00:11 John Daub: Good evening everybody. So I am on the prowl. This is a Tokyo midnight snack episode. This is sort of a series I do after hours when I'm working late and yeah, I'm hungry. This is the Only in Japan Go channel. All the videos in this are live streamed. So if the quality does get bad, sometimes we're at the mercy of technology. I can't control it, but I will keep bringing you the story.

00:38 John Daub: So I'm back there you saw Yoshinoya. That's one of the famous fast food gyudon (beef rice bowl) chains here in Japan. But I'm not gonna be going there. I'm gonna find another place that I'm gonna take you to just around the corner here. This is my neighborhood that I live here in Tokyo, and I've been here for wow, like 13 years living here, and I'm gonna be moving soon, which is kind of sad, but you know, it's inevitable. Life moves on. So I'm gonna be sad to say goodbye to this neighborhood. Yoshinoya was the first restaurant I ate at. That one right there 13 years ago back in 2005 when I moved here and I never went in again. I only ate at that Yoshinoya once because I have a kitchen so I like to cook actually. So when I have the chance and I'm eating out, I'll eat at a Yoshinoya out away from my house. I won't eat at the one here.

01:32 John Daub: The one I'm going to be eating at is right down there. I think those of you who live in Japan know that yellow sign on the right and that's where I'm going. Not that far away. It is after midnight here. It's about 12:30, 12:40 in the morning. It's already Monday here in Tokyo and I'm gonna be working pretty late today. I have a video that I want to upload but the story keeps changing. So while I'm up editing, I have to go in and get a snack. So this is where I'm gonna be going.

02:30 John Daub: Let me turn off the light here. I have this really cool light that I use for the live streaming. This one is called Matsuya. Some people might know Matsuya. And they have pretty good gyudon. But Matsuya also has other things on the menu. And one of the things that they have is the butashio karubidon (pork salt carb rice bowl), which is really good. And you can see here the hanjuku tamago (half-boiled egg or soft-boiled egg), which is something that I love. And here's the menu. They have a premium gyudon meishi (beef rice bowl set), which was just three dollars and fifty cents, 380 yen, which is ridiculously cheap. They also have curry rice, which is pretty good. I really like the curry rice here.

03:32 John Daub: If you can also get this to go. The reason why I like to eat in at Matsuya is because if you eat here at the restaurant, you get a free miso soup, which is really cool. It's just like the icing on the cake, right? So what I'm gonna go for is this one right here. In English, it says it's the premium gyudon meishi with spicy sauce and extra green onions, negi (green onions). And an egg. I like how they write it in English. It doesn't sound as good as the negi tappuri (extra green onions) premium karai negi tama ushi meishi. It's pretty crazy. And here you can see the sizes. There's namimori (regular size), omori (big size), which is the big one. And then they have a super extra large size and then a mini. I'm just gonna get the regular tonight because I want to keep it simple.

04:24 John Daub: Oh, this is a lot of beef. They also have a pork one, don't they? Oh, I always get this one though. I always get the negi tappuri negi shio buta karubidon. I like this one the best. They always have this on the menu, but right now they have this special gyudon. So that's what we're gonna get, okay? There's like nobody in the restaurant. All right, this is good. Good timing. So I don't want to take this gimbal in so I'm gonna take the gimbal off because I don't actually have permission to film. All right, and we're going to do this stealth. I like stealth.

05:07 John Daub: I like this chain because if you see here, check it out. It says here there has no additives. There's no preservatives and it's 100% all Japanese rice. They don't use anything from another country, so they make a statement of it on the front door. So let's go in, okay?

06:00 John Daub: Premium gyudon meishi. Oh, this is pretty good. Cool. Oh, this one. I'm gonna go regular size.

07:04 John Daub: Hold on a second. They're actually making it right now. So what I'm gonna do now is here's a restaurant right here. So what I'm gonna do right now is I'm gonna turn off this livestream for about two minutes and then when it comes I'm gonna show you what it looks like and then we're gonna have a really special gyudon that has chopped onions on top of it as well as a soft-boiled egg. If you saw what it looks like, we're gonna see and compare it to the menu out there to what we have in front of us. The reason why I'm turning it off is because I want to take a picture too and I can't take a picture of it and also livestream. So give me a couple of minutes. He's making it right now and we're gonna be back in a second.

