My family were having lunch before going to the Buddhist Temple for Chinese New Year. My sister, Bonnie, took us here because I had a craving for soupy noodles.

Daikokuya is doing something different and same at the same time with other Japanese restaurants. Unlike other places that serves ramen, Daikokuya only serves 1 style of ramen. As explained in their FAQ in their website, “The original idea was to make one kind of ramen, and make it really good. It is not canned soup, so it takes time and space to create it. Since our kitchens are generally small, we don’t have a factory space to make many soups. So we decided to just focus on one kind”. And like a lot of Japanese restaurants you can do a combo, ramen and a small order of rice. They have many different toppings for the rice. Bonnie got the fish roe and I got the chopped pork which turned out to be chopped pork belly.

The bowl of ramen was pretty good. It was a typical original bowl of ramen with an egg and few slices of pork. The egg was perfectly cooked with the yolk still runny. It satisfied my craving. The bowl of rice was damn good. The chopped pork was nicely flavored. Went well with the Okinawa beer I had.

Daikokuya also served small plates like an izakaya.

- Daikokuya Has multiple locations

*Note, I don’t see the sign that says “24 hours” anymore and can’t really find any info if it’s still is “24 hours” so maybe its no longer “24 hours”.

Haru Hana translate into spring flower. We walked into a place that sorta had a Japanese backyard/garden feel to it. They have seats like Mandoo Bar, wide benches with no backs. The menu had “spring flowers” on the cover and we were sitting down some fake sakura tree. I flipped through the menu and found the usual Japanese food items. Sushi, yakotoris, katsu of all types, etc..etc. Towards the end of the menu book there were lunch specials, thats always a plus. Though most of the lunch specials were katsu platters. I went with the pork and kimchi katsu. Why not? Matt got a beef (I think) handroll and a seafood salad. A little later the waitress puts a plate of sesame and a plate of dipping sauce in front of me. I had never seen this before and had no idea what to do with it. I guess

The seafood salad came as a pile of…WTF is that? Chopped and diced pieces of seafood piled high. They all looked like pieces of squid, it tasted okay.

Finally my pork and kimchi katsu arrived. It was sitting on a metal rack to keep the bottom fresh and crispy, nice! I was telling Matt that the pile of shredded cabbage was funny because if you add salad dressing to it its salad! If no salad dressing its garnish! I took a piece of the pork to snap a photo of the inside and realized eh…..where was the kimchi? It was all cheese and no spicy cabbage. I thought they had given me the wrong dish but I didn’t say anything. BUT with a closer inspection I saw there was kimchi just wasn’t the fiery kimchi I was hoping for. I wanted fiery kimchi damit! Anyways, the pork katsu with cheese and blah kimchi was surprisingly good. The fried bits were coming off as I bit into the pork but the fried bits were good.

I miiight go back just to try the same dish but overall it was okay. It does give Matt and I another place to go to lunch next time.

- Haru Hana 28 West 32nd St, New York City

Few years ago, I had lunch with a friend. She brought me to Tebaya, a tiny shop that specializes in tebasaki. They also sell yummie sandwiches. I remember it being quite good so last last Friday I had lunch with my friend, Steph. She works close to Tebaya so that was another reason why I wanted to go there.

I was excited to go there because I wanted to try the cream crab croquette sandwich. When I walked up to the counter I was ready to order that sandwich in a combo that came with 2 wings, a salad and a drink. Sadly the lady told me they don’t make that anymore so I ended up get the same combo but with a fried fish sandwich.

We had to wait a bit for our lunches. The salad was just your typical Japanese salad and it was a bit sad looking. The sandwich looked pretty big but it was mostly bun. The piece of fried fish was a little too thin. But the bread was great. I really love Asian bread, they tend to be on the chewier side. The wings were pretty good as well.

Overall it seemed everything was okay. I remembered loving the place the first time. I’ll probably go back again for their sandwiches, love love the bread.

- Tebaya 144 W. 19th St New York

- Menkui Tei 63 Cooper Sq, New York