Japanese Street Food Layover 🇯🇵 Narita’s Legendary Unagi Restaurant!

Japanese Street Food Layover 🇯🇵 Narita’s Legendary Unagi Restaurant!

Welcome to Chopstick Travel and welcome to Japan. Today we are in Narita. If you’ve ever flown into Tokyo, it’s highly likely you landed at Narita International Airport. Today we have just a few hours on a layover transit before we head home. And we wanted to take you for a food tour here in Narita and show you what you can do on a layover, what you can eat. There’s a lot of great food here in Narita. It’s going to be a great episode. So, make sure you stay tuned until the end. Let’s go eat some Japanese food. So, this is Kawa Toyo restaurant here in Narita. And without a doubt, they’re the most popular restaurant in all of Narita. They are selling unagi, which is eel. And you can see right up front that they’re actually cleaning the fresh eel. So, he grabs an eel. I believe it’s on ice because it’s not squirming too much. He uh completely kills it right off the bat. Cuts its throat and then puts a nail right through its head and then cleans it out very precisely. There’s a ton of little tiny bones that they need to be careful with. And this is a very specialty dish of Narita and in Japan in general. And uh let’s go take a look at the grilling section next. The cool thing about this restaurant is just completely open kitchen right onto the side of the road. This is the most popular road here in Narita. We’ll show you a little bit more of it later, but you can see back here they’re grilling all the eel. So once it’s been um deboned and then chopped into pieces, it’s skewered up and then it’s dipped into a beautiful kind of sweet sauce, the unagi sauce, and then it’s grilling away. Lots of smoke and uh keeps dipping it in the sauce, putting it back onto the grill. And this is just smelling so good. So let’s go inside and go try this out. I’m really excited. So this is the ultimate layover meal here in Narita. This restaurant is just packed with both locals, tourists, people just passing through Tokyo. And it’s a multifloor restaurant. Upstairs is just the tatami floor sitting on the ground. And downstairs, uh, there’s a little bit of a wait, but we’ve got this sort of sunken table here. And it’s definitely not cheap. We ordered two, um, unagi bowls with rice. the medium um size and uh two soups and a beer. And it was 9,800 yen. So, I mean, I guess the yen’s a little bit weaker right now. I think that’s around $80. So, so a little bit pricey, but it’s very, very good. I’ve had before and it’s worth it. So, we’ll wait for our food. Okay, our set has arrived. It comes in this beautiful lacquer box. And ta beautiful unagi. So, this is a freshwater eel grilled. And what I really respect with Japanese is they found a way to use a fish that in Canada we kind of just consider a throwaway fish. In a lot of parts of the world, eel is not really considered delicacy. But here in Japan, they take it seriously and they take something that a lot of people would disregard and make it into something absolutely incredible. And they don’t only do that with the meat. Um, they do it with every part of the eel. So, they’ll fry up the skin. They’ll even eat the intestines. And I believe inside of our soup right here, we have some parts of the eel intestine. Yes. So, you can see down here. I don’t know. I don’t know which intestine it is, but some part of it. And I’m not totally sure if that’s a piece of the skin. I honestly feel like that’s a piece of the skin. So, we’ve got the soup here. And then we’ve got some some pickles. We also got a little bit of dried fish. And just have a little sip of my soup here. Yeah. Only in Japan are you going to pay like 80 bucks for me. But it’s so good, believe me. So, look at just how beautiful that is. You can see the charred bits with that beautiful uh sauce. I’m just going to try it as is first, but there’s some toppings we’ll try later. And it just goes through like butter. The chopsticks effortless. Oh man. And they can see that they’ve also kind of seasoned up the rice as well. All right. First bite of the unagi here. Katyo. There’s nothing like it. Like I said, a lot of people just throw away eel, but I’ve actually never tasted it a white fish as creamy as eel. It’s like fish butter. That’s the only way I can explain it. Fish butter. Completely melts in your mouth. No teeth needed. All of the tender uh adjectives and sayings apply to this dish right here. Like it’s hard to give you the idea of how soft this is, but if I just squeeze a little bit on my chopsticks, you’ll see it just goes right through. Like I mean it is fish butter. Fish butter. That’s what unagi is. So it’s like a sweet unagi soy sauce marinade and smokeoky. I’ve had some before that were grill charcoal. A little bit smokier. You’re using gas here, but still really just beautifully tender. That is just incredible. Two nice big fililelets. I think that’s about maybe that’s actually almost a whole eel, half an eel for sure. But it’s just the texture. It’s all about this