5 Must Try Japanese Chain Restaurants 🍜

good morning and welcome to another Series where I visit a lot of Japanese chain restaurants today we're starting at coma coffee which is a really popular coffee chain here and they're known for having budget options and really cozy style environments and I'm here really early in the morning because they have a thing called a morning service where if you buy a hot drink you can literally get a piece of toast and egg included for free and that's pretty good value so I've got this coffee and it's called white coffee in English but it's basically coffee with lots of milk and they make it really hot here how I like it I've just got like a piece of Japanese white bread which if you aren't familiar with it's called chupan and it's really fluffy and really thick like look at this it's so thick and you can choose a topping so you can either choose butter or you can get something more Japanese and sweet which is sweet red beans and I actually got this as a side because I want to show you guys a Japanese style breakfast before I forget I've also got an egg let me give this a try it's actually my first time having it at coma I've had it a lot of other Japanese CAF with old though I took a big bite the aaki paste is like cold so it's like kind of a nice refreshing hit because the toast is still warm and I'm glad I got butter because butter and auki is also really good I forgot to mention for this whole set it was only 600 or 700 if you want the extra big coffee so it's pretty good for breakfast on the go out of the cafe and they do have like plugs so if you want to like work or charge while you're on the go perfect place to do it there are over 300 locations in Japan so you'll probably come across one of them and if you're looking for like a quick bite I highly recommend it but I need to keep going and find more chain restaurants so let's go I'm very excited because today is the first time I've ever come to ichidan Ramen which is one of the most popular Ramen chains in Japan especially for foreign tourists it is so popular that you are going to be waiting about an hour to 2 hours to get a bowl of this Ramen and there's something really unique about ichidan which I didn't realized is the Privacy you are literally seated at these private boobs and there's no contact with the staff you just sit down and they have this little tatani style window which they'll flap up and then they'll serve their Ramen right here today I am actually in the oaka location which is special because they use a broth that doesn't use pork and I can't eat pork so it's perfect for me and that's why I haven't come even after living in Japan for 6 years it looks amazing the presentation is beautiful it's in this black box which is not typical of ramen because Ramen usually comes inside of a bowl without a lid and I'm just I'm just so excited and so impressed by the Privacy it's it's like being in another world and I feel like I'm a tourist in Japan again um I don't know where much I'll here the chopsticks up the top it is piping hot I can see the steam coming off of [Music] [Applause] this oh yeah this is tasty it's got a hit of spice they have their own specialty spice um which they do sell you can hear them saying which is basically welcome wow and I love this place because you can actually customize your Ramen dish entirely when you arrive after you've ordered from the ticket machine because typical of a ramen restaurant you're going to order from the ticket Boo and then you will get to customize your entire dish with this piece of paper where you'll Circle things like how much dust you do you want inside how thick should the broth be how much spice how much garlic and how thick should the noodles be and I love thick noodles not down of th thin ones and they really do thick ones here it's awesome since it was my first time I wanted to go with the most basic Ramen on the menu so I went for the classic one it was about 1,100 Yen but I went for a side of egg and it was really interesting because when it came out I got a little you know piece of plastic paper which said the egg is hard to peel and it's rarely the case that there's an issue with the quality but if you don't like it you can get another egg so they're really really making sure the customer has a good experience and as honestly all these small details I'm sitting here and I'm just observing it while I was waiting for my Ramen to come out they have these little wooden boards that are on the side of your table it's actually crazy because here it says you can make a request at itam without speaking so you literally just call them here with a button that's right in front of me it says call us and then you pass them this wooden block and then you can get your request I wanted to give the beef a try because apparently this is what most of the ones come here with and it's recommended so it's really tender really soft it kind of resembles um Gom that thin sliced beef it's really sweet as well also had their original tea so I couldn't resist the opportunity to give it a try tastes like black tea yeah interesting tea is also a surprising Choice with Ramen they did sell beer and orange juice so I feel like there's some atypical things here if you are thinking of