08:10 John Daub: And we're back. That's what I'm talking about. Oh, the picture. Hold on a second. So this is the gyudon that I'm talking about. So it looks really good. You can see the negi, which is the green leeks on top of it and underneath all of that is the beef. And then I have miso soup. This came free. I love Matsuya because you always get a free one. And then this one is some spice that we're gonna put on top of it. So let's start.

09:00 John Daub: Egg. I'm gonna put it on top of the gyudon. You can mix it like this or put it on top. Let's put it on top. You're supposed to actually mix it, but I'm just gonna put it on top. I don't mind mixing it. It's probably gonna look really good. Oh, yeah. Normally you would mix it, but it just looks... the color of the egg is just so beautiful, isn't it? Oh, hold on. I gotta take a picture of this. Hold on a second. Back. So... Oh, look at how soft that egg is. Some people might be really grossed out by this, but it's just so good.

10:21 John Daub: This is awesome. Oh my lord. Here we go. This doesn't look good or what? You can see the rice underneath there. And when you put it on top, it's just so good. You put the egg on it, the consistency of the raw egg, and it's a really, really good raw egg. It's a high-quality egg. Mixed in with the beef that you have here and the vegetables in here, it's a really good healthy meal. And you have the miso soup here, and a lot of single people will eat this. Now, Matsuya also gives you this spice, and I like to add a little bit to it. Alright, let's try this, okay? Alright, are you ready?

12:04 John Daub: I could eat this all night long.

12:28 John Daub: Oh, so, what I've been doing all night is, I have a postcard club, the Only in Japan Postcard Club. And if you want to join the postcard club, just join Patreon. I send these out to fans all around the world, and it's a way for me to connect with viewers through postcards and support the show. So, I've been doing that, and that's one of the things that's been keeping me up. Now, after I finish this gyudon, I'm going back to finish the next video for the Only in Japan main channel. But until then, I'm going to be eating this gyudon. And I might do another vending machine run, so let's see. So good. This cost under $5. It's an unbelievable deal. This cost 450 yen, which is like $4. Raw egg, miso soup, tea, gyudon. You can't get better than this. Right next to my house.

14:21 John Daub: Everyone who says how you'll lose weight when you come to Japan, everything's healthy. No. You're going to eat twice as much because it's so good. There's no way around it. Oh man. Every single bite is so good. Customers come in here, and they eat really fast, and then they get out. Usually, they're out in about five minutes. But because I'm talking, it's a little bit longer. Gyudon, you scarf it down. You do not eat like a snob. You eat it like a hungry man. You just take it down.

15:29 John Daub: People ask me, is there a certain way to eat? Hold your chopsticks. I like to hold the bowl. This here gives you a grip. So if you hold it like this. You can bring it up to your mouth and just pull it in. That's what I do. This is how I get the rest of it out. We're down to the bottom. Shovel it. And shovel it in. I pull all of it into the corner, like here. I bring all of the rice, every single rice I'm going to eat. I bring it all into one corner, and then I just shovel it in. This is awesome.

17:07 John Daub: Here's what the restaurant looks like. I like how they give you a little bit of a taste. They give you some condiments for salad. This is spicy pepper. This is dressing for the salads. You have ginger if you want it. We'll get down here. There you go. Some ginger. And you have chopsticks. And there's a computer that I ordered it from. And you'll get a ticket. This ticket you keep. This is your receipt. And the other half you give to the manager, who will make it and then bring it to your seat. And he's back there cooking. Because it's the middle of the night. We're the only ones here. And that's a meal. Thank you for the meal. That was the best meal ever.

