Lunch at “Dream” in Kayaba-cho, a homey relaxation space

Good day!
Thank you very much for visiting this blog!

Today I’d like to introduce a restaurant, “Dream”, in Kayaba-cho.

Contents

Lunch before dental check

I’ve written about restaurants in Kayaba-cho sometimes.
To look back those articles, I always visited the restaurants before I had hospital appointments.
Like those previous articles, I visited today’s restaurant on the way to a hospital.

I usually go to hospital for treatment of gout, but today is a dentist.
I had suffered from a toothache intermittently since March.

My teeth somehow ache when I chew or drink something around March to May, every year.
The pain also has a strange feeling like the one you feel when you chew aluminum foil.

It comes seasonally, so I thought that it was just because it was spring and it would go away if I left it alone.
However, this year, it didn’t seem to disappear at all, so I decided to have it checked on that day.

I thought that I would have to stop eating for a while after the dentist check, so I planned to have a meal before going to the dentist in Kayaba-cho.
When I was walking in the town searching for a good restaurant,

This restaurant’s lunch set on this board, included many dishes.
The price was less than a bill of Mr. Hideyo Noguchi, 1000yen.

This good offer caught my eyes.
The main dish was pork Shabu-shabu (a hot pot dish which you boil slices of meat in the pot)

There is a ramen restaurant, “Saika”, at the left side of this restaurant, and a Japanese food restaurant called “Matsuhana” at right.

Regarding “Saika”,　I had heard from my senior colleague of a company which I worked for before that it’s a nice restaurant, so I wanted to try once.
But there was still a long queue even though the time was already nearly one on.
I didn’t want to waste my time, so I gave it up.

For “Matsuhana”, I didn’t choose it because their main menu of lunch was fish, and I wanted to eat powerful meat lunch then.
Therefore, I chose “Dream”.

The inside of the restaurant

This is the entrance of “Dream”.

You go down the stairs, and there is a door at right at the bottom.
The design of the inside was based on white.
I got a strange feeling when I entered the room.

I don’t mean a bad feeling.
The feeling occurred because the room was not like a restaurant.
I don’t mean bad by “strange”, but I felt it was not like a restaurant or a shop.

I had a seat by the wall, and I could see Karaoke machine and tambourines at the left from my seat.
Then I noticed that this restaurant was a “Snack bar”.

I read Yahoo news that there is a “Snack” bar boom in Japan now.
I read that many women go to “Snack” bar recently, even though “Snack bar” are thought to be for male visitors.

The article defined “Snack” as a bar which serve not only alcoholic drinks, but also dishes or meals, and female staffs entertain the customers by chatting with them.
It also said that “Snack” provides homey things such as foods and conversation.

When I read the article, I could understand it and thought that a single person like me should like to go such a place, or people living in a work-centered life also should desire at-home things and go “Snack”.

When I was a child, my father sometimes took me to “Snack”.
The Snack I went was dark, noisy with people’s voices and karaoke sounds, and filled with smoke of cigarettes.
It was not a nice place in my memory.
On the other hand, “Dream” was comfortable.

I looked around the room more carefully, and found that shelves and counters were made with dark brown woods.
Then, I noticed that the things in the room were like those of general residences.
The curtains and other household goods also looked what are seen in normal houses (for me, at least).

The first impression I felt when I entered the room, should have come from this interior. I was in a restaurant, but the atmosphere was just like when I was at home.
That should be the reason of the strange feeling and made me relaxed.

There were 2 staffs.
One was at the kitchen and the other was serving the customers in the room.
Both were female, and they were in pretty aprons (might have been their uniforms).
Their impression was also domestic, which matched the atmosphere of the restaurant.

Kurobuta pork Shabu-shabu and a mini tuna bowl

This is their menu.

I like something “original”.
The menu sheets in the second photo above said 2 types of “original noodles”. However, I chose “Kurobuta Pork (black fur pork) Shabu-shabu lunch” which was shown on the board outside, because it included many small dishes.

After a while, the meal arrived.

There were a bowl of seasoned tuna sashimi on rice, pork Shabu-shabu pot, 3 small dishes, salad, and soup.
It was so satisfying for its price of 990 yen.

I started the meal.
I had salad first, and then had the small dishes.

The left edge is Hiyayakko (cold piece of simple tofu) with small fish and grated daikon radish on top.
The middle was a normal Hiyayakko.
The right was picked vegetables.

The sauce for fish and radish Hiyayakko was soy sauce with fresh sweetness.
It was like Tamari soy sauce (a type of soy sauce which has richer taste).

The normal Hiyayakko in the middle had Ponzu (soy sauce with citrus vinegar), but it was also a bit sweet and unique.
The pickled vegetables were also a little sweet like Namasu (a type of Japanese pickled vegetables) which we usually eat around New Year’s Day.

I started with vegetables for my diet, and then finally, tried the main dish.

I tried the meat first.
When I had it in my mouth, I thought that the taste was too weak…
…But I noticed that the staff told me to use a sauce.
Well, I tend to miss other’s talking or explanations which I didn’t asked for ^^;

I tried the dish again with the sauce which was like a soup.

The sauce was a little sweet, and it was like a soup for Japanese noodles.
The taste matched the pork well.

I looked into the pot carefully,

And I found noodles in it.
The noodles were a good conclusion for this hot pot dish (it is common to put noodles or rice into Japanese hot pot dish when finished all the ingredients and only soup is left).
This service was also homey and nice.

I started from vegetables, and then meat.
The last was carbohydrate.
The last dish I tried was a mini bowl of seasoned tuna sashimi on rice.

The bowl was rather deep and big to call “mini”.
The size of tuna sashimi was small not like that of fish-specialized restaurants, and it was easy to eat.

The sashimi was covered with grated yam which has wasabi and seaweed mixed in, and rice was in the bottom of the bowl.
It was seasoned with sweet soy sauce which tasted like the one of fish Hiyayakko. This sauce gave the dish a good accent and nice sweetness.
I was also satisfied with the plenty amount of grated yam on the top which was enough to go with all the rice in the bowl.

Conclusion

I ate them all!

It was after a long time to be satisfied with a lunch so much.
Well, my lunch is usually instant noodles from convenience stores or Udon noodles at a chain Udon restaurant, though^^;
Even if I had had more proper lunch, the meal of “Dream” was very nice.

I liked their foods, and also their atmosphere which let me have a relaxing lunch time.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the menu for night time, but I imagine that they should provide nice homey dishes with drinks seeing their lunch service.

I would love to visit there twice or three times in a week, or, if I can afford it, I wish to visit on all week days.
This restaurant made me think like that because I could relax eating at-home meal in an at-home atmosphere.

When I eat at restaurants, I usually leave there as soon as I finish the meals.
However, I stayed for a while doing nothing after I finished the lunch at “Dream”.

Thanks to this comfortable time, I could survive the pain and scary noises at the dentist later.
I will come back in night time with my colleague next time!