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Seiryu Hatsutsubomi
(official name: 清流　初つぼみ)
nearest train station: Shibuya
phone: 03-3463-2284

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I wanted to bring my foreign friend to Izakaya that has “Japanese” taste. I found it in Shibuya. I feel quite convenient myself located somewhere close to Shibuya. Although I don’t like crowds, there is always something interesting to check out there. :p It’s located back behind the Tokyu Plaza. It’s not quite back side of Tokyu Plaza, but you will never miss the lighting sign that looks like a paper lantern at the very entrance of the Izakaya.

There is a stairway to go down to the Izakaya. Wow…it’s already very Japanese~!! I tend to choose Italian or French or Spanish restaurant if I eat out with my hubby or Japanese friends. So in that sense, hanging out with foreign friends who are visiting Japan for a moment is a good chance for me to explore something very Japanese.

When you want to have a drink or dinner at Izakaya, you’d better make a reservation. Especially reservation is a must on Friday night. Also, most of Izakaya set 2-hour limit on Friday night. Meaning, you can not stay there any longer than 2 hours, because there are so many people who want to drink at Izakaya on Friday night. As for me, I always make a reservation because I don’t want to be kept waiting. I also like to book a private room so we can enjoy more relaxed conversation without caring about people next table. If you are a couple, I’d definitely recommend a private room!!

There is a river (not that big, so shall I call it a brook instead?) inside the Izakaya, and even some small fish!!

A bridge to cross the brook. There are some other similar kind of Izakaya restaurants that have Japanese tastes. But as is often the case with themed restaurants in Japan, their food is bad. But this restaurant was not bad, and of course I studied that in advance!

There are some tatami rooms, too. But I personally don’t like to sit down on the floor. I’m sure most of foreign people would feel the same way. If I had to sit on tatami, I want a hole under table so that I can put my legs. Oh, too bad I forgot to take our table and private space! >_<

Fresh spring roll with spicy cheese sauce.

Sausage on grilling plate.

Salmon Ochazuke (rice with green tea poured over it)

We had more food and drinks but again I forgot to take pictures. My attention is always glued to the food once I see it, and that’s one of the reasons I’ve screwed many chances of writing a blog post from my eat-out experiences. ^ ^;

It looks like the Izakaya Hatsutsubomi has a branch restaurant in Akihabara. Akihabara is not quite my area, but I think I will try cosplay sometime in the future since I liked it so much from cosplay purikura. lol

	Whenever I try out a new cosmetic brand or product, I never fail to check out this site to study how it is supported by actual users. Same can be said to restaurants. Gurunavi is a well-known index site for restaurants and Izakaya with discount coupons, but it’s not the resources I trust when I choose the place to eat or drink. That’s because Gurunavi only lists restaurants of which the owner agreed with paying for the advertisement cost to them. In other words, if there are small good restaurants but cannot afford paying Gurunavi for advertising, they can never be found in Gurunavi. That’s why I do pay more attention to Tabelog. Even though it doesn’t offer discount coupons, it’s more reliable in a sense that we can reach true comments from “experienced” people. I also like browsing Couponland, a free magazine to look for restaurants or beauty salons I may want to try but the other day it was totally my mistake that I didn’t double check at Tabelog after I found a nice hotpot restaurant from Couponland. Now I can see why I was unsatisfied with what we had, when I read the comments left for it at Tabelog. (You may understand what’s written, depending on your Japanese skills. But even without it, you can see it’s not very good from the numbers of stars!) As you can see in the photos, I went out to eat a soy milk hotpot with a lump of chicken collagen in Shinjuku (this restaurant) with my husband the other day. That was only because the photo I found at a Couponland was tempting, as well as discount coupon, of course! I forgot to check the reputation of the restaurant at Tabelog, and this was a big mistake! The problem was that the foods were not worth for the money we paid. Nowadays we can get things at reasonable prices with not bad quality, I feel I have paid much more than it deserved. The soy milk hotpot (tounyu nabe 豆乳鍋) was not bad, but total amount was too expensive for what we took. I never asked all-you-can-drink for 1500 yen per person, but they charged us by mistake. (I noticed their mistake when I paid money, so I didn’t pay this. If I include this amount, the sum will be something way too much!) I was disappointed at my selection, and that I missed checking at Tabelog. If you have a chance to stay in Japan, be sure to check out the restaurant beforehand, and pick out the one you go to wisely, because there are millions restaurants and Izakaya in the city area. It’s not easy to choose the one you want to try. I’d browse Couponland to find a restaurant (Izakaya) I want to try out, check it out at Tabelog for reputation, and search it at Gurunavi and if they offer better discount than Couponland, I’ll use it. At a moment, I follow this way!

The photo is a soy milk hotpot. Second photo is a lump of collagen. We boiled the pot, ate the meat and vegetables, and put rice onto the pot. This time we added grated cheese and butter with steamed rice to make it like Italian risotto. Winter season is the best time to try hotpot with collagen! When I make hotpot at home, I cannot prepare that much of collagen, but if I look for restaurants, there are many restaurants that offer hotpot with much collagen in this season. You know collagen will make our skin smooth! I was about to introduce a good restaurant at a “Travel and Eat-out in Japan” page…but not for this time. I’ll try other collagen hotpot cuisine some time again!