coming to ichidan I highly recommend coming off peak time so don't go at lunch or dinner go like kind of 3:00 p.m. 400 p.m. or really early in the morning if you're down for morning Ramen because that is a thing in Japan I finished all of my first round of noodles but still have a reasonable amount of soup left so I'm thinking to do a half size kayama which is extra noodles and it's actually my first time seeing half size usually it's just one size and it's only 150 Yen pretty good so what I'm going to do is I'm going to pull off one of these sheets and I'm going to fill it in again [Music] what are my two extra things I have some half siiz kayama and some [Music] nauy I've noticed there's a message at the bottom of this r box and I'm just so full like I don't know if I can finish the soup I can just I can just make it [Music] out and that was it let's go to our next spot I wanted to announce that I have started a patreon and I'm super excited because I'm going to be sharing what's of behind the scenes information live streams and you guys can contribute to how the videos turn out because today my patreon community you guys voted for B SOA and that's where our next location is so let's go and eat some oily noodles today I want to introduce a different type of noodle dish here in Japan you've heard of ramen you've heard of soba and udon but this is AB SOA and what's unique about this is that it's basically a soupless dish and so we've got these thick yellow noodles when you order it it comes with a few toppings but once you mix it you actually add in a few sides like vinegar and they have two choices we have this chili sty vinegar and then a normal vinegar if you know me I love my vinegar and this location I'm eating at today is Tokyo abasa and there are tons of locations across Tokyo and they're quite small actually there's only about like 10 seats or so and there's often lines in the evening because this place is like a late night joint so if you come late in the evening you're going to be lining up but enough my dish is here and I really want to dig in so time to put my vinegar inside woo I'm going to go a little light in the beginning and I'm going to add a little bit of this chili oil it looks like I have some onion as well that I can add and of course while I'm eating I can add more and the best way to enjoy abas SOA is by mixing it all together so so inside here there is a little bit of sauce hiding at the bottom but then I also have some seaweed some menma which are like bamboo shirs as well as a half-boiled egg wow and it's steaming hot this is a warm dish I love this so much it's got those kind of rich flavors that I really enjoy and they're very like vinegary of course M it's completely different to Ramen completely different to soar I'm actually going to add a bit more vinegar cuz I don't think I was too light on it but that looks like a lot I'm scared one of my favorite things about Al SAR is not only the flavor oo that just sprayed everywhere but um the chewiness of the noodles it's almost similar to skim which is a noodle dish that you dip in a broth I think I added the perfect amount of vinegar and if you're wondering how much this cost this is about $99.90 and this was like one of the most standard ones but you can get other sizes which for the large size it was the same price but if you went extra large it was about 100 y more but then they also had some with like spicy miso and you can get fancy toppings I even saw parmesan as a topping just a little curious ious about that I don't know about parmesan I feel like you know the sharpness of the cheese could add a bit of interesting flavor to it but uh I think I appreciate the most basic one cuz it's like what they're known for this dish actually originated in Western Tokyo and it's been around for a while now but one thing that's always been a bit interesting is that the name although it's translated to literally oily noodles it's not that oily really it's just like the source but there's a few theories as to why it got that name and one of them was because it had to differentiate itself from skim in the reason Sarah brought me is because I am actually a connoisseur of abodo SOA it is my number one most underrated Japanese food and this is really good my favorite flavor actually they don't have it here is Sho lime which is salt lime that one's really really good so if you ever see that flavor that's my recommendation so I was asking Sarah is like Sarah why is it called soba when it's not really soba noodles they're like Ramen noodles and you're the soba expert so I was wondering if you knew good question Alysa fun fact is that I don't have the answer so please let us know down below if you know why one thing I will mention is you will leave this restaurant feeling very full and a bit heavy so don't come here if it's the morning I'm at the McDonald's of Japan this is mossberger and it is everywhere here you'll see it on the corner of every street and every prefecture and it is very different to an American food chain because of course they've got Burgers which I've got here this is actually a soy Patty but they have something really interesting on the menu here which is a rice burger and it's got Yaki niku inside and everyone loves Yaky niku so I