We’re big fans of KDramas on Netflix, and we’ve been exploring Korean food so we were keen to visit the Korea town district of Tokyo. We made an attempt when we were here in 2023. Picked the wrong day – it was a Sunday and honestly every young person in the city seemed to be on the street. The JR train station is small and dumps everyone right out onto the street (Shin-Okuba station). We got about a block down the street and gave up and decided to do something else that day.
Yesterday was not a particularly nice day – it was raining pretty seriously – but we decided that maybe a Tuesday morning in October would be a better time to visit. Armed with our new umbrellas we set off.
Wilf had his mind set on a restaurant called Delica Ondoru and since it was pretty popular I tackled their website, got myself registered and got us in line in advance. Step one done. Now we just had to find the restaurant. We had reviewed the map very carefully and with guidance from Mr Google we got out of the station, down the street and then turned onto what looked like an alley. When Mr Google announced that we were there there were several businesses in front of us – and then I realized ‘I can read the sign! I know which one it is!’ Even in a non-standard type face I could read it. Anyhoo. We presented ourselves at the door, showed the staff member our queue number on my phone and were sent upstairs for immediate seating. At first we just sat there looking at each other in astonishment – we found it and we got in!
They had a wide selection of Korean dishes but we were there to try the bowls. In this case the bowls are super heated stone that arrive with all the goodies sizzling away – sort of like fajitas but a bowl. Wilf had squid with cheese and I had beef. Being Korean food an array of six side dishes also arrived. And a bowl of soup.
The round metal thing above Wilf’s head is an exhaust fan. Should you choose to barbecue meat they pull it down right close to the grill and whoosh go all the fumes. We don’t know a huge amount about Korean food, but we have noticed that they like to put cheese on or in a lot of things where it might not be expected. Like with squid…. The little dishes had sprouted beans in a vinaigrette, kimchi radish, kimchi cabbage, something red and crunchy and sliced lotus root in mayonnaise. Over by Wilf there is a dish in the middle with what sort of looks like olives. I had it in my head that they were olives but they clearly were not. They were good but we could not figure out what they were.
We were so busy going down a ‘some form of vegetable’ rabbit hole that we were completely buffaloed. I finally asked the waiter and he said ‘tamago’ – egg. He dove into his phone to try and come up with the name and so did I – quail eggs. Turns out he wasn’t Japanese he was from Tibet, so he didn’t know the word for quail either. For your reference quail’s egg are: uzara no tamago. In this case, cooked hard and marinated. Yum yum! It was all very good and we had no trouble eating it – even the kimchi wasn’t too fiery for us. I don’t know if that means they’ve toned it down for the Japanese palate or we’re just getting used to it.
Besides the streets in this neighbourhood being full of Korean restaurants and kiosks there are two others exports that rule.
Skin care:
There were stores – big and small, one after another crammed full of cosmetics and skin care products.
And, of course, K-pop…
By this time it was about 3:00 pm, the rain had stopped and the school kids were arriving…
The street was getting crowded. Nothing like the first time we came, though. I’m glad we came back, had a good meal and got to see a bit of the district.
Where I'm At 