Only in Japan Go — Transcripts
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2018-10-02 · Ep 348 · 15m

Hello Kitty Pink Burgers and Food at Sanrio Puroland

Tokyotheme parkfood reviewHello KittySanrio
Summary

Hello Kitty Pink Burgers and Food at Sanrio Puroland

Overview

In this lively episode, John Daub takes viewers inside Sanrio Puroland, the indoor Hello Kitty theme park located in Tama Center, Tokyo. Accompanied by his friend Jennifer, John explores the park's unique culinary offerings, focusing on the visually striking but questionable "Pink Burger." The video serves as a behind-the-scenes look at the food they encountered while filming a main episode, offering honest reviews of the taste versus the presentation.

Beyond the food review, John provides a walkthrough of the park atmosphere, noting the vibrant parades, the mix of adult fans without children, and the overall value compared to Tokyo Disneyland. The episode captures the whimsical, sometimes surreal experience of dining in a character-themed environment, complete with Hello Kitty-shaped sweets and colorful curries. It's a candid look at theme park food culture in Japan, balancing the "kawaii" aesthetic with practical taste testing.

Highlights

  • 00:00:00 John introduces the Hello Kitty-shaped daifuku filled with cream.
  • 00:00:22 The reveal of the pink Hello Kitty burger and its wrinkly appearance.
  • 00:01:21 John and Jennifer prepare to taste test the burger during a parade lull.
  • 00:02:19 First bite reaction: the bun is pink, but the meat quality is questionable.
  • 00:03:13 Trying the potato croquette and karaage side dishes.
  • 00:04:08 Overview of the curry rice options and the $15 price tag for the set.
  • 00:04:50 Cutting into the Hello Kitty pudding dessert.
  • 00:06:50 Final verdict: the karaage was best, the burger was "disgusting."
  • 00:07:36 Tour of the cafeteria menu and souvenir plates.
  • 00:11:49 Observations on the loud, colorful parade and adult fans dancing.
  • 00:14:09 Price comparison: Puroland is less than half the cost of Disneyland.

Timeline / Chapters

Japan Travel Tips

  • Cost: Entry to Sanrio Puroland is around 3,300 yen (approx. $30 USD), which is less than half the price of Tokyo Disneyland.
  • Timing: Weekdays are significantly less crowded than weekends or holidays. John notes it was quiet enough to film easily during a parade.
  • Food: Expect to pay around $15 for a burger set. The presentation is excellent (keep the plates), but taste varies widely. The karaage (fried chicken) was rated higher than the burger.
  • Souvenirs: Many food sets come with keepable character plates or mugs.
  • Demographics: Don't be surprised to see many adults without children enjoying the park; it appeals to all ages.
  • Battery: Bring extra power; John notes running low on battery during filming due to the extensive shooting.

Japanese Language & Culture Notes

  • Itadakimasu: Said before eating, roughly translating to "I humbly receive." John and Jennifer say this before tasting each item.
  • Kawaii: Meaning "cute." Central to the Sanrio brand and the aesthetic of the food and park.
  • Daifuku: A traditional Japanese sweet consisting of a small round mochi (glutinous rice cake) stuffed with filling. Here it is cream-filled and Hello Kitty-shaped.
  • Anko: Sweet red bean paste, a traditional daifuku filling. John confirms this one is cream, not anko.
  • Gachapon: Capsule toy vending machines, found in the gift shop area.
  • Arigato: Thank you. John uses this to thank viewers ("Trekkers") for buying their lunch.

Food & Drink Guide

  • Hello Kitty Daifuku 00:00:00: Cream-filled, Hello Kitty shaped. Approx $1.50. Verdict: Cute, creamy.
  • Pink Burger Set 00:00:22: Pink bun, pork patty, comes with fries. Approx $15. Verdict: "Disgusting" meat, good fries, bun is pink.
  • Curry Rice 00:04:08: Pink and blue varieties available. Eaten for the main episode.
  • Croquette 00:03:13: Potato-filled, star-shaped. Verdict: Pretty good.
  • Karaage 00:03:13: Fried chicken. Verdict: Probably the best item.
  • Hello Kitty Pudding 00:04:50: Character-shaped pudding. Verdict: Tasteless cream, cute appearance.
  • Sundaes/Cakes 00:07:36: Various character-themed desserts available at the kitchen counter.

