My final morning in Japan, this one in Tokyo. And what was left on my luist to do? One more food related adventure. This time, to Gyoza Stadium, in the Namjatown amusement area of the Sunshine City mall. Man, was this place intense!
When I arrived, 5 minutes before the opening of Namjatown, there was a crowd of folks all queued up, just anxious to get inside. There were two types: families with elementary school age kids and early teen / tween packs of girls. Oh, and me.
Inside, there was Gyoza Stadium, of course. There was also a very tacky spa, some small amusment rides, a ghost hunter game that was very popular (and had packs of people running around with Ghostbuster-like wands, looking for hidden ghosts), a dessert festival and udon village. And I'm sure there were parts of this place that I couldn't even understand.
The Gyoza Stadium part was decked out in 1950s Tokyo. Each place had many color pictures of the many types of gyoza on offer. As with the Ramen Museum, they were famous places from around Japan.
I tried three different gyoza, using up all my spare yen.
These were gyoza with miso butter sauce. The sauce was tasty. The gyoza, were, alas, not crispy enough and so came across as soggy and overcooked.
These were super-crispy bare gyoza. They had great crunch and the shell was terrific. The filling was ok, nothing much to mention there. This place also benefited from the ambiance of a picture of their chef with a lion in the background.
Finally, there were these eight cylindrical gyoza. Covered in a soy sauce with scallions, they were great little bits.
I was bummed that I didn't have more time, more money, and more kanji reading ability because there were 11 shops each selling about 20 different types of gyoza!
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