00:00:03 John Daub: Good evening. Welcome to Kobe. This is the Sannomiya area. The station is actually a different area. There's Kobe Station, there's Motomachi, and then there's Sannomiya. This is Sannomiya, which is kind of the hub for the nightlife here, and between Motomachi and Motomachi is kind of near where Chinatown is in Kobe. And it's about 11pm. I don't know how long this live stream is going to go on for. I haven't really done Kobe at night. It's not the same as Osaka. So we're going to go and just take a look around and see what we can find. This here is Sannomiya Eki—eki meaning station. And you can hear the trains rolling by above ground.

00:00:50 John Daub: So let's just take a look, walk through here. And maybe we'll be able to find some kind of restaurant or food or something, maybe some takoyaki or something really delicious from the Kansai area. Kobe is famous for the Kobe steak or Kobe-gyu. But I don't know if these restaurants are open right now. It's always weird to stream live in an area you're not used to. But what I do know is that here in Kansai, people are a little bit friendlier than in Tokyo. So I'm guessing we're not gonna have any problems. But it is nighttime in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Let's see what we can find.

00:01:35 John Daub: I don't see anybody eating on a weekday. Maybe people are going home. But Kobe strikes me as kind of a late night town. I don't know. People are running to get to their last trains. I'm staying here overnight. And I'm here because a company I've been working with for several years gave me an award. So you know, I'm here in Kobe, why not go for a run? Okay, first of all, we come up on a 7-Eleven. That's always a good safety backup. They're open 24 hours. And you can always find something to munch on there. So this is the Sannomiya station up here. Very nice.

00:02:20 John Daub: We're gonna go across. Let's switch over to the other side. Cut through the station and go to the other side. See what we can find. This side looks a little bit too quiet for my taste—taste meaning that there's nothing to taste, so far. The trains do run pretty late. Here's the JR station board. Hey, blood clone. That's about my extent to Kansai, but I know a lot more than that. Alright so those trains are going to Kyoto probably going a little bit after midnight but not to worry I'm staying in the neighborhood.

00:03:06 John Daub: Even the tickets are different here just the ticket booths if you compare them to Tokyo it's completely different. Check it out. Wow honestly Kansai is like a different world. Now let me just put it in perspective where we are. You can see Sannomiya there which is the red spot on the map. Motomachi and Kobe. Kobe station is not as built up as Sannomiya so that's something that you should realize about Kobe. If you do decide on a hotel you probably want to stay in the Sannomiya or the Motomachi area not Kobe station but if you take the train this way you get to Osaka which is here on the circle line so it's 410 yen to get there by JR.

00:04:06 John Daub: In Osaka yes is a late night town especially around the Amerikamura area and the Dotonbori area. Alright here we go now I see some bright lights let's go towards the light like a moth. Hope it's not one of those bug zappers. They've got a McDonald's by the station. I'm gonna be taking a pass on that. Eric Grayson time flies. Yeah fly towards the light. It's neat though when you hang outside home they'll just stand there and just continue to bow and say otsukaresamadeshita—good work today—and then eventually after five minutes of talking they'll make their way to the last train.

00:05:03 John Daub: Just gonna watch it for a second. Okay they're starting to break up. They get in a circle in front of the entrance and it's kind of a nice sight as people say good night to one another after drinking late at night. Alright now you can see over on this side and I'm gonna have to go around the block to get there. There's a couple more lights. This is a train going towards Suma the other side towards Himeji. So let's cross the street and see what we can find over there. If not we'll swing around we're gonna go around this neighborhood and see if we can find something to munch on.

00:06:09 John Daub: Alright so what are you guys hoping to find? Do you have any requests? I'm gonna follow this guy anybody who goes colors outside the line has got a good recipe. Alright okay the light is green I timed this right so we made it over to the side with all the lights. Very good. I'm guessing there's a lot more energy here. Check it out. You feel it? It's a little bit better than where we just started this live stream five minutes ago. Alright let's get deep into this now. Follow those ladies. Interesting. There's a car. It's a karaoke place. Very bright and now you start to see it.

00:07:34 John Daub: There are a lot of tourists as I told you when you come to Kobe you don't want to stay actually you probably want to stay in Osaka but if you do stay in Kobe you don't want to stay Kobe station you want to stay around Sannomiya or Motomachi. Motomachi is more authentic maybe but you're already starting to see the Kobe beef signs. Signs promoting Kobe beef there it is right there and usually typically it's tourist. There's a lot of tourists who will go into these shops. The Kobe beef restaurants are places that you don't know. The guitar guy said hi. But typically you want to go to places that are recommended by locals and it's hard if you just walk on the streets and you see signs that write in English Kobe beef typically it's not the best stuff but I could be wrong.