People

  • John Daub: Host. Honest reviewer, finds the humor in the "wrinkly" Hello Kitty burger.
  • Jennifer: John's friend and guest for this video. French speaker (uses "Bon appétit", "Merci"), provides second opinion on food.
  • Kanae Daub: John's wife. Mentioned as the recipient of the souvenir plate.
  • Nathaniel: Online viewer mentioned during the livestream segment.
  • Carlos Mitchell: Online viewer commenting on the stream.

Key Takeaways

  • Sanrio Puroland offers a unique indoor theme park experience focused on Sanrio characters.
  • Character food prioritizes visual appeal (kawaii) over culinary quality; expect to pay a premium for the theme.
  • The park is affordable compared to major competitors like Disneyland and is enjoyable for adults without children.
  • Weekday visits offer a much more relaxed experience with shorter lines.
  • Souvenir plates are a notable perk of ordering food sets.

Notable Quotes

  • 00:00:22 "It looks like Kitty-chan is now a grandmother. She's in her mid-80s, but she's still looking cute."
  • 00:03:44 "The burger is disgusting. Kids will like it. But the meat is not edible."
  • 00:06:01 "The kind of brain matter, pudding matter is sticking out of it, but that's okay."
  • 00:09:31 "If it's not edible for mama, it can't be edible for the babies."
  • 00:14:09 "It's less than half the price of Disneyland... for little, little toddlers this place is big enough to amuse them for the entire day."

Related Topics

  • Tokyo Theme Parks
  • Character Food in Japan
  • Sanrio Culture
  • Family Travel in Japan
  • Tama Area Exploration

Search Tags

#only-in-japan-go #tokyo #travel #sanrio-puroland #hello-kitty #tama-center #theme-park #food-review #japanese-food #kawaii #john-daub #character-food #pink-burger


Full Transcript

00:00:00 John Daub: But I want to share with you some of the food that we're not going to be featuring in an episode here. What do you got in your hands, first of all? I've got daifuku. So this one is filled with cream. Hello Kitty shaped. It's not anko? Not anko? No, it's not anko. It's cream, she said. Okay. Wow. All right, we're going to try to eat this.

00:00:22 John Daub: What we're going to do first, though, Jennifer, is this kind of strange burger. If you take a look at it. It's pink. It looks like Kitty-chan is now a grandmother. She's in her mid-80s, but she's still looking cute. She's rocking that cuteness, even though she's kind of wrinkly, and she has some sort of scar here. I don't know, just being honest here. Her eyes are not quite right. Yeah, she could be a little bit happier, but that's all right.

00:00:54 John Daub: This is the burger set. I kind of wish that they had put it in, it doesn't look like the picture. And the burger smells like it's from an elementary school cafeteria, but, you know, we'll try it anyways. Should we show inside? All right, just quickly show inside. How the meat looks. Oh, that looks beautiful. Oh, I cannot wait to sink my teeth into this. Yum, buddy. Yeah. We're going to give it a try.

00:01:21 Jennifer: We, Jennifer and I came here to kind of look around this place and show you around. They're doing a parade right now. That's why there's not a lot of people here so we can film pretty easily. Yeah. But the shows are really great, I think.

00:01:35 John Daub: Dig in. Do you want to take the first bite? Are you sure? I want to see if the American makes a funny face, then the French can't eat it. That's for sure. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. I got it. All right, eat it.

00:01:54 Jennifer: It's not really, it does not look, I don't know. The bread looks like plastic, but yes, don't judge until you've tasted it.

00:02:10 John Daub: Bon appétit.

00:02:12 Jennifer: Bon appétit.

00:02:19 John Daub: It's pink. The bread is pink. It's not bad. I think it's not beef, it's pork. Do you want a bite? But the bun is pink. This is the weird thing. The bun is pink.

00:02:44 Jennifer: You going to take a bite? You can bite the back end if you want. It's okay. Itadakimasu.

00:02:56 John Daub: What do you think?

00:02:58 Jennifer: This is yum. Good?

00:03:04 John Daub: All right. It does come with fries. The meat, I think, is really bad. The French fries are pretty good.

00:03:13 Jennifer: What about this? Oh, this is a croquette. This is filled with potato. Show how starry this is. Show the camera. There's our star. Go ahead. It's a croquette, maybe. Bon appétit. Itadakimasu. It's some potato. Karaage. Actually, it's pretty good.

00:03:44 John Daub: It's average. The burger is disgusting. Kids will like it. Kids will like it. It's child-friendly. I think so. Yeah. But the meat is not edible. If you want a real burger, you want to know like a real meat taste, this is cheap taste. But you get to keep the plate.

