Japanese Food Tour In Nagoya ¦ The Most Underrated Food City In Japan

We're in Nagoya, Japan and this place is wild. We are loving it here. It is our first time in the city and we reckon it's the most underrated food city in Japan. I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate. We hope you're hungry. Let's eat. They have a lot of unique dishes in this city. There's a strong local food culture. It is a big city too. It's the fourth largest city in Japan so it's not a small place but I just feel it's off people's radar and we've been exploring now for a number of days. The food is crazy good. This video is going to have some epic stuff in it. We're starting the day at a real local's favourite. This is Komeda Coffee. It's all around Japan. There's like 800 stalls but this is where it started in Nagoya in 1968. We're here for something really cool. It's called Nagoya morning service. These old-school cafes feel like a real unknown and underrated part of Japanese food culture. We've been to a couple during this trip so far and they're wild. They're like stepping into a museum. Nagoya morning service basically means you get free breakfast when you order a coffee or tea so you come before 11, you order a hot drink and then you can choose from this breakfast menu. It's a light breakfast but it's still breakfast and you can get an egg, toast, there's a number of combinations. We're going to order a couple of things and then also something that they're very famous for here as well. How good is that? Free breakfast when you get here early and it's not a marked up drink to be like oh it's free breakfast but actually you just pay way more for the drink. No, no it's like you just pay what you would always pay at the rest of the time of day for that drink. You get free food. It's brilliant and just look at this place. It's, it's got an amazing feeling here. There's a whole tree coming through the through the cafe here. The old, everything's old wood. It's, you know, velvety sort of chairs. It's, it's a real feeling in here. Hot coffee for taxi, please. And, um, egg toast, please. And egg salad, please. Hot. Hot. Hot. Ah, big. Hot. Yeah. I think he knows, darling, he knows his own menu. But thank you for pointing out our order. The thing that they're famous for that we ordered is soft serve on a Danish. I mean, ice cream for breakfast. It doesn't get any better. It's this. It's called a Chironwa. And who's happy about that? Arigatou gozaimasu. Both ordered a hot black coffee and the cream comes in a teeny tiny little jug. Do you want to pour it for me? Okay. Right, right in there. Fabulous. Whoa. Arigatou gozaimasu. Zadie's excitement for that arriving on the table totally matches mine. Wow. How good is that for breakfast? A stack of ice cream. This is the Chironwa. Hot Danish. And it has 64 layers of pastry, apparently. Soft serve. A little cherry and then hot syrup, which gets poured over the top. Do you want to pour the syrup all over the hot Danish? Okay. Pour it closer to the, yep. All around, yep. I'll spin it so it gets everywhere. Ooh, nicely done. And then we also, as part of the morning service, got Ogura toast. This is a Nagoyan specialty. So thick, thick toast. Look at that. It's like two inches thick. Buttered and it comes with red bean paste. So that's a local specialty. The other one we got with egg salad. Mmm. It's fair to say that the most popular item on the table at the moment is the Danish with the soft serve. Mmm. What more can you say? Creamy soft serve, flaky pastry, very flaky and soft. And then syrup. Bloody beautiful. They're very famous for this dish and I don't know any of the backstory, but it feels like a dish they got famous for because of what it is. Essentially because it's nothing too crazy, but it's just spectacular. It arrives on the table, makes everyone happy and it feels to me that that's the reason that it got famous. I love the milk bread in Japan. It is soft, it is fluffy, it is huge. This is Ogura toast. So white bread, butter and then that sweetened... You all right there? Do you want to try some of this? Sweetened red bean paste just smeared over the top. Pop this off. Very much a sweet breakfast. This is a very sweet red bean paste. But it's still earthy, it's delicious. And then that buttery white bread. Oh, it's like eating a cloud. The coffee ends up costing you about $3.50 US. So nothing crazy for a respectable cup of coffee, just black coffee and the cream. It's nothing to write home about. It's not bad at all. It's very smooth, nice to drink. But that $3.50 gets you the free breakfast, not the ice cream Danish, but gets you the toast with the eggs or the red bean paste. It's a great deal. That's a really good deal. Super cheap. People often say Japan's expensive. Really doesn't have to be. There's some such affordable great eating here. And this is a really good