had to order myself this as well as some chips but these aren't any chips these have onion rings inside as well as you know the classic Coke which in Japan is an oong tea and for this entire set I've only paid $1,200 again which is pretty reasonable value if you ask me because I got an extra on the side so I'm going to dig in but I think I want to start with this yakin rice Burger because this is something you can't find anywhere else in the world I think and I love how generous they are like look at all that lettuce lettuce tastes good mous this is really good they have nailed it like yaku niku with rice is already such a good combination but then you put it in a burger with some lettuce you cannot go wrong with this oh my god I've actually had this before because mossberger in Australia and I've been to their Queensland shop a few times and I dragged like my family there who would have thought rice in the burger form if you're wondering like how they stick the rice together it's basically like rice that is put in like the circular Patty shape and then they put soy sauce on it cuz it's like a little bit Brown on the outside side like this and then they're frying it like on the hot plate I of assume and the flavoring of that is just so Saucy and so good I think it's almost like on par with a regular burger like regular burgers are good but this is also like pretty decent and also on the side this cost like 490 y so if you just want this it's pretty good I got so distracted I forgot to eat my beautiful onion ring like look at this it looks a little small like I don't eat a lot of onion rings but the onion just fell out of this I know that feels really salty and greasy to me so not exactly my favorite but I don't consume a lot of onion rings so maybe I'm just not informed enough but I'm going to try the chips this is very different to like the McDonald's chips which are like the small like crispy fries this is like a lot more like potato inside which I do like I approve of these fries look I'm becoming more mean every time like I'm saying fries now these are chippies to me where's the chicken Salt where are my Aussies out there give me some chicken Salt in Japan sometimes you can get like shy buba flavoring but not today these are just normal saled this oong is just so good like I feel like it's just a good palette cleanser because it's kind of like I don't know a bitter flavor and it's healthier than Coke so I really I wish like overseas they had that too but I'm going on to the Burger on the menu here they also meat options but I wanted to show you guys that there's also soy ones available and this is so cheap this is only 280 I think that's really cheap oh actually if you get cheese which I did it's 300 y but inside we have some tomato sauce some onion as well as cheese and the soy [Music] Patty there was a little bit of mustard hiding on the na which I'm a big fan of mustard so it's welcome I don't know I really like it it's really affordable simple isn't the best burger in the world no but it's like something you can just pick up if you're on the go it's like cominis better than a comini burger cuz they have them at the com [Music] here I'm just eating this rice when it's so like so good before coming to mossberger today I wanted to look into a little bit of history about it and it started here in Japan so it's a Japanese chain but it is the second biggest here after McDonald's Japan you might be wondering why is it called mossberger well it's a backr which that's a new word I learned today and it means right here on the cup Mountain ocean Sun stand tall as the mountain heart white as the ocean with passion bright as the sun that is so deep thank you mossberger for inspiring us here every day another great thing about moss Burgers they actually have a lot of like dietary options they have some Veggie stuff as well as vegan stuff and they sell it in supermarkets here too which is very rare because even McDonald's Japan doesn't have anything that's like vegetarian friendly so they're kind of like Forward Thinking in that sense maybe it comes from their slogan Mountain ocean Sun I was too tempted by the very Japanese item on the menu it's oido which is red bean in a soup with Mochi which is these white rice balls and I mean you would never find this in like a western chain so I thought this is really cool and it comes in like a little cup where you can sip it that is so sweet this is a very winter dish and right here in Japan as you can see it's the cold time of year so I wonder if in the summer they have something like cyy I could imagine that being on their menu for oida this isn't too bad it wasn't on the cheaper side it was 390m I don't know I can buy a burger for less than that my soy Burger was less than that so you know I don't know about you but at the end of every Burger now in Winter maybe I just need an noal to wrap up my meal this is my first time introducing ing a family restaurant which you might not have heard of before but it is a Japanese style of really Budget Restaurant I don't know how to explain it other than that but they have really like easy to eat dishes and they're really cheap and super affordable and they're literally everywhere across the country right now I'm at one called SI area