00:08:36 John Daub: I tend not to eat Kobe beef in Kobe. If you want to eat Kobe beef, go to Tajima. Go out to the countryside and eat it. The city of Kobe is... I don't know. See, there you go, right there. Kobe beef. Although I'm getting tempted just to walk in there and try one. Thanks to Dylan for contributing. I will have to find something to eat soon. But you can see Kobe does have promoting the Kobe beef and they've put a mark on the fat there. I think it's the logo of the restaurant. But the more you walk around Sannomiya, the more you're going to find like budget Kobe beef and Kobe beef for a really cheap price. And I can't say... now we're talking. See that right there? That's some gyoza.

00:09:41 John Daub: All right, we got back. We got plan number one. I'm scouting out this area a little bit. We have ramen right there. Plan number two. The ramen shop right over my shoulder. You can smell it. You can almost taste it. You can almost taste the ramen. All right, check it out. Let's look around. Lots of lights. Lots of glitz in this area. Check out this alley. That's total Sannomiya. Varun, don't say that word too loudly because you never know what's lurking around the corners here. I'll let you know so far we found some pretty good candidates.

00:10:43 John Daub: Kobe's famous for its desserts and you can see this. This is a really nice... Lots and lots of pastries and bakeries here especially in the Sannomiya area. There's a European influence to Kobe that and you can see that in its cuisine. Lots of European bakeries. So Kobe is very famous for having some of the best breakfasts in Japan. There's one hotel nearby which is ranked number one. I'm glad it's not the place where they serve inflammatory and extremely expensive food. I already bought my hotel breakfast. I want a good bite.

00:11:14 John Daub: All right, this place I don't know. I have a love-hate feeling with it. Some of you might have gone there, but there's a chain of these places called Steakland. They serve some of the cheapest Kobe beef lunches. I walked into in there once. I remember when I was thinking of doing a Kobe beef episode. And I looked in there and it seemed like it wasn't really the top stuff. So I left without filming in there. And instead I walked into another place. And this is about five years ago when I started introducing myself to some of the Kobe beef restaurants to try to find one to introduce on the Only in Japan main channel.

00:11:56 John Daub: I walked into this shop right here on the corner, the one with the brown bricks. Do you see that in the center? It's now behind a tree. This one was called Moriya. Moriya. They seem to own a street. Let me see here. They seem to own this entire street here. It's called Moriya Street. You see Moriya right there. That's the name of the company. They sell a lot of Kobe beef. And they have, I think, three or four shops on this street. And this is the one that I talked with. I walked into the restaurant and the manager of the restaurant gave me his business card and said to walk 100 meters across the street.

00:12:35 John Daub: So I did that. Up a metal staircase. And knocked on a door on the third floor. And answering the door was the CEO or the brother of the CEO who invited me to go to the ranch to go check out the farms in a city called Yabu City in Hyogo Prefecture. And I never really went. But I did go to Yabu City during my hitchhiking trip two years ago. And I ate Kobe beef or Tajima beef, which could be Kobe beef. This is where they, the Kobe beef, is raised. So that's kind of some inside history of Only in Japan and how I operate. I like to talk to people and find some jobs.

00:13:20 John Daub: We're getting closer and closer to eating some food here. This is Moriya Honten. And they have a piece of Kobe beef on the banner here. And you can see I took a Danish TV show called So F-ing Special. Danish people are very, very out, are very crazy. Wow, they're so loud here. But this restaurant, we actually ate inside there and they got a chance to eat some Kobe beef at this desk, this teppanyaki counter. And they're very happy with it. Moriya seems okay, but I still think that it was kind of not the highest quality of Kobe beef. The best stuff you're going to get out in the countryside in Hyogo by the farms and ranches.

00:14:16 John Daub: And a lot of the ranches that sell the beef will also have restaurants where they sell their own brand of Kobe beef. All right, let's go get some food now. We've been waiting too long. Sushi Zanmai's here. What? It's a Tokyo company. Hey, David Kimura. Thanks for the food. Food, food money. Some ammunition. I'm going to start shooting soon. All right, after hours, you can see these are street cleaners. And they just will go around sweeping the streets. I believe they are. I know that Japan does a really good job of cleaning. The streets and you can see there's no trash around. This is the center of Kobe. The entertainment district. And there's no trash around here at all. Very interesting.

