More than 10 years ago, I met a couple in a Japanese language class. The moment we decided to study together along with my husband was the moment the four of us became lifelong friends. The two families have traveled together, spent holidays at each other's houses, and shared a lot of special memories as a group. When we moved, we knew these friends would come stay with us for a Japanese adventure. After seven and a half months, they arrived last night!
We knew today would be a hard day due to jet lag, so we decided to take them to Ooedo Onsen Monogatari. We spent six hours relaxing in the baths, eating good food, getting massages, and talking. It was so great to spend the day with familiar faces.
After getting all of our kinks out, we took a walk around Odaiba. There is a huge robot outside Diver City shopping mall. Gundam, the robot, was a huge attraction. I was surprised by the number of people taking photos of the gigantic statue. I admittedly am not very knowledgeable in the anime department, so I had no clue who Gundam was. At least I knew he wasn't a Transformer! Despite my lack of expertise, the robot was still a sight to see.
We admired the robot for a while (and also watched the crowd be so excited about him) and then we headed inside the mall for dinner. My husband had read about an all you can eat kushiage restaurant, Kushiya Monogatari. Our friends are always up for a culinary challenge, so they were super excited for this dining experience. The interesting thing about this place is that it isn't just about how much you can eat, you have to cook it first!
While being shown our table, the waitress opened the bench seat so we could secure our bags (and avoid getting any oil on them). In all my years I had never seen this and thought it was genius!
Our table was small with a little vat of oil in the middle to fry our kushiage in. We then wandered over to the buffet where we selected skewered meat and vegetables.
After taking a plateful back to our table, we dipped each item into batter and breadcrumbs and dropped it into the oil. The kushiage sizzled as it cooked. We would check the color of the breadcrumbs to check for doneness. As soon as it reached the right color, we would pull them out and set it on the rack to drip and cool down.
We enjoyed small bites of shrimp, broccoli, chicken, renkon (lotus root), pork, sausage, mushrooms, beef, and eggplant. There's something about cooking the meal together that makes it an experience.
After getting our fill of fried food, it was time for dessert. I have to admit, the dessert table looked pretty attractive, but was incredibly disappointing. There was a matcha chocolate fountain that looked fun, but wasn't very tasty. The cakes and puddings were just not very good.
We didn't let the dessert deter from our fun night out. The experience of making our own kushiage was very fun and memorable for us.
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