{"id":11842,"date":"2026-10-24T05:38:51","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T12:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=11842"},"modified":"2026-10-24T05:38:51","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T12:38:51","slug":"japan-fall-2026-day-4-okayama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=11842","title":{"rendered":"Japan Fall 2026: Day 4 (Okayama)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m staying at the same hotel in Okayama as I did in May, and got breakfast here as well. Not only is it tasty but there\u2019s pretty nice view while you eat. And the coffee is as good as it was in May. Usually hotel coffee is like most Chinese restaurants in the US: weak and coffee colored.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"IMG_1644.jpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_1644-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"4284\" height=\"5712\" border=\"0\"\/><\/p>\n<p>We met our friend Yumi and our first stop was the Bon Bon bakery, where we went a couple of years ago. I think we could\u2019ve been OK with just the hot dog at the bottom of the picture. The bread there is delicious but i\u2019ts also very hard. Toothsome might be the proper term but it\u2019s tough, tasty bread.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"IMG_1645.jpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_1645-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"4284\" height=\"5712\" border=\"0\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Then we spent a lot of time driving around looking for the Okayama Family Mart socks. I found Family Mart special logo socks, a darker color combo I haven\u2019t seen before, and Coca-Cola socks so I bought those but I\u2019ve struck out completely trying to find any of the limited 47 prefecture socks.<\/p>\n<p>But we did go get gelato.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"IMG_1646.jpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_1646-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"3024\" height=\"4032\" border=\"0\"\/><\/p>\n<p>For dinner we met Yumi\u2019s brother, sister-in-law, and nephew for dinner at Tommy\u2019s Shokudo. Here\u2019s how it started, with the Otoshi (also known as the Japanese table charge).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"IMG_1648.jpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_1648-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"5712\" height=\"4284\" border=\"0\"\/><\/p>\n<p>I only took pictures of about a third of our plates. Big amongst the items I didn\u2019t photograph is the pizza there, which was excellent. But here\u2019s our starter Caesar salad with lots of bacon.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"IMG_1649.jpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_1649-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"5712\" height=\"4284\" border=\"0\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The potatoes, missing zucchini (there was some), and huge pieces of pork belly with lemon.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"IMG_1650.jpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_1650-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"5712\" height=\"4284\" border=\"0\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The steamed veggies in a Dutch oven. I saw them crisp it up in the oven before they threw in some water to steam it.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"IMG_1651.jpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_1651-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"4032\" height=\"3024\" border=\"0\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The karaage chicken with tartar sauce.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"IMG_1652.jpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_1652-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"4032\" height=\"3024\" border=\"0\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Ooh, and another good one. Crisped up potatoes with cheese.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"IMG_1653.jpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_1653-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"3024\" height=\"4032\" border=\"0\"\/><\/p>\n<p>There were a lot more plates. Smoked dried beef (not really that dried). Smoked takuan with cheese and something else tasty. Roast beef slices with fried garlic. Mentaiko and cheese pizza. Fried octopus. I\u2019m missing several others but it was great.<\/p>\n<p>I guess in the wintertime they have the stove really going and you can cook S\u2019mores. If you didn\u2019t already notice there\u2019s a camping theme and the chairs were all Snow Peak directors chairs, the plates were Snow Peak Sierra cups, and the lighting was lanterns.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, that\u2019s about all I have to mention today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m staying at the same hotel in Okayama as I did in May, and got breakfast here as well. Not only is it tasty but there\u2019s pretty nice view while you eat. And the coffee is as good as it was in May. Usually hotel coffee is like most Chinese restaurants in the US: weak and coffee colored. We met our friend Yumi and our first stop was the Bon Bon bakery, where we went a couple of years ago. I think we could\u2019ve been OK with just the hot dog at the bottom of the picture. The bread there is delicious but i\u2019ts also very hard. Toothsome might be &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=11842\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Japan Fall 2026: Day 4 (Okayama)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11842"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11843,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11842\/revisions\/11843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}