this one was perfect in every way possible.

This place needs no introduction - the most popular udon restaurant in Osaka! The type of udon I'd always be able to go for. The noodles are thinner than your typical udon noodles, more similar to Langzhou beef noodles. Serving sizes are quite big imo so come hungry.

It is worth the hype. Kaisendon turned into ochazuke, definitely something you can only really get in Japan. The prices were really affordable for how much seafood they give you and how popular it is. They could easily charge way more and still get the same customer base imo. Everytime we didn't know what to have for dinner, we defaulted to Tsujihan lol we probably had it 8 times in the month we were in Tokyo.

I wouldn't recommend getting it takeaway even though there is the option for it and you could skip lines. I tried getting takeaway once and it didn't really hit the same imo.

A great international coffee store that has a strong coworking culture. Lots of laptops are out, free wifi and powerpoints so it's a great place to relax and kill time or just spend a couple hours doing some work. On top of that, the coffee is easily the best we had in Japan. Very strong coffee.

By far the best takoyaki we had in Japan, very generous with the bonito flakes and they tasted really fresh.

I tried this egg pudding for the first time like 3 days before I was about to leave because I kept passing it on the way to Tokyo station. I finally caved and it turned out to be the best egg pudding I've ever had in my life. I ended up trying almost all the flavours, all of them are good! This store is on the Yaesu passageway to Tokyo station.

Lowkey thought parfaits were mid until I had the warabi mochi parfait here. It was the first parfait we had in Japan but turns out parfaits ARE mid (imo), this one was just rly good. None of the other parfaits hit the same 😭 If you happen to be in Takayama, you have to come here!

Japan does pizza well. Watch Ugly Delicious episode 1 for why that's the case (well, you don't have to watch it, because if you've been reading along, Japan can take anything and make it exceptionally good). This was in Tabelog's top 20 pizzerias in Tokyo so we were skeptical that we'd get a seat without a reservation. Best bet was a weekday lunch before the the 12pm rush but it was already packed still! Thankfully, the waiter was super accomodating and let us know that there was going to be a table finishing up soon and we got a table for two without any reservations.

Pizza in Japan is so cheap. We paid for the 1400 yen ($14 when we went) lunch set which came with a salad, a soup, and a main (pizza/pasta) which would have likely came to $50 per person in Sydney. You could really taste the quality in the extra virgin olive oil they used in the salad and that was a good sign that they take everything seriously, not just the pizza.

We ordered the classic margherita pizza which had a nice bubbly crust and crispy leopard base and a good balance of the tomato sauce and cheese. We have similar quality pizzas in Newtown, but for the price, this pizza was so ridiculously good. We also ordered the boscaiola pasta which had a ton of mushrooms and was so umami packed I low-key wanted to order another lunch set for seconds. But I had restraint, and we left satisfied and planning out when our next visit to Pizza Da Babbo would be.

I'm not sure why I craved shake shack so often but I probably had it 4 times in the one month I was in Tokyo. An honourable mention lol

Second fav takoyaki, say less

Miyajima is known for their oysters and momiji manju (maple leaf shaped) dessert. Definitely recommend the food market on the island. We bought some bread from a bakery prior as a snack but there was so much good food choice that we didn't really have to.

This was my first (but definitely not last) bowl of Jiro Ramen. Thick cut wavy noodles in a shoyu pork broth topped with a mountain of vegetables and pork back fat floating on top. It’s a hefty, rich bowl where you’ll leave your first experience either loving or hating it with nothing in between. Coming back from Japan, this is the one meal that I crave almost daily. This shop (and most shops) lets you customise the noodle weight (starting from 250g and going all the way up to 400g) and just before you’re given the bowl, they’ll ask you the amount of vegetables, garlic and pork fat to add on top. Personally I leave fat and garlic at their normal amounts and add extra vegetables to feel better about the damage inflicted onto my arteries. There’s no English menu, and the chefs will ask for your customisations in Japanese too so I highly recommend rehearsing your order (I used this guide) before going. Jiro chefs are known to be a bit grumpy and serious, so going in with preparation will help you face that interaction with confidence.

This shop was the best version of this style, but also look for any ramen shop with a bright yellow sign and red writing ラーメン二郎 as those are super good too.

We wanted to go to a bunch of ramen shops in Hiroshima but time was short, and they were all closed during our stay so we just visited a random, highly tabelog reviewed place near us and it was amazing. Great food is everywhere in Japan, but it's especially true for ramen as a lot of places swear by their "kodawari" spirit or their pursuit towards perfection.

This place specialises in seafood blended in with a pork broth known as "tonkotsu gyokai". It's a punchy, rich bowl from the umami rich "gyofun" which is a seafood powder made from ground up niboshi, katsuobushi, saba and any other fish. You can get a great version of this style at Kosuke Ramen in North Strathfield, but hands down this bowl was the best version of this style. It's lighter than usual, and nice citrusy notes which is always welcome in richer bowls.

Main lesson learned: walking into random restaurants and feeling like you found a hidden gem is underrated. Do that more often!

We walked by this place at night and it was so loud and packed full of locals enjoying small plates of Thai food. There's minimal Japanese writing in the restaurant, instead opting for Thai writing everywhere. We thought that because of that, it was run by a Thai family, but the head-chef is a Japanese person who's in love with Thai culture. Kodawari (pursuit of perfection) is everywhere!

We first ate here for dinner and it was a good break from the usual Japanese sweet salty flavours. The wok-fried vegetables here are world class - the wok hei was truly healing. I will say that the pad see ew was kinda shit, but that was the only exception as everything else was great.

Also during lunch, there's free self-serve green curry and rice! The people that run the place were so sweet and I'm sad we missed out on a photo with them as they were super accomodating and thankful for us visiting.

We went to a bunch of izakayas that specialised in gyozas but each one left us disappointed. They were pretty forgettable and low-key not better than the ones you can make at home. That was until tenshin-no-kimochi-no-gyoza (mouthful of a name but despite that haven't forgotten since). It's a place that prides themselves on making the best gyoza they can without sparing any expense. Their filling uses four different cuts of pork to get the perfect fat to protein blend, and their wrappers are hand-made with a blend of whole wheat and mochi flour to get the perfect QQ. You also have to try their mazesoba when you come too.

If you visit the store around lunch time, you can see them making gyozas in their store-front workshop and it's immediately evident the quality and attention they pay to the entire process. The only fault is that it's a bit more pricey than your usual cheap izakaya feed, but I'd take this 100% of the time over all the other meh, but cheap gyozas we tried.