18:00 John Daub: And you know what? There's something about gyudon. You can eat it for lunch, but it's just more satisfying when you eat it in the middle of the night. I don't know why. I'm not going to be going to bed. But let's just say that... That helps at night. Let's just say that I'm powered up now to work for another few hours. So I'll probably be up until about 4 a.m. This is what I normally do. The reason why I can bring these midnight snacks to you is because this is my usual schedule. I will work in the middle of night because I don't get distracted. There's nothing to bother me. It's just quiet. My apartment's quiet. The city's quiet. The streets are quiet. Check it out. There's nothing here. There's nothing going on. And I can just work uninterrupted. So I get most of my work done between 1 and 4 a.m. And then I go to bed and I wake up at around 9 o'clock. So I get about 5 hours of sleep. But that's probably not the healthiest thing for me. You probably need 8 hours of sleep. But I think I'm going to be taking a break soon. Gyudon power. So you get powered up. That place is just down the street from my house. It's insane. The quality of food that you can get in the middle of the night and it's open 24 hours. It's 100% dangerous. Oh man. Now I'm ready to get back to work.

19:42 John Daub: So I'm going to try to hit a vending machine and get a drink for us. And then I'm going to call it a night. Yeah. I like these midnight runs. So if you do come to Tokyo... I see a lot of comments on my haircut. I've been going to the same barber for the last 12 years since I've been living here. I go to the town next door and he cuts my hair. I don't have to say anything. I love it. I go in there. He asks me where I've been filming because he watches the show. I tell him where I've been. He's from Hokkaido originally but he moved here when he was a kid. So I tell him about Hokkaido and I went to Abashiri to film up there. And we have conversations and he gives me advice about life. Which I think is pretty cool. We only speak in Japanese. He can't speak any English. And then I get the haircut. And every time it's the same. It's like he remembers how he cut the hair. That's what I like about Japan. If you go to the same barber over and over again, they're going to get to know your hair. But I like the fact that I can go in there and I trust I'm going to get a good haircut. I don't have to say anything to him. What do you want this time? I don't even say. I sit down. He just cuts it. And it costs 10 bucks. So I like that. He's an old guy. He's in his 60s. He runs the shop. So I like supporting the local businesses.

21:14 John Daub: Yeah, I'm going actually to the beer vending machine right now. I think Omo was talking about. Thank you for that, by the way. He's always leaving a comment. I like that. I can see a lot of you are leaving comments. And that gives me some motivation to keep the live stream going. All right, there's the vending machine. I can't see any difference with this light. I have this new light. It's pretty cool. Peter was right. The street lights are pretty strong. The weather is getting warmer, which makes me really happy. I don't need to have a jacket when I go out at night. I'm pretty good with just a light jacket instead of my down jacket tonight. It is a little spooky, right? Kind of spooky out here. Why am I whispering?

22:28 John Daub: All right, what are our choices? Mr. Sphinx Canada is saying beer, and I'm probably going to be getting a beer. But let's look at the other choices. Hot coffee. These are all hot. This is corn. Big chunks of corn. You know, whispering is just even spookier when I do it like this. I used to drink this one all the time. This one is only available in Tokyo. You won't find it in Osaka. I don't know why. But Max Coffee is only in this area. It used to be only in Tochigi, but now you can find it all over the place. Wow, look. They have the peach Fanta in a can now. They didn't have that before. What is Koo? Koo is like, oh gosh, Koo is, it's just like a really sweet, it's made by Minute Maid, you see? So Americans will know that from Minute Maid, but it's just like really sweet sugar water that kids love. And this is the Koo. This is the red bean paste in a can, which is really good on a cold winter night. It keeps you warm, this one. And we have Bacardi Sweat, the one that everybody talks about. Why they call it sweat? It's because you sweat and then you drink it and it replaces the sweat. Don't ask me. I just, I didn't name it. I only have these miniature Coke Zeros.

24:06 John Daub: All right, let's go for a beer because Canada, Mr. Canada Spinks, I think he had it right. That's what I should get here. I'm going to get a beer. Which one though? I'm tempted to go for the big Ebisu, but Asahi is pretty good too. It's a hard one. Anyone have any suggestions? Clear Asahi. Mix is going, please keep the midnight food series going. Oh, I have no intention of stopping that. You know, Mix, I got no intention to stop the midnight food series. We're going to keep this going. This is fun. Right now it looks like everyone's saying Asahi Ebisu. Edward says Ebisu though. Asahi, Calpis. Calpis isn't even a beer. That's stronger in a weird way. Get both. Oh, Colin, I can't drink both. I don't want to waste anything. Asahi clear, Sapporo beer. I'm going to go for the Asahi. I'm going for the Asahi. Okay, here we go.