00:04:08 John Daub: This is Sanrio Puroland, which is in Tokyo Tama Center. We had over there, you can see, there's four curry rices, a pink curry, a blue curry. We ate these curries, okay, for the main episode. I'm not going to show you that, but we're going to show you some of the B-roll stuff. This is $15. Yeah. Expensive. $15 for this. But as you said, you can keep the plates. All right, daifuku. Let's do it.

00:04:38 Jennifer: Ah, Ajun, thank you very much. Itadakimasu. Oh. Ajun writes it, you have mayo on your face. Yeah, here. Do I? Yeah. No, the other side. Thank you. Thank you.

00:04:50 John Daub: This could have been bad. Itadakimasu. All right, hold that, hold that, hold that. It's a pizza. Hold that, hold that. It's a pizza. Oh, that's so cute. Yeah. Are you going to eat it? What am I going to eat? The head? This piece? Yeah, just eat whatever you like, Jennifer. Okay, just a ribbon. Just do it. Itadakimasu. Do it, do it, do it, do it. Oh, kitty. Wow. Oh, there it is. Okay. That looks good. That looks good. It's good?

00:05:22 John Daub: Hey, Nathaniel. Nathaniel's online. Who's the lady? There's some people who are asking, you've been gone so long, like, who's the lady? Everybody has forgotten about me. That's the thing. That's good, we met today. That's Jennifer.

00:05:34 Jennifer: Now, you think you're going to finish this, right? Give me a bite. No. You got lipstick on it? Really? No. All right. That's good. It's like pudding. Right. You want to finish it off? No, merci. No, merci. I'd rather go and have a coffee somewhere, like in a real coffee afterwards.

00:06:01 John Daub: No, no, no, don't move it, don't move it. Look at this. Look at this. Look at this. That's okay, you're taking this. I thought, okay, we can show both. No, keep it back in there. Keep it back in there. Oh, that looks so sad. Kawaii-so. Oh, no. You moved it again. Oh, poor kid. It's all right. The kind of brain matter, pudding matter is sticking out of it, but that's okay. She said to start in your legs. I can hear the meowing they're saying right now.

00:06:33 Jennifer: Try this pudding really fast. Here's a spoon. Here's a spoon. We have 5% battery life, guys, so we're doing this. You're not going to try the ribbon? No, go ahead. It must be some chocolate, I think.

00:06:50 John Daub: It's good. It's good. It's not good. It's okay. No taste. It's got no taste. No taste. It's just cream, which isn't bad. I love good cream, but it's just cream. I don't know. Yeah, it's pretty tasteless, but I think the best is probably the caramel. The best might be the napkins. Is it? I like the napkins. And the karaage was probably the best.

00:07:19 Jennifer: What is this? You get a bag for the plate. Small gift, big smile, everybody. Should we show the plate? Yeah. Why don't you get the plate and take out the photo, and hey, Trekkers, thank you.

00:07:36 John Daub: Yeah, we are back. I'm going to go over there and show the food at the kitchen. If you would get ready the plate and the picture that we took today. And I'm just going to show you some of the food that they got here. Alright, this is pretty cool. Alright, check it out. I don't know if I'm allowed to do this, I'm just going to do this, check it out. So they got like these Hello Kitty mugs here. And here's the daifuku that we got. It's about $1.50, I'd say. They have Kitty-chan cake and I was really tempted to get that too. And then there's this deluxe cake. That's $6.50 and that looks really good too. There's the kitchen right there. If you get the pudding, you can get a character bento. And you can also buy the glass, which is really cute. I like it, and you can get these sundaes too. They're about $6. The left one is $3. And for $4.50 you can get a salad, which is about $4. It's pretty cool. I'm not going to introduce you to the curry. But take a look at the menu. Take a look at the cafeteria. It's just really, really, really cool.

00:08:48 John Daub: Alright, let's go back over to Jennifer and take a look at the plate and the picture that we took today.

00:08:58 Jennifer: That's the plate! Oh, I get to keep it? Do you want it? You can keep the music here. You're going to give it to your doggy?

00:09:08 John Daub: Yes. I don't know. Actually, I might give this to Kanae. Ah, yeah, why not? She has it as a present, look. I know, I got to bring something back for her. We can clean it. Yeah, let's clean it for Kanae. I'm not going to bring her the burger. You can bring the burger for your little babies. I don't want to kill them, thank you. This is poison.

00:09:31 Jennifer: No, I wouldn't say that. Come on, Jennifer, it's not that bad. If it's not edible for mama, it can't be edible for the babies. You know that, those who know the babies, right? Yeah. Right?

