The Pokémon Center Mega Tokyo in Ikebukuro’s Sunshine City shopping centre is the largest Pokémon Center in Japan. This is where Pokémon fans shop for a huge range of merchandise including limited edition items. We stopped by to have a look and to buy souvenirs for some Pokémon obsessed friends back home.
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Tamagotchis – those little electronic virtual pet toys – have been making a comeback in recent years, which is perfect timing, as everything 90s is really in right now too. For those who are into Tamagotchis now and those who remember when they were a thing about twenty years ago alike, the Tamagotchi Department Store in Harajuku is worth checking out to see the merchandise and the donuts.
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The Barbie Flagship Store in Harajuku closed in December 2015. I would normally avoid writing about a shop that has closed, so this post is essentially to let anyone who might have been looking for the store know that it has closed permanently.
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Tokyo’s district of Harajuku (原宿) is famous for many things, not least for its youth culture and over-the-top street fashion. It’s also the place to go for Japanese crepes, a treat that anyone with a sweet tooth must try when visiting Japan. Harajuku’s famous Takeshita Dori (Takeshita Street 竹下通り) is home to many Japanese crepe shops. In a quest to find Harajuku’s best crepes, we have reviewed the three most prominent crepe stores in the area.
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A great tasty treat found around Japan is the Japanese crepe. Shimokitazawa (下北沢), or Shimokita for short, is known as one of Tokyo’s more interesting suburbs, popular with hippies (or hipsters, depending on how you look at it). It’s therefore no surprise that if there’s a crepe shop in Shimokitazawa, it’s going to sell natural crepes. Natural Crepe is a small Japanese crepe chain selling some of the most delicious crepes in Tokyo.
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The AKB48 Cafe in Akihabara is a popular venue for fans of Japan’s famous J-Pop group. We recently stopped by to check it out.
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If you’re the kind of person who likes their cocktails stirred with sex toys then Alcatraz ER just might be the place for you. It’s one of Japan’s oldest – and scariest – themed restaurants, and it’s based on a medical prison. We checked it out for some food, cocktails and screams.
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The Lock-Up is one of two brands of prison themed restaurants in Japan, and it has several branches throughout Tokyo and beyond. We visited both of Shibuya’s prison themed izakayas in one night to compare them, starting with The Lock-Up.
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Uobei Sushi is part of a cheap but tasty chain of restaurants belonging to the Genki Sushi company and found around Japan. This is where sushi, ordered via touch-screen, costs 100 Yen per plate and appears in front of you at lightning speed. It’s not your traditional sushi train where the plates ride on a slow conveyor belt for hours on end – Uobei Sushi is futuristic. We recently ate at the Shibuya branch of Uobei Sushi in Tokyo.
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The world’s first Hello Kitty themed diner opened recently, and it’s in Australia. Writing about a restaurant in Sydney is a little off topic here at Appetite For Japan, but how can I not write about a Hello Kitty themed eatery in my very own hometown? And after all, it’s Sanrio, so it has a Japanese connection. We ordered a tonne of food at the Sydney’s first Hello Kitty restaurant to see how it measures up!
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