25:46 John Daub: All right. So we got an Asahi. Oh, look at the, I got the light. So it, the light is really working well. Awesome. Look at how this Asahi is now flying down the street. Silver bullet. That was kind of cool. So I'm going to go back to my usual spot. We're going to crack this open and I'm going to do a Kanpai (cheers) for all of you. I appreciate all the support. Thanks for the super chats, by the way. Appreciate that. And don't worry, we're going to keep the midnight food series running. It's just a natural thing for me to do. And I like, I used to do this by myself. But when I can go live like this, it feels like, you know, we're doing this together and that is so much better than doing it alone. I was that restaurant alone. Did you see that? Like you go restaurant Matsuya and it's so much better when you're with friends and eating. So it kind of in a weird way, it felt like, you know, I was with, I wasn't alone and that's sort of a cool thing.

27:00 John Daub: Uh, so Debra, I thought you had to have a special card. It's hard to buy beer and such. I'm glad that you brought that up, Debra, because the new vending machines require ID. The new vending machines require some kind of driver's license. Another reason is why I got my driver's license, because you need to have that ID to get beer, but that is old school. Oh man. I'm still tasting gyudon. So good. It tastes even better the second time. Um, yeah, you know, the new ones have ID just like the tobacco machines have a TASPO card and the TASPO card is an ID that you need to have in order to buy tobacco and you have to get that at a kiosk and fill out an application. And I think it takes a couple of weeks for you to receive it. I think you have to put your picture on it too, on the application. So if the police track you down, Mr. Smokey, you have to show your card.

28:06 John Daub: Those are the guys that give me my rental bike. They just finished up for the night. All right, here we go. Asahi. Whoa. I almost lost the camera. This is a brand new iPhone too. I can't lose the iPhone. The light is sort of, I'm going to use the light as a, okay, here we go. That's how we roll in Tokyo. There's no good way to say it. I was trying to be cool and sometimes it doesn't work out. I'm just kidding.

29:27 John Daub: Um, let's see what else is going on while I have you here. I guess I can talk and take some questions for a couple of minutes. Um, yeah, come by everybody. This week I'm just gonna be editing and staying home. I have a couple of videos for the main channel. I want to finish up editing, including the living to a hundred years old episode, which has been really complicated. Um, that's a hard one to edit, but I'm hoping to have it up tonight, but I got to get back to work. I have some other news that I'm going to tell you probably in a couple of weeks. I'm going to hold off on that for a little while. But I also want to ask you, what did you think of Peter's live streaming? What do you think of Peter's channel? My friend Peter von Gomm, who a lot of you know from this show, he often helps me and travels around with me. We just have so much fun. And I love Peter because we can play with each other. We know each other so well. And there were some comments saying that we're rude or I'm rude or we're rude to one another. It's because we know each other. You get a couple of guys that are out on the town or a couple of guys walking around. We're going to razz each other up. We're not going to be super polite to one another. And we're cool like that. And after the live stream ends, we have a great time. Sometimes we'll go get a beer and relax. And he's just a really good friend of mine. So don't take things the wrong way. If we say something that might offend you or you might not feel comfortable with, guaranteed, please write it in the comments. That's cool. I'll probably get to it and say, look, you know, we're just good friends. And that's the way we are. We're two expats from America living here in Japan. We both work with Japanese people all the time. We're so used to this culture here that when we're together, you know, we sort of throw out all of the conventions and the things that you're supposed to do with normal people. And we just are friends.