00:15:08 John Daub: All right. Oh, I know where we are now. Okay. This bakery. Oh, this bakery was so good. It's closed now. This is the shame. Are they closed? This bakery is so good. All right, hold on a second. I got it. If they're open, I'm going to get something. They have these. I've eaten here before. It's a scotch egg curry pan. So there's an egg inside. You see that? The curry pan, which is like a curry donut. And then they have a cream pan. Tororon. That looks like a stick with chocolate in it. Chocodome, which is really good. I remember having that last time. And then a beef suji curry. Curry bread, which is just kind of like the beef parts. I think they're closed though. Yeah, they're closed. Darn it. I love this place.

00:16:06 John Daub: All right. I'll be back. See what we can find. If you keep walking down here, you will end up in Motomachi, which is the start of Chinatown area. And again, there's some more Kobe cuisine. All right, let's walk this way. That gyoza back there is looking really good. What are they selling here? Okay, hold on a second. Oh, this is taiyaki. I can't start with taiyaki, can I? All right, I'll start with some taiyaki. This is so... I just want some food now. This is not really Kobe cuisine. We got to start with something, huh? Let's get some taiyaki.

00:17:05 John Daub: Konnichiwa. I'm going to have some potato. Here you go. Here you go. Thank you. Inari-zushi is here. Can I eat this now? Yes, you can eat it right away. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we've got some taiyaki. We got to start with something. You have to start somewhere. You can't just keep walking around aimlessly. I could just jump into this taxi and say, please take me to the nearest food place. Alright, let's try this taiyaki here.

00:18:06 John Daub: Now, taiyaki is one of my favorite foods for street foods because this one is still warm, which is good. It's shaped like a fish, typically. Hey! YouTuber? Yes, I'm a YouTuber. I'm looking for delicious food right now, but where should I go? This is easy to find, you can eat it right away. There aren't many, right? There aren't many. Really? Are they closed already? They're closed. Oh, really? They're closed. Oh, just taiyaki? Yes. Just this? Where are you from? I'm from Kobe. Oh, Kobe. Kumamoto. Kumamoto! Oh, that's really far. It's far. Where are you from? Tokyo. Tokyo? What? Where and where? I'm working today. Nearby. A nationality. Not a nationality. Well, I'm working at a company. Oh. I'll get a prize and go back to Tokyo tomorrow. Good luck. Thank you.

00:19:12 John Daub: Is there really nothing? Nothing. Sorry. It's okay. Thank you. All right. They said there's no real street food around here. It's my job to prove them wrong. They can't be right. All right. Back to the taiyaki. I don't know. When people just talk to you and you hold the camera. Very nice. He's from Kumamoto, that guy. That's really interesting. He's kind of far away. I should have asked why. Probably visiting friends, you would think. But anyways, taiyaki. This is still warm, which is really good. This one has imo or satsuma imo, I believe, which is a sweet potato. I hope it's not mashed potato. That would be pretty nasty.

00:19:51 John Daub: They're usually shaped like a fish and you can find these all over Japan. It's not just here in Kobe. It's so good. It's not custard. It's a sweet potato. If they do it right, there's some springiness. It's crunchy on the outside and there's some springiness to it. So it kind of gives like a mochi-mochi flavor like you're chewing it a little bit. It's the best $2 that you can spend. But you never start with this first. You always end with this or with ramen. Speaking of which, either one or the other. Very nice. It's not polite to talk with your mouth full. It's not polite to walk around and eat. That's something that you should know. When you do get street food, you probably want to go to a corner and eat it.

00:21:02 John Daub: Cool Fire 719 writes in. Well, I'm heading to Kobe tomorrow and looking at a language school. I missed you by one day. You did. I would love to have met you. I'm only going to be here until tomorrow morning and I'm going back to Tokyo. I got way too much to do. I was in Kochi, which is on Shikoku Island for the last four days. I came back. I said hi to Kanae and I left. I left in the morning to come here. It's been absolutely insane. And then from next week, I can kind of relax a little bit. I have to finish up some project. My favorite taiyaki is probably custard. Anko is second, but I do like the potato too. It's just kind of the mood that I'm in. Yeah. The red bean paste. It's an acquired taste.

