The Japanese Food Adventure Chapter 3 - Day 21. The big rumble

This morning we returned to Little Mermaid underneath Koenji station for a spot of breakfast. A hot dog sausage drizzled with cheese and onion encased in a golden pastry certainly hot the spot. To satisfy my sweet tooth a chocolate filled horn pastry. 

We needed to check out of the Koenji Guesthouse by 10am so we packed our cases, left a thank you note for the hosts and stored our cases in luggage lockers at the station.

On our final day in Tokyo we wanted to take it easy so we slowly explored the shops around Koenji.

Nah, it was too small!

We'd read about a vegan restaurant in Koenji called Meu Nota. It was full when we first arrived but the owner kindly reserved us a table for later in the afternoon. When we returned we enjoyed this 30 ingredient taco rice for ¥980 (£6.60). A stack of rice was topped with spiced bean mince and surrounded by salad and corn chips. 

If you ordered a main meal you could get a coffee at the same time for ¥50 (33p) and a desert for ¥100 (66p). We took advantage of both offers, the desert was a rather nice vegan creme brulee.

Having walked our lunch off around the streets of Koenji we collected our cases and headed to the station. We were staying in Narita tonight so we would be closer to the airport for our morning flight.

We picked up some food in Shinjuku to eat on the Narita Express. Born in Hokkaido these baked cheese tarts are crispy, rich and fluffy inside. They cost ¥300 (£2) each and are gorgeous.

I was surprised to find what looked like Scotch eggs in a supermarket so I bought some for the train journey. Rich and creamy eggs encased in pork katsu, I love scotch eggs but these were far nicer. 

Milky mochi balls that perfectly captured the Milky flavour. 

Our home for our final night in Japan was the top floor of U-city Hotel in Narita. A double room here cost us ¥5600 (£37.50) for one night. The hotel offered an airport transfer for guests and the airport was just 20 minutes drive away.

Close to the hotel was a 7 Eleven, ideal as we planned on eating back in the hotel room.

Fried chicken, rice and pickles costing ¥450 (£3) was my evening meal. Over a can of Sapporo we reflected on our time in Japan before getting some sleep as we had to be up early for our flight in the morning.

At precisely 12.01am my wife woke me up to inform me that there was an earthquake which had started a few minutes ago. The building was swaying quite intensely so we quickly got dressed. It lasted a couple of minutes and eventually stopped, no announcement was made over the speakers to evacuate so we went back to sleep again. I looked it up on Twitter and discovered a 6.3 magnitude earthquake had struck off the East coast close to Iwaki. 



The next morning...

At Narita Airport I spent the last of my yen on this chicken tempura ramen for breakfast. Costing ¥1050 (£7) it was definitely the best food I'd ever experienced at an airport! Chicken breast in a golden tempura batter served with soba noodles, egg and spring onions in a rich broth. A thoroughly delicious end to an incredible 3 week adventure in Japan!

Click here for Japanese Adventure, Chapter 4
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