31:19 John Daub: I was thinking about this, too. There's this word called cringe. And people often say, you know, they just write cringe in the comments. I'm not bothered by this. In fact, it took me a while to figure out why they were writing it. And it's supposed to have a bad meaning. But I think if you are an authentic person, if you're someone who is who you are, you're going to sometimes be cringe. OK, there's no way around it because nobody is perfect. Everybody is geeky or cheesy or nerdy in their own way. And going to be cringe. And I think if you weren't cringe at some time in your life, I don't even know if I'm using the word right. If you weren't cringe at some time, I don't think that you would be an authentic person. I'm just saying this honestly. I don't try to. Yeah, I do. I try to be a little bit special for the camera sometimes. But the more I do this live streaming, the more natural I think it's becoming. And there's no way for me to hide who I am when I'm live streaming. And I love this. This is something I didn't have before when I was doing the main Only in Japan channel. You'd see me as a reporter and I never really was in front of the camera. And when I'm live streaming, there's no way not to show your true self. I think live streaming... I've done like a thousand hours of live streams. And if you look through the entire work of that, you could probably psychoanalyze me and find out who I am as a person. And yeah, there's moments when I'm probably a jerk or moments where I'm cringe or there's moments when I'm an idiot or moments when I'm stupid. But that's the glorious thing about live streaming is that, you know, we're all just people. We're all just people out there just trying to have fun and in the pursuit of happiness. And, you know, drinking a beer makes me a little bit happier in the middle of the night. So that's why I will not stop doing it no matter how cringe I might be from time to time. But that's just a human emotion.

33:25 John Daub: Mr. Sphinx Canada, I love the banter between you and Peter. Thank you. That's really cool. Grigori, I hope I'm saying that right. Grigori says, when are you getting married to Jennifer? All right. You know, my girlfriend does not... I have a girlfriend. Okay. And she gets slightly jealous. And everybody comments about me, Jennifer. I don't mind. And, you know, Jennifer doesn't mind either. But Jennifer and I, honestly, we're just really good friends. Well, come on. I'm 44 years old and I've been living in Japan for 20 years. This is my 20th year. Of course, I'm gonna have a girlfriend. You know, I mean, really? But guys, the comments are coming in really fast now. I guess I sort of just rang a bell. Could you please do a video on gluten free? Okay. That's something I'll do. I'm your fan because you are real bright and funny and friends do these things. Seven red two. I think so, too. You know, um, I don't want to hide anything from you. Is it a box? No way. Are you kidding me? Franny meows. Seven red sets of bombshell. Are you serious? That shouldn't be a big surprise. John and Jennifer ship has officially sunk. No kale. Look, I don't want to make anybody upset. But I've been completely honest with you when I told you Jennifer and I were just friends. It was true. Jennifer and I are just really friends. And I love Jennifer. I've known her for 10 years. She's like family to me. You don't want to mess around with that and ruin what you have. Mia is somebody I worked with who I've known for 10 years I respect. She's a freelancer who is a really amazing person. And where is she? She was in Okinawa for a while. You know, she has an Instagram that you should definitely check out. I think though it's private. Maybe abandoned ship. Come on, guys. It's not that bad. I mean, Jennifer has her private life and I will never talk about Jennifer's private life. I think if you want to know about her life, you can ask her. Same with Peter. Although Peter seems to let people in a little bit more and more. I think it's pretty cool that Peter has introduced Joji to you. His son Joji is... I remember Joji was a lot smaller than he is, but he's turned out to be pretty smart, intelligent kid. And yet Peter's a pretty good papa, I think. So he's also, you know, Peter's my friend, but he's also like a role model. And if I ever become a dad one day, I probably something like Peter. Most of the time. But he's Peter's a really good guy.

37:05 John Daub: And you know what? I can't thank you guys for a lot of you who have been supporting his channel and Jennifer's channel and Kevin's channel and the friends that I introduced you on the show. To me, that's sort of a big deal because I've said this before. I don't do collaborations with other YouTubers because that's sort of disingenuous. I would do a collaboration with another YouTuber because it was good for the channel, you know, and I don't think that that's exactly what I want to do with the Go channel. I want to introduce you to who I am. I want to introduce you to my Japan. Someone who's been living in Japan for 20 years, something different than everybody else. All right. I'm going to turn it around. He's super dry. So I think that's a good note to end the live stream on. I got in trouble. There's Linda. You know, I'm always going to be honest with you. If you ask me a question and I don't want to answer it, I'm just not going to answer it. If you're critical of me, I like it. Actually, I don't take offense at anything because I've been doing this for a long time and I'm used to people not being nice all the time. That's the way YouTube is. But I think there's always sometimes a grain of honesty in trolls. There's always something that you should think about and not see yourself in a bad light. Not too much, but sometimes it can make you a better person. Sometimes.