00:21:48 John Daub: Not a lot of people like it the first time you try it. But I think if you eat it three or four times, there's a subtle sweetness to it. What's not overpowering. You don't need to have everything too sweet. What's behind me. People always telling me that. It's a subtle sweetness and has a really good taste after you've eaten it over and over and over again. I think anko or red bean paste, azuki bean is an acquired taste. I love it. It's got just that kind of a grilled taste to it. Slightly burned just a little bit. They know how to do a good taiyaki here. Highly recommend. I don't see too many other things here.

00:22:40 John Daub: If anything, this video is going to give you a pretty good overview of what to expect if you do come to the Sannomiya area. A lot of people are just going home. And in fact, this place, this taiyaki place looks like it's closing. They're not making anymore. Kind of weak. I'm a little bit surprised that Kobe closes so early. If anything, we still do have a convenience store to jump into. Hey, GamerPurse here. Thanks, man. Here's a ramen shop. I'm a little bit hesitant. I'm a little bit hesitant to go into shops because when I sit down, you got to camp there for at least 10 minutes. But it's an option.

00:23:25 John Daub: Oh, that miso ramen looks really good. There's another one. This is a spicy miso ramen. I love kara miso. Kara miso is my favorite. This is just a normal miso. And yeah, they got like various kinds of ramen. Oh, I love these karaage. This is one of my favorite foods, karaage. These are deep fried chicken pieces. I believe some of the places will marinate them in sake to keep them really tender. There's some gyoza and fried rice. This looks like a chain. That's all right. Maybe it would be bak. There's nobody inside. Look how deserted this is. This is not like if this was Tokyo, it'd be a lot more crowded.

00:24:12 John Daub: Oh, and this is unique. This is a dashi vending machine. They've started to pop up in Tokyo. You see that fish? That's because in this vending machine, they're selling dashi fish soup stock. You don't want to drink this. It's 700 yen, like about $7 for a bottle. And this one's a little bit cheaper. This is ponzu, which is a dipping sauce. You can put it in soup as well. Very nice. I like to see different kinds of vending machines. All right, let's see what else we can find. All right, once again, you're seeing that this Steakland is everywhere.

00:25:12 John Daub: Konnichiwa. Konbanwa. I love these alleys. But there's no food. Everything is kind of like restaurants. Let's see what else we can find here. Wow. Let's take a look at this menu. What do we got here? All right. Whoa, that is cheap. You see that? So you get some food and drink. All you can drink for 1,000 yen. That's like a steal. That's like $12.50 for all you can drink. I think people are putting this place out of business. I don't know if they're going to be around much longer. Unless they're using like beer that's like near expiration that people are selling at a huge discount. Sometimes I guess that happens. But it's still good. But if you have to say it's still good, that doesn't mean it's good. I'm just saying.

00:26:33 John Daub: All right. There's the Steakland. I know if to go in there, you need permission to film. But if you're looking for like a lunch bargain and you just want to try a Kobe beef, this could be a place that you can go. It's everywhere and it's very easy. They have an English menu. And I don't know. I thought that the quality was okay when I looked at the beef. Do you ever come across secret push cart food stalls? Tyler writes in there. Tyler, that's a great question. You know, I have not seen them. I don't want to get the trash in there. I haven't seen them in a while, actually. It was about 10 years ago. I saw them and they were usually pushed by really old guys. Guys in their like 80s that looked like they were maybe even homeless.

00:27:25 John Daub: They looked like they weren't doing too well. But they were still making ramen from these old push carts. This is in Tokyo. And I haven't seen them in the last few years, actually. Maybe it's because of health regulations or what. But I hear you can still find it in Tohoku and Niigata and some places out in the countryside near stations. But it's becoming more and more... Maybe because of a sanitation reason, it's harder to find. Before the Olympics, I think the restrictions on food got a little bit more strict. Someone tried to scare me. You can't scare me. I'm used to it all. A guy tapped me on the shoulder.

00:28:14 John Daub: That's the alley that I saw from the other side. So I can cut across and try to get that gyoza. Let's go a little bit down here. Then we'll cut across to that dodgy looking alley where I know we could get in deep trouble. Here's an interesting izakaya. This one looks like a chain. But they've got a pretty prolific menu. This is sashimi for about $18, $17. It's a pretty good plate of it. What is that? Maguro? Maybe some salmon? Some shrimp? There's ika. Some squid. That's about $6 for that. It looks pretty good. I love these agedashi tofu with ponzu kake. That's a really good salad. That's eggplant with tofu deep fried for about $3.50.