texture. There’s no other fish that has this creaminess to it. It’s almost like a like a fatty tuna. The way it just melts in your mouth. Only in Japan will you have eel and say this is probably the best fish I’ve ever had in my life. So we’ve got this uh sono pepper which is like a beautiful kind of citrusy pepper. It’s not like a spicy pepper but it’s got this amazing amazing aroma. They’ve got this on the table. So I got to try that out. A little bit of sanchcho. Yum. Yeah. Sort of bounces with the sweetness. It’s very sweet. That pepper is just so floral. It’s really fruity. It’s almost like a the flavor of a Sichuan peppercorn without the tingly numbingness. So, they’ve also provided a little bit of that unagi sauce on the table. So, you can add a little bit more. But honestly, like even the rice has been coated in it. It’s nice the way it is. You don’t even really need the extra toppings, but why not? Man, it’s so delicate. Like I said, fish butter. That’s the only way I can explain it. You literally can just take the roof of your mouth and your tongue, press together, and it just completely liquefies. It’s like a cream. It’s incredible. Chase it with one of these cucumbers. Pickle cucumber. Yum. Very traditional Japanese meal delicacy. And if you’re on a layover in Narita like us, definitely got to check out this place. It’s awesome. So, unagi is a freshwater eel. That’s why it’s grilled. There’s no, you know, unagi sashimi. You’re not eating the freshwater fish raw. But there is another fish dish, eel dish in Japan called anaga, which is a sea eel, which I believe you can eat sushimi. Look at that beauty. Phenomenal. Wow. No words. Eel butter. I’m not really sure why we don’t eat eel in the west, but I have a feeling it’s because the way that the fish just looks. It’s just such a creepy looking fish, almost like a snake. But also there’s a lot of tiny little bones. So it’s very difficult to remove the bones. Like we saw them at front doing it. The technique is very difficult to get down. But absolutely no bones in here. You’re you’re not going to bite into a bone. Don’t worry. And healthy. Full of flavor and delicious but also healthy. For some of you that thought Narita has nothing because it’s quite far from the town. That’s not true. This place is a real I can’t say it it’s hidden gem but I think it’s a real treasure. So if you have like one night food for the hotel in Arita to wait for your flight at the airport the next day you must come and try this place. It’s really really good. I have many bites already but it’s so good. I’m super excited to present to you guys today something I’ve been working on for a very long time. This is the Chopstick Travel Taski chef’s knife. 100% made in Japan, Japanese steel with a beautiful haninoi wood handle. This blade is extremely sharp. Made to last a lifetime with this beautiful pounded finish. Made in Gefu Prefecture, Japan in a town with over 600 years of knife making experience that goes back to the days of the samurai. Each knife is numbered one through 100. This will be a limited edition, only a 100 pieces. You can grab yours now. Click the link down in the description box and go to taski.com to get your chopstick travel knife. And from the time this video is posted for 1 month, there will be 10% off and free shipping. Get this for Christmas for one of your loved ones. Wow, what a meal. super super fresh, delicious, and extremely soft unagi grilled eel. And I actually just realized this on my way out that first they actually steam the the eel meat before they put it on the grill. So, it’s steamed and then it’s dunked in the sauce and then put on the grill. And you can just see how delicate it is because they need to use their hand to sort of help it flip over so it doesn’t just fall apart because it’s just so so soft. So, if you only have a layover for several hours like us, we’ve only got about four hours here in Narita today, you have to come to this street called Narita San Motando. And this is where all the good restaurants are. This is pretty much the main tourist uh highlight here in Narita. It’s a beautiful street with lots of cool shops. So you can pick up some souvenirs, do your shopping, you can eat some amazing eel, and we’re actually going to go for some dessert next. So there’s a little shop here called Kintoino Amataro, and they’re selling not sure what the Japanese name is, but it’s like a wagon wheel style dessert. So basically he’s got all these almost like a big muffin tray that’s uh cooking away. Fills it with a batter and then puts the filling in. They have red bean. I think the other one may be white bean. And then he puts another half of the wagon wheel if you will full of batter and then takes the cook one and puts it right on top of that. So it forms this sort of like it’s like a hockey puck really. And we ordered our red bean one. And this is a popular stop along the uh Narita Montesando. So let’s try this out. Show you the filling. Yum. Wow. Generous filling. Look at all that red bean in there. Little bit sweet. Healthy. Wow. Really