Disclaimer: I wrote this back in October. and forgot to publish it. Oops.... Gonna publish the backlog slowly before new stuff comes out.
This blog here is just to close out the Hakone weekend so it might be a bit of story telling and randomness so if that's not your cup of tea, please feel free to skip this one. I'll try to be a good writer and keep y'all entertained though.
The first thing I wanted to close out was what in God's name this black egg was. At the nearby combini (convenience store, 7-11), they sold the infamous black eggs which is a big deal at Owakudani. Although this isn't the same thing, they had this incredibly smoked black egg at the 7-11 and so I wanted this to be my Hakone egg experience. I bought it the evening we got to the hotel and immedietly, the intense campfire smoky smell these eggs had was incredible. I couldn't help but compare it to an Islay Scotch like Ardbeg. Oh lordy, and this was with the shell on.
Saving them for breakfast, the smell lasted into the morning but I couldn't wait any longer so I cracked the egg and it looks like a seaosned ramen egg. This is unlike the Owakudani egg where the traces of sulfer only turns the shell black but not the white itself. I guess the smoke penetrates the shell a lot more easily (or the egg whites have no major reaction with the traces of sulfer). And boy, the only thing I can say is it tastes as one would imagine it. It's a hard boiled egg with this (maybe now) mellow smoky flavor. With a bit of the salt+pepper that was served with it and I thought it was a very enjoyable breakfast. If you're a fan of smokey things, hopefully my long spiel here will convince you it's at least worth like 500円.
Alright, now part 2 of the Hakone series happens and we get back to our Ryokan right before it starts raining. Trying to figure out dinner plans, We were trying to look at restaurants and out of the list, we knew that this American restaurant called "Funnys" was probably not what we wanted but they left it to me to choose. I did and since we had 2 and a half hours, we watched the 2015 Japanese movie "Tag" or 『リアル鬼ごっこ』to kill time. Looking at one of the reviews, I think the phrase "grindhouse meets arthouse" describes it quite well. It's a horror film without jump scares and has some things it wants to say so might be worth your time.
Now it's getting close to when this izakaya I was looking at was supposed to open so we get there 10 minutes after it opens.
We arrive, we smell the grilled items like steak, and we're stopped saying they're full and we had to leave. Okay, maybe it's just a sign that on a Sunday night, this restaurant is just that good and we needed reservations. It was such a shame since they had jidori chicken, steak plates, seafood bowls, other izakaya classics, gahh! Alas, life goes on.
So we move on to find place number 2. I had anticpated this and noted a sushi restaurant nearby. We had also passed by it on our first day and it didn't look too crazy expensive so I thought it was quite appropriate. We go in and we were optimistic since there weren't too many people inside. They asked us if we needed a recommendation and I said we didn't have one, of course. And despite the restaurant being at 65% capacity, they couldn't seat us! What!? And so... we mope around and decide to maybe return to the ramen restaurant I had featured in part 1 of the Hakone blog.
Unfortunately, as it rained and the sunset had turned to night, we had found the bright lights of the ramen restaurant and a queue beginning to form. We are three for three and out of the remaining places, the restaurant I had dismissed began to look like our only choice. The Australian colleagues weren't feeling the nearby Korean restaurant and so, reluctantly,
here is my experience at the American Burger Restaurant, "Funnys."
Here's the interior. God Bless America. Route 66, American Flags, American themed cups, more Route 66, cheap American-friendly beer, and music from the '60s.
Even the table, as you might be able to tell from below, has a route 66 theme. Oh man, I haven't seen this much concentrated America even in America! Fortunately, they had something that will actually remind me from home, the humble Loco Moco. It's a classic 'burger' plate from Hawai`i with rice, gravy, hamburger patty, and a sunny side up egg (or maybe a fried egg). Unfortunately, it wasn't in a bowl so the gravy doesn't coat the rice a bit more and it was overall pretty mediocre. The egg was a touch over done (the yolk) and the seasoning wasn't special. I will say it was a proper burger patty at least rather than a hamburger steak or a meatloaf (which I've had in a 'burger'). It was elevated a bit with some tabasco.
To feel a bit more "American," I decided to also get some buffalo wings for the table. As one might notice, this isn't what one expects for buffalo wings. No bones, but just cut up lightly fried chicken meat. The sauce was not this combination of Frank's Red Hot and butter (as canonically done) but instead a chili sauce like thing. Not very American... As with the loco moco though, tabasco made it better.
The worst part about this experience was as we were waiting for our food, we started to notice even this mediocre non-American restaurant started to form a queue! Miyanoshita is very convenient and nice during the day but man, for a place for tourist, having most places closing by 8pm is very inconvenient... Even the owner of the ryokan we were staying at asked me how mediocre the Funny's was...
Moral of the story: make reservations when one can... always.
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