A few weekends back, I went to Japanese Breakfast Market with some of my foreign friends. They were very excited about getting some good tips about real Japanese food from me. I was also excited to get some Japanese “breakfast” because it was a quite unusual theme outside of Japan. I went there without having any breakfast at home…. wrong decision.

When we arrived at the near station, we saw a line of people walking to the same direction. Bad feeling. “Are they all going to the same event?” Yes it was. There were already some friends inside and managed to get a spot to sit to eat. They saw me and told me how long they had to wait to get an Okonomiyaki, a half an hour easily. And so as the queue for the Takoyaki or even longer.

We decided to walk around the market to see what else was there. I still had the image of “breakfast” in my head but there was nothing brekky about. There was gyoza, Japanese-Mexican tacos (teriyaki shredded pork), curry rice, Japanese bakery which also sold nigiri sandwiches and some wagashi.

Maybe I had too much expectation for “breakfast”. But I´m always surprised by the over-popularity of “Japanese” food and its high price, although there are many Asian shops around Europe and much easier to get Japanese food products or asian vegetables. 

One Onigiri or a norimaki, two skewered chicken and some edamame can cost 10€ was a little too expensive I think. Also the girls who were selling this “Obento” were wearing chima jeogori which is a traditional Korean clothes. Wasn´t it “Japanese” breakfast market?  

Actually, a Japanese friend of mine was there with her husband but they left saying, too expensive for too small quantity of food and too long queue. This is a very common problem. Any time there are Asian food posts, not only Japanese but also Korean, Thai or Chinese, there are km-long queues. They still give Western people an exotic feeling after we have become globalised?

It was nice to see many people were interested in Japanese foods but at the same time, I was a little disappointed with this old fashioned common sense of “Japanese food is expensive”, especially my wallet was completely empty but not my stomach. Does this happen in your country too?

Cooking course looked interesting.

My favourite part, Kakigori (かき氷/ shaved ice). 

Eat well everyone!