Day 80: A (Disappointing) Festival Of Cheese

You know you're off to a bad start when Kraft is holding cooking demonstrations when you arrive at a festival of cheese.

I'd read about Cheese Festa on Time Out and it sounded like a bit of free and cheesy fun. We turned up on a cold and rainy day to an event hall in Ebisu and found ourselves in what felt more like a corporate convention rather than a festival of cheese. No matter, we had our free cheese token and wines were pretty cheap so we decided to make the most of it.

Here the ladies from Kraft are demonstrating how to make a grilled cheese sandwich. 

Our free cheese token gave us a selection of four cheeses of the world to sample. There were designated times you could pick up your cheese "platter" and the lines got crazy.

The cheese platter. Okay, the cheese was pretty grim but hey... free cheese? After we ate this we promptly left in search of coffee/beer/lunch/anything else.

I'd heard that the famous Napoli pizza place, L'Antica Pizzeria Da Michele had an outpost in Tokyo and we just happened to walk by it on the way to the Yebisu Beer Museum. It looked quite cute and while it served more pizza variations than its Italian sister, it seemed like they would do good pizzas. I made a mental note to check this spot out before we left Tokyo.

Aaaand we're back at old faithful – the Yebisu Beer Museum. We didn't need to do the museum part, we just wanted to pay a visit to the beer tasting area and just sit somewhere warm for a little while.

You go to a vending machine (of course) and pay your ¥400 in exchange for a Yebisu coin. Oh, and please excuse my grown out gel nails.

After exchanging your token for something on the menu, a somewhat dapper beer man will pour you a glass of delicious beer.

As usual, I chose the seasonal beer – today's being yuzu. It was like a beer cocktail and was actually really good.

Beer sculpture?

Back out into the cold we go...

We headed back into Shibuya and picked up a Maisen katsu sando. One day I want to try a fresh version of these sandwiches because, while they are good, the bread isn't super fresh and the katsu isn't warm. One day I will make my dream a reality.

A highly original Shibuya crossing photo.

I had plans on Friday evening to eat burgers with my friend Vivian and a girl called Mio. I'd never met Mio before but we were friends on various social media channels and was a hafu from Sydney too so we decided to finally meet. I'm honestly surprised I'd not met her before because she's friends with my friends and has been living in Tokyo for ten years but hey, no time like the present, right?

Mio suggested Martiniburger in Kagurazaka for (you guessed it) martinis and burgers. 

Okay, so the burgers aren't my favourite in Tokyo and there's no fries to be seen but it's still a decent burger with a good amount of avocado (I loooove avocados on my burgers) and the martinis were wonderfully daaatyyy (dirty). 

After some good chats and a couple of martinis, we were the last in the restaurant so it was time to head back home. Cheese, beers, burgers ad martinis... Not a bad Friday in Japan.