example of that. What a great place. Lots of just oldies having their ketchups. Arigatou gozaimasu. Bye bye. And what a cool deal. I love it. This place is open till 10pm. So they do do burgers and things. But that deal with the coffee and the free breakfast is till 11am. And it is well worth the experience. That is a side of Japanese culture that is pretty unknown I reckon. Yeah and I'm in love with it. Our next spot is actually in the grounds of a very famous shrine here in Nagoya. Atsuta Jingu Shrine. And it was founded 1900 years ago. The restaurant which is on the grounds is famous for flat udon. And it's been around since 1923. This place has clearly gone through some changes over the years. Because if you came here without the knowledge that it was around since 1923 you wouldn't remotely pick it because it's quite modern actually. Smells incredible though. And there's heaps of people here. It's pretty early in the day already and it's packed. It's canteen style so the menu's just up here. I've got the actual menu so I can just point to it when I get to the cashier. Just steaming bowls of kishimen which is the flat udon. Smells so good. Oh my gosh. These bowls of kishimen look and smell absolutely beautiful. Nagoya is famous for kishimen, this flat udon. I went for a tofu shiitake, fish cake, bonito flakes and then Thomas went for one which has got this crispy looking tempura vegetable shrimp concoction on top. Wow. Steaming bowls of noodles. They say that eating a bowl of these noodles on the grounds of the shrine is almost like an edible lucky charm. They're delicious. They have a lovely chew to them. Great texture. The broth is very clean tasting and it's just pretty as a picture. You've got the green from the spring onion and the greens. It's just perfectly composed. It looks beautiful to eat and it tastes really good. The only difference between Sheena and my bowl is this deep fried cake of goodies. Yeah, there's a lot in there. Vegetables, greens, prawns held together with a very thin tempura style batter. Nice. It's got a deep fried oomph to it. It's as clean as you could ever want a bowl of food to taste apart from the deep fried cake I've added on top. That definitely adds more depth to it but the soup and the noodles are just everything super clean and fresh tasting. Yum. Do you like it? Yeah? Oh, you need some more? That is really good. Yum. Super clean and like Sheena said, a lovely place to do it. Super peaceful in here. It's a really nice environment. I'm looking forward to exploring the temple a bit afterwards. And the noodles are clearly deemed quite important because all the signage has the noodles on and these are big grounds. There's a lot of ground to cover here and every sign I've seen points to the noodles. So clearly a big part of being here and being in the grounds is eating those noodles. We're wandering these shopping streets in an area called Osu and it's got such a cool vibe. There is food everywhere. Loads of street food, second hand stores, retro goods. We're off to find our next stop which is just up ahead. This one sits well in that comfort food zone because it's just a big fat whack of carbs and Sweetness and deliciousness. Sweetness and just goodness. This video's got some pretty interesting stuff in it really. There's more to come too which is pretty different to what you'd normally see on a Japanese food video. We didn't go out of our way to show that in this video but I think it's cool to show that there's some different cultures here with some pretty interesting food stuff going on like that coffee shop this morning. What you'll see now, what you're going to see later. We're here at a sweet potato shop and the Japanese love their imo or their sweet potato. All the sweet potato are in these barrels with hot coals down in the bottom. There's also things of hot stones. I'm not quite sure where they go or how that fits in with the whole thing. And the sweet potatoes sit in these little canisters around the outside. It's a really neat way to cook them. I really like it. I was going to say there's a really beautiful smell of caramelised sweet potato wafting up. Okay, now I see the hot stones are in the lid so there's sort of a layer on top to keep the heat in I guess. And she's almost, she's prodding the ends of them. She's almost massaging the sweet potato and then just popping them back in to cook more or rotate. Seriously, like Sheena said, the smell is so good. Now the one we're going to order is pretty interesting too. We're not just going to get a plain sweet potato which you can buy here, just a cooked sweet potato but we're going to get a pretty intriguing one. We're going to go for this one which looks like it's a bruleed sweet potato. So sugar over the top, then blowtorch and then it comes with a soft serve. Thank you very much. Can you give that to the lady? Thank