known as sier amongst all the cool kids and they sell Japanese style Italian now you can interpret that how you like but it is not very authentic they have things like squid pasta on the menu they have some attempt at Margarita but that being said I think it's still quite tasty I'm starting off my meal the Italian way with some melon soda which as we all know the Italians drink on the daily this place is so cheap for unlimited drinks you just have to pay 190m and you can sit here for like 8 hours and just keep drinking and drinking of course there's like other things other than this green drink you've got Coke you've got ginger ale but they also have tea coffee while waiting make sure to enjoy the lovely aesthetic of this Italian restaurant and when you order you have to write it on a paper like this so it's a bit confusing and then ring the bell only about 10 minutes after ordering or maybe less my food is already here and today I'm going to be eating something called a meat bodia and I'd never heard of it until coming to Japan but it's basically like this rice dish there's rice at the bottom and they layer it with like cream sauce and cheese it's so cheap this only cost me300 in and I usually pair it with these things called like Fuko and they're basically like these puffy bread and they used do it as a set but now you have to buy it separately when I was a university student in Japan I would I would eat this like weekly honestly it was so good and it's so cheap I haven't been here for ages cuz I have a bit more of an income now as an adult but 3 like 60 n for this and then I have unlimited drinks that's insane all right time to dig in I love these I used to sometimes just come and Order of these cuz they're so tasty and I love bread it's so good I could not believe this was 300 Yen I still can't believe it was 300 it was probably like 250 like 6 years ago okay this is just as good as I remember it I don't think I've had this for like a year it's basically I don't think this is very Italian um but there's like yellow rice and then there's a layer of like meat um it's not really meat doesn't feel like meat it's more like a red sauce and then may have white sauce which is like the creamy po so of course Japanese people love their rice so I feel like that's where the rice is coming from how authentic is it I don't know how do they make their profit like I don't understand I could not make this at home for this price you're mainly going to find a lot of families here or students and they're going to come here and just like study all day so a lot of the booze will just be taken by people sitting there with their laptops cuz they got free Wi-Fi and it's I guess it's like a really cheap place to come and use if you want to study or just hang out feel like I never leave this place feeling like dissatisfied although there are a lot of haters there are so many people like I've met in Japan they're like I can't go there they're like stubborn about it but no I think you should everyone should try it at least once you need to lower your expectations you can't come here thinking you're going to get Italian it's Japanese Italian if you come here at Peak like dining hours lunch or dinner there's probably going to be a line as well so be careful if you come in off times it's going to be pretty empty I've waited up to like 30 minutes to come in here before so yeah be aware of that if you come here with a lot of time to kill I recommend trying this like Spot the Difference because it is incredibly difficult and every like I think it's every month they change this and although it's meant for kids it's even difficult for adults and people are like posting the answers on Twitter Japanese Twitter because like they're so hard to find and they're kind of like the most annoying little things so I've spent like an hour trying this once and and I don't know if I have the patience to do it this time but maybe I'll start it a little bit but these are fun so and each time you come at least when I do there's always a new one okay so I've been to SI area probably at least 50 times not going to lie and I've always wanted to try the gelato they have on the menu I never did because it looked questionable and today I'm filming so I thought why not give it a go and I guys the texture of this is insane is this gelato look at that okay it came out like this already so I'm going to give it a go I guess it's vanilla flavored I've had a lot of gelato in my life in Australia in Europe I've been to Italy did not taste like this like it's basically melted like I don't know if they gave this one to me and it was already sitting out but I'm thinking this is just how it's meant to be flavor-wise it's very sweet texture-wise I don't like it because it's just like it's like melted ice cream this was 250 y so almost the same price as my whole main dish so safe to say I will not be getting this again and I don't even think I want to finish it maybe I have to go for the pudding they had a Japanese pudding I should have gone with the Japanese thing all right

Channel: seerasan

Views: 128,720

Keywords: Japan, Japan Life, Japan Travel, seerasan, japanese food

Id: liWyN1WV368

Length: 22min 10sec (1330 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 09 2024