good. It’s really packed full. Look at all that. Yum. Beautiful. It’s like sweet, but you got that bean flavor. And it’s healthy cuz it’s beans, right? Yum. It’s almost like a pancake on the outside, but then really creamy, sweet red bean on the inside. And they’re making tons of them at a time. Popular spot. Yum. Actually, it’s not like if you’ve ever had red bean, it’s not like quite as bean flavor. It’s more just like a sweetness. Very good. Yum. Yum. All right, those two shops that we just hit right there are definitely top recommendations for the street. We’ll explore a little bit more, see what else we can find. But, I mean, it’s only taken us uh from the airport to here. It was just 15 minutes on the train and then we’ve only been here for maybe an hour and a half. So, you can really get here and have some real deal Japanese food even if you’re just on a very short layover. So, we just popped into this really old school looking shop. Honestly, when you go into shops like this in Japan, it’s pretty common for them to be hundreds of years old. I asked the uh worker there. He told me it was only 50 years old. Still quite old. and they specialize in senbe, which is a rice cracker. It’s like the original rice crispy. And I asked him which one was the most popular. He said this one, which is um rice with soy sauce. They even had like the old antique uh rollers, which they use to um make the different shapes of the senbe. So, you can see it’s going to be like a sweet soy sauce, I’m guessing, with a puffed rice. Like I said, it’s like the original rice krispie. He says it’s a little bit hard. Oh, really? Eric. Oh my gosh. Okay. He wasn’t joking. It’s really hard. And actually, no, it’s not a sweet one. It’s more of a savory one. So, they have both savory and sweet ones. This one’s quite salty, but holy smokes. It’s like a It’s like rock. It’s like a perfect little beer snack. But man, that is crunchy. You see the puffed rice on the inside. It’s got that salty soy glaze on the outside. Actually, it’s really nice. This is perfect with the drink. But some of the ones I’ve had before have not been nearly as hard as this one. Very good, too. That’s good, though. Really good flavor. Cool shot. So, every time I have a chance here in Narita, I pop into the shop. I don’t even really know the the name, but I’ll put the information down below. Basically, they sell Narita specialty desserts. And Narita is very famous for a few different things, but peanuts is one of them. So, they have a lot of different peanut desserts. I think this is a stuffed peanut right here. But the peanut butter here, let me find it. The peanut butter here is the best peanut butter I’ve ever tried in my entire life. And it’s not like any peanut butter you’ve ever had before. It’s like the creamiest, softest peanut butter. I’m going to try to find this and show you guys. So, this is it right here. I guess they call it peanut paste. They used to call it peanut butter. I think it said on the front label before, but it’s not really like a butter. It’s like a almost like a mousse. The texture of it, it’s incredibly smooth and quite sweet. But this stuff is like phenomenal. And you can get so many different desserts in this shop, but this you got to get. They have mochi, matcha, all kinds of different Japanese confectioner. This is a really perfect gift to bring home for family. And it’s all prepackaged as you can see. So, it’s ready to uh take back on the plane with you. So, we picked up a few desserts from that shop, which I don’t know the name, but they have so many different things in there. And I wanted to try one on camera for you. So, we went with this peanut. Look at this. So cute. Everything in Japan’s kawaii. So, this is like a peanut puff pastry or not a puff pastry, but like a pie crust. It said with stuff with peanuts. Look at shaped like a peanut. Wow. Actually, it’s very soft. It’s almost like a feels like a ice cream cone on the inside. W. It’s like a peanut paste on the inside. Wow. So rich. It’s sweet, but not crazy sweet. They never do the desserts crazy crazy sweet here. Yeah. And they never do like chocolate vanilla. They always do like red bean and peanuts and more natural flavors. I mean, not to say vanilla is not natural, but you know what I mean. It’s uh it’s a little bit different than the West. And honestly, it’s a lot healthier. It’s exactly like an ice cream cone on the outside, but there’s so much filling and barely any exterior. So, it’s just like a big thing of peanut cream. I don’t know really. It’s not like a peanut butter and it’s not like that peanut paste either. It’s more of like a jelly peanut jelly almost. It’s quite good. Very peanuty. So, all of these restaurants that we’ve stopped at today have been along this street, which is Narita Sanano Montesando. If you keep going all the way down, you’ll get to the temple, which we’re going to take you to next. But I’ll tell you what, this entire street smells like that grilled eel shop. You can just smell the smoke billowing out of that place. It’s