you very much. Whoa, look at this, it's a thing of beauty. So you've got a sweet potato which they've chopped the top off and then they've added sugar, blowtorched it so it's got this crackly crust like a creme brulee and then a swirl of soft serve. Oh yes, let's tuck in. Golden sweet potato. Alright. Oh, that's the good stuff. It is earthy, sweet, creamy. Yeah, it's really good. If you've never been to Japan you may not know how into sweet potato they are here. It's everywhere. At the front of every supermarket we'll have a little hot stone thing sweet potato cooking. You see little stalls on the side of the road. You see trucks driving around with a loud speaker yelling out, yaki imo, yaki imo. Singing it as they drive around which is like cooked sweet potato. It's a big thing here and these are yum. They're very, very good. I like it. Cool way to have it too, pretty interesting. If you thought having a sweet potato was a bit out there wait to see what we're having next for a Japanese food video. This totally seems wrong but there's a big, big reason we're doing this one. We're lining up for pizza. Pizza is a huge deal in Japan. In Tokyo there's something like 6,000 pizza restaurants. This is the place to eat pizza in Nagoya. That's why we're here. It's owned by a former world champion and it's really popular. As you can see they've only just opened the doors and there's already a huge line. The guy that owns this place in 2010 went to Naples for a competition and beat everyone. Beat all the Italians, beat everyone who was there competing for the best pizza. That probably explains this line out the door when they've only just opened. It's an interesting setup, not what you'd expect. It's almost like a canteen. So you put in your order on the screen there and then you pick up your little ringer and you grab a table and then they call you when it's ready. It does feel like you've stepped into a different world here. It doesn't feel like you're in Japan. The big wood-fired oven going hard. I think it's wood-fired. Yeah, it is. I can't see the wood but there's wood down below it. Pizzas are looking good. It's a really cool environment. Oh yeah. Ordered a classic margherita, had to be done and then a four cheese pizza. Gorgonzola, ricotta, pecorino, mozzarella. Comes with honey which you drizzle over the top and then these, the patatine. They're potato and a wheat flour that comes from Naples and everyone's got a basket of those. We had to try them, they look delicious. Pizza in Japan is something we have wanted to eat for a long time. The Japanese are so well known for their being so refined with things and they've taken that to pizza so they've really refined the art put all their effort into making it perfect. Alright, so as with Neapolitan pizza you have to get in quick. So I'm going to try this classic margherita. The buffalo mozzarella is flown in from Naples. You want it ripped? Here we go. Oh my gosh. It's so good. It's chewy. It's thin. You've got that blistered, charred edges. The cheese, the tomato, the basil. It just works. I'm so glad we decided to tick the pizza box here in Nagoya. You can try that one as well. Go for it. And then we've got the four cheese pizza which we drizzled honey over the top to get into as well. I am going to go with the four cheese one. I didn't actually read the menu. What are the four cheeses? Ricotta, pecorino, mozzarella and gorgonzola. I can go wrong. Mmm. Great base. Four cheeses. There's no problem ever with four cheeses. This is cool. This is a really cool experience. Something completely different. It's been on our radar for a long time and I'm so glad we're here. Oh, it's delicious. These patatine are something I've never had before. They're pretty intriguing. They're made with like a dough. So they use a potato ricer to squeeze the dough into the oil. Some of the cleanest oil I've ever seen in my life I must say. And I've filmed a lot of hot oil for this channel. Look at them. They are huge. As long as my face. Mmm. Whoa. They're well fried so they're pretty golden and crispy on the outside. Sauce? Oh, yes please. Thank you. Mmm. If you weren't told it was a dough, you'd probably be a bit confused why the chip was this texture. But you wouldn't think it wasn't just a chip. It's delicious. Yeah, they're delicious. What's not delicious out of hot oil like that? Yum. This has been a cool video. Like super different. Some pretty unique stuff for Japan. Very fun stuff to film. We hope you enjoyed it. Nagoya is just this underrated food city. It really is. There's great food everywhere. We haven't had a dud meal. Great place to eat. Thank you for watching. We'll see you on the next one. Hit like, subscribe, drop a comment. And check out our Patreon if you would like to support the channel and support us on the road. Thanks for watching. See you later guys. See ya.