00:29:15 John Daub: That could be mostly vegan. I don't know. It's hard to say. If it has dashi, which is fish soup stock, that's not vegan. A lot of these things that look like it could be vegan. These are mini fish. It's in dashi, which is a fish soup stock. That wouldn't be okay. But for most of us, this works okay. Look at that. Looks good. Here's a nice nabe. Look at that tempura. This is all that. Wow. All that is $8. That's a lot. All right. I just can't go in there. Two hours, $12. All you can drink. That's crazy. It's got to be like nearly expired food. I don't know. I don't know how they stay in business. Volume? But they're not even open now. How do they do it?

00:30:24 John Daub: All right. Let's go back to that alley and cut across. It looks like it's pretty weak right now. All right. Let's go back here and then we'll be okay. Copyright music, copyright music, copyright music, copyright. J-pop, J-pop, J-pop. Okay. We're good. We're good. Can you get a drink? Madison, you read my mind. All right. Let's stop into the 7-Eleven then. We'll get a quick drink. I got to be a little bit more stealth. I heard 7-Eleven is cracking down on photographing. Tyler has decided for us. He said gyoza. So therefore, we shall do gyoza.

00:31:06 John Daub: I'm going to go jump into that 7-Eleven and get a beer before we go to the gyoza place down that alley. Does that sound good with you guys? You know what? I think there's got to be a 7-Eleven on this side, right? There's got to be a convenience store on this side. Thanks, Tyler. All right. Let's just walk through this alley and not get in trouble because Kobe is known for suspicious things and people in a good way because I don't want to get... Oh, there's Kobe beef. See, when they do it in English like this, I'm suspicious of the quality. I don't know why. It just seems touristy. I don't think people come here to eat beef except for maybe Spider-Man.

00:32:00 John Daub: But, Yazawa is... Whoa. That's actually a famous brand of beef. Yazawa is another competitor to Tajima, I believe. 100% Kobe beef, but they don't say the grade, A5 or A4 or A3. That's another thing you have to ask, but Kobe beef is supposed to be all A4 or A5. It's hard to say. There are a lot of guys standing outside the door. I've hosted clubs trying to walk past a little bit faster than normal. You don't want to get in trouble because these guys don't like to be filmed. I don't know why. Why would they not want to be filmed? You know what I mean? All right. Let's go in and get some booze. We'll jump into this FamilyMart then. I'll get a quick beer and we'll do a kanpai.

00:33:14 John Daub: Oh, there's Okinawa. I hear Okinawa music. How cool is that? I love Okinawa. Check it out. It's an Okinawa restaurant and they're playing really good music. It's hard to pass that up. All right. You ready? Let's go in here and get some beer. Yaki... Ah, okay. See the noodles in there? And then the wraps are really expensive. They're like $3.50 for that. Of course the sandwiches are always good too. Look at that. That's a teriyaki chicken and egg. 20 yen off. That's almost, all right, that's a backup plan. I'm going for the gyoza though. Tyler and I, we're going for gyoza. Now would you guys eat this sushi? Salmon. All right, we did it. Boom. All right, we got an Ebisu.

00:36:48 John Daub: All right, let's go back to this gyoza place, see if it's open. I better, my thinking is to go and get the gyoza in case they're closing, and then at least I will have it on hand. Always give 120%. Oh, there it is across the street. Those ladies are awfully nicely dressed. I wonder what for. Oh, geez. All right, they have a mochikaeri. So there's a window in which you can order the gyoza. This looks really good. Oh man, I'm on board with this. And they have different kinds of, what? All right guys, we came to the right place. This is ginger gyoza. This is deep fried chicken. This is just karaage. But this is cheese gyoza. I've never seen this before in my life. Cheese gyoza, what?

00:38:02 John Daub: And then we have your beef gyoza, which is sort of bucking the norm. It's not normal to have, I don't normally see beef with gyoza. Black pork gyoza. And then deep fried chicken wing, which is pretty good. And then there's just the shrimp gyoza. Wow, what do I do? What do I do? All right, step away from the gyoza shop for five seconds so we can think about this for a second. This is an important decision that could change the course of my hunger. The cheese looks good. The problem is I can't eat them all. Come on. Cheese is a new trendy thing. Cheese gyoza. Pork gyoza. No. Ginger gyoza was good. But is it good cheese?