00:09:45 John Daub: So I'm here filming for the main episode. We were just taking some filler shots, right? And I thought I would take you inside there for five minutes. I want to thank Trekkers for buying our lunch for us. I appreciate that, Trekkers. Arigato. You rock.

00:10:07 Jennifer: No, come on. What? There's no meat in there. That's bad. Carlos Mitchell, great to see John and Jen on cam together. It's been a while. I think the last time we did a livestream was a long... Half a year? Half a year ago? We are going to do more from now on.

00:10:26 John Daub: You want to go? Yeah, I'm going to take... We can show around. Yeah, can you do me a favor? I'm going to take this plate here. Yeah, take the plate. Alright, Jennifer, I took a picture. I'm going to show you really quickly. That was brilliant. Actually, you know what? Go to Instagram, Only in Japan TV on Instagram. And I'm going to show you a cleaner version of this picture. But it was a lot of fun. I'm going to put this on the Instagram. That's a shame, the daifuku kind of... It's kind of sad to say goodbye. So do I bring this back? Yeah, if you would. Okay. I'm going to take you guys outside right now. I'm not allowed to have tripods or these sticks. But we're going to do it real fast. The staff is really fast. I don't want to break the rules. Jennifer's taking that away. She's very, very helpful. I haven't seen her forever. It's nice to see Jennifer again. Yeah, it's a GH5, guys. Alright, we don't got to go to the bathroom. We've got a lot of time. But I'm going to take you out there just to show you the parade. Just a little bit, okay? Jennifer's on her way. Here we go, guys. I'm putting the wide angle lens on this side for you.

00:11:42 Jennifer: Wow, you're really pumped up. You are dancing hardcore to this stuff. Look at this. She's into the kiddie stuff.

00:11:49 John Daub: Alright. I'm just going to show a little bit, okay? Alright, this is all I'm going to show you from here. It's pretty crazy, huh? This is pretty crazy. This is really insane. The colors, the loudness. It's like a rock concert here. I really kind of think it's pretty neat to be, you know, at Kitty-chan's Sanrio Puroland. You kind of can feel the vibe of this all here. But, I mean, the funny thing is that I can't even hear what I'm saying. I'm going to let Jennifer have some fun for a second. But the funny thing is that there's a lot of adults here without kids. Alright, without kids. There's adults without kids.

00:12:59 Jennifer: Hey, Jennifer, there are a lot of adults here without kids, right?

00:13:03 John Daub: Right. We saw this guy in his 50s. He was alone and he was dancing. He knew the dance that was crazy. He knew the Kitty-chan dance. Crazy. You have to edit that video quick so they can see it. I know. We got hashtag jealous out there. Just all the little things in this place make it really, really cool. Like all the little things in this place. This is the cafeteria. And I'm going to take you upstairs just to show you the game center. And then I'm going to stop this, okay? Because I got about 3% battery left. And I don't want to lose this livestream without saying goodbye. But this is a pretty cool place. I'm pleasantly surprised. And what made this a really good experience is that, alright, it's more than half the price of—it's less than half the price of Tokyo Disneyland, right? It's, oh, they're starting to close the place down. Oh, we're like at the end of it. Yeah, they turned the lights off. That's not normal. It's like saying goodbye.

00:14:09 John Daub: It's less than half the—it's 3,300 yen or 30 dollars to come in. Which is ridiculous. But it's less than half the price of Disneyland. And for little, little toddlers this place is big enough to amuse them for the entire day. And on weekdays, it's not nearly as crowded. I like the fact, this wasn't crowded, was it?

00:14:26 Jennifer: Why do you say toddlers? Toddlers are small kids. I had great fun.

00:14:30 John Daub: But you're Jennifer. Not only toddlers. You're Jennifer, that's different. You can see the lines are—that's as long as the line is. And everybody's going to be going in for the performance. It's very, very quiet here on the weekdays. So it's almost perfect when there's no holiday to be here at Sanrio Puroland. That's about it. That's actually all that we really have. We really don't have anything else to show you here. Here's one of the gift shops. Do you want to just—I guess we can just go home. I think we're just about done. There are some gachapon (capsule toy) machines here. Everything is Hello Kitty, of course. Including Jennifer. Hello Jennifer Kitty. Yeah, right? Very cool. Yeah, we didn't really plan this livestream. I'm here just to shoot the main channel stuff. But yeah, why not? Just give you a quick look around.

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