really, really uh enticing. So this is Narita San Shinoji Temple. This is a Buddhist temple and it’s probably the most famous attraction here in Narita besides the eel. So this is sort of like the route you got to go on first for the eel and then you get to come down to the temple and see it’s much less uh busy with tourists than the Sentoji temple in Asakusa but just as beautiful. If you’re familiar with the Senoji temple in Asakusa you know that the big lantern they have there. There’s no way you can stand and take a picture by yourself. Look at this. There’s barely anybody here. You can get all the pictures you want. So, this temple is actually like a temple complex. It’s gigantic. You’ve got the big gate that we just walked through. Then you come up the stairs, you’ve got beautiful three-story pagod and then the main temple itself. And it just keeps going. And there’s so much to see and it’s way more peaceful than the ones in Tokyo. Honestly, even if you’re not on a layover, I’d consider coming out to Narita. It’s really cool. I love it. It’s got a different vibe than Tokyo. It’s much more chill, but uh you get more of like a real authentic Japanese experience, and you’re only like an hour and a half from the downtown city center. You can get a real sense of how close we are to the airport here at the temple. You can see the planes just taking off right over top of the temples. It’s quite cool. So, for all of you who thought Narita is just the airport and there’s nothing out here and you just head into the city, well, maybe have a second opinion next time. And this video hopefully showed you some of the cool stuff you can do here. So, just at the base of the temple on the Narita San Matasando, there is well, a number of different cafes, but we popped into this one that uh we ordered up a matcha latte. So, even if you’re just in Japan for a few hours, grab yourself a matcha. This is actually Minkx. I’m not a huge matcha guy. Yeah. I don’t know. Just tastes like grass to me. I don’t like it. Tastes like pull up some grass and blend it up in a blender. I love green tea, but this is like it’s like too much for me. It’s like concentrated green tea. Quite a bit of sugar in there. It’s sweet. It’s all right. It’s not that bad. Great to enjoy with this incredible view. This street is just so beautiful. It’s really worth it. Even if you just have like us 4 hours in Narita, leave your bags at the storage locker, the airport, or if you’re overnight, leave them at the hotel. Come out, explore the street, eat some unagi, try some of these places out, go see the temple. This is really cool. You can get a nice uh Japanese experience in a very short amount of time very close to the airport. I feel so sorry for Luke that he doesn’t know what his good drink is like, especially matcha. So, it’s okay, guys. I’m going to enjoy this. So, I don’t have to share with him. Oh, I love my job. Enjoy your grassy. Yeah, be careful. What? I’m not on Luke’s team, guys, so don’t worry. I’m on macha team. It’s good. It would be better if it’s cold. It’s hot. It’s hot in Narita right now, even in Tokyo. So, that was our layover here in Narita. Definitely worth coming in if you have time. And this episode is kind of like an homage to the layover with Anthony Bourdain. He used to film these videos uh as if it was a layover. I’m not really sure they were actually on a layover uh filming because it takes quite a bit of time to get a incredible production like that. But today we did this in just about 4 hours. So everything you saw you can do on your own if you have a couple hours layover between your flights. It’s about 3:00 now. Our flight’s at 6:00. So we’re going to go grab our bags and head back to the airport. And then bye-bye Japan. Thank you guys for watching. We’ll see you on the next episode. Chopstick Travel. Bite.

Chopstick Travel X Taski Chef’s Knife : https://link.taski.store/lukes-knife – Use code ” CHOPSTICK2025 ” for 10% off

In today’s video we show you how you can enjoy authentic Japanese cuisine with just a few hours in Japan! This is the Narita layover food tour. From matcha to unagi, you can taste so much in so little time just outside of Tokyo’s busiest airport : Narita International.

Kawatoyo Narita : https://maps.app.goo.gl/BXehhaqevCyZhhay6
Kintoki Amataro-yaki : https://maps.app.goo.gl/YqEBhBKDadxmzUBi7
NAGOMI-YONEYA Flagship Shop : https://maps.app.goo.gl/6SWHc4TZQa4ebU1p6

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I’m Luke Martin, food lover and world traveller! I make videos about local, authentic and unique foods from across the globe. I particularly like to sample street food across Asia. I’ve eaten my way across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, parts of Africa, North America and the list is still growing! My mission is to create content that is entertaining, informative, honest and fun! I love what I do and I’m always grateful for your support! Thank you and see you on the next episode!

Camera Operator : Nichakarn (Mink)
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