38:23 John Daub: Drink the Asahi. Why did I get the big one? Hold on a second. Hold on a second. I can't. Oh, man. Oh, when you have a party, there's usually loud music. Lots of people around. I mean, you can hear everything, can't you? All right. I'm going to go home now. But I want to say thank you to everybody. Before I leave, I want to say thank you to everybody joining me on this midnight snack. It's been a lot of fun. I'm actually once again in front of the Matsuya where we had the gyudon.

39:07 John Daub: Samuel asks, is it illegal to drink on the streets? No, it's not. They have a vending machine with beer in it. Of course, it's not illegal. However, there is one caveat. When you drink publicly in Japan, the reason why Japan has it... Japan is not a violent country. People are not violent or get into fights. People are very subdued. And when they get drunk, most people like 99% of the people, 99.9% become even more docile, become more like softer. And it's a right that we have. We can drink out on the streets. We can drink in a train. We can drink walking around. And we have this. It's because people in Japan are very responsible for the most part. They might drink too much. And you might see somebody yakking out there on the side of a tree. That happens. It's nature. But in general, we don't have fights. I've never been in a fight in Japan. I've never anybody who is confrontational or aggressive to me in 20 years of living here as a result of alcohol. And these are really good things living here.

40:36 John Daub: James writes longtime watcher. First time super chatter. Thank you, James from Canada. Wow. You know, we have so many amazing people. Greetings from a Toronto patriot. Well, I second beer. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Brian. I know the patriot because I've been going through the list of people in Patreon because I've been doing the postcards for the postcard club tonight. This one is coming out to everybody who's in the postcard club. I'm taking it to the post office tomorrow. I get the stamp, the airmail stamp. They let me commandeer the airmail stamp. And then I give it to the ladies and they put the stamps on by hand and then send it off to everybody, which is pretty cool. I still do everything myself. There was somebody who asked me if I had an assistant and I don't. Not yet. I'd like to. I'm having trouble. Sometimes I'm underwater with work. I'm still in trouble because I can't get everything done that I want to do. But these live streams are a way for me to take a break and just hang out with you guys for a little bit. And that's what I do.

41:44 John Daub: John is forty four now. Yeah, John is forty four. Vegas. Eric. Oh, man. I have a need. And what is the next Karate Kid movie? Actually, it's called Cobra Kai. And I'm actually a big fan of Ralph Macchio because we sort of have a similar look. And Cobra Kai is a YouTube original series, which is on YouTube Red. And I think that's debuting this year. So you might want to check it out. And Ralph Macchio is back. And I think for the most part, I might be aging better than Ralph. I got some gray, you know, but I might be aging a little bit better than Ralph. Although Ralph is aging pretty good, too. He still looks pretty young. I'm maybe just slightly ahead of Ralph. I hope he does come to Japan. He came here for... No, you know what? That's not true. They did a couple of scenes in Karate Kid 3 in Okinawa. But most of that was the set was in Hawaii and they kind of cheated. Karate Kid 3 was not filmed in Okinawa. It was filmed mostly in Hawaii and it was a set made to look like Okinawa. Crazy, right?

43:03 John Daub: All right, everybody. I'm going to turn it around and take a look at Matsuya and I got to end this live stream because nature's calling big time. That's another reason why I'm talking really fast because nature's calling. All right, everybody. Thanks again for the super chats and I really have fun. Nice to hang out with you on this break. But there you go. There's Matsuya on the other side where we had a gyudon at midnight together. See you guys. I'll probably be back on in a day or two. So see you until then. Thanks, everybody. Quiet out here.