00:39:05 John Daub: Benjamin, that's exactly right. All right. Okay, let's get, so we're gonna get two kinds. All right, all right. And I'll just take it back to the room if I can't eat it. But I'm going all in on this. Tyler gave us an all in. So we're gonna pick two out of the three. We're gonna go for the cheese and one more. There's the normal gyoza. And I think you guys might have seen this before. Right? So maybe we should go for the shrimp gyoza. Let me try the shrimp gyoza. I've seen normal gyoza. Let's try these two. All right, cheese and puri puri ebi gyoza. Puri puri ebi gyoza, and one cheese gyoza. I'll take it home. I'll eat it right away. Yes. Yes. Cheese gyoza. I've never had cheese gyoza before. I'm really interested in this.

00:40:42 John Daub: All right, so it's gonna take about 10 minutes, he said. I don't wanna stand next to that speaker because I know that that's all copyrighted music. So what I'm gonna do is just kind of like hang out here on a corner like these girls. Why are they hanging out here? Why do you think they're just standing there? I don't know. But can't be just to hang out. Are they just hanging out? Do you think there's something up with that? All right. Well, he's making the gyoza. I think he's like hand-making them now. What? Wait a second. He's making them now? That's awesome. Dude, we've seen some hand actions really going on. Look at this. Let's just take a quick look.

00:41:32 John Daub: I put in a gyoza order and he's actually cooking it on this stove-looking thing. Do you see that? This is going to be really good gyoza. This is going to be really, really good. I'm looking forward to this. All right. We do have a beer. We do have a beer. So let's give them some time. We'll come back in a couple of minutes. Okay. Let's do a quick loop around because I don't want to... These people are hanging out like outside there and they're kind of freaking me out. I don't know. Feel like if I'm hanging out in the corner with them and I'm one of them. Am I one of them? I don't want to be one of them. I got to walk somewhere.

00:42:19 John Daub: One of the great things about exploring Japanese cities at night, especially around the stations, is that you come to these really narrow alleys like this where there's just loads and loads of restaurant options. Not a lot of them are in guidebooks. This is probably on the alleys is where you're going to find the best food because the rent is usually a little bit lower. So the prices are going to be lower in the food and it's going to be a little bit creepier. There's two guys talking in an alley. I'm going to get out of here. All right, I'm ready to get out of here. I don't want. I feel like I'm filming two dudes talking about something. All right, just leave them alone.

00:43:33 John Daub: How do I explain holding a gimbal with a camera on it? Oh, I'm not doing any filming. Just, this is a man holding a gimbal with a camera, live, and talking to 775 people. Nobody saw a thing, sir. We're innocent. We didn't do it. We're innocent oh look at this I mean oh this is a ramen place that we thought about going into you see these two guys are just sitting there having a ramen at the counter there it's a really nice vibe I love these open these big windows where you can just see inside or look out into the city it's kind of a cool thing and more and more that the newer restaurants are starting to do that you don't see the older restaurants they usually are just have a have like a curtain in front of it so you typically have a curtain in front of an izakaya so you can't see what's going inside but it's the newer restaurants they're opening up a little bit so you can see what's going on inside a little bit more.

00:44:52 John Daub: I like that it's kind of a more transparent style this one is a newer one it's got the gyoza all right let's get the beer out now I've turned into one of them it's a sign that says no smoking outdoors but everyone's smoking I've been the chosen a smoking should I say something should be one of those people and say something excuse me there's no smoking here I don't excuse me sir are you so are you did you know that there's a law against smoking all right he's making it now all right the front camera can zoom and the camera can't zoom so I'm gonna try to zoom in on the camera and see if it's working or not if I pinch the screen all right everybody otsukaresama kanpai kanpai Dylan you can drink on the street there yeah why not they have beer vending machines all over the place.

00:46:18 John Daub: And the thing with the reason why you can you can drink anywhere is because people practice personal responsibility and usually if people are really drunk there's a friend there to help out and get people onto the train the system for the most part works and getting people home safely and since nobody abuses it we have the right as a community of people in Japan to drink outside now if people started to get in fights and stuff which never really happens in Japan I very rarely will see fights and things like this they will the laws would change but because in general people are very very responsible to an extent with behavior maybe they drink too much but they just get sick and when people in Japan drink too much they go more inward not outward they don't act out and i think in the west maybe people act out and fight not everybody but i think that's one reason why we don't have a um why we have the right to drink out on the street so cheers to that question.

00:47:46 John Daub: I'm waiting for my gyoza for those joining us we ordered two really nice looking gyozas from this shop right here i believe he's got it cooking he told me about 10-15 minutes so that's what we're waiting for i'm gonna go check in on it in about 30 seconds the problem is that they've got copyright music in front of the window i know this uh live stream is gonna get slammed for that that's okay so we're about we're about maybe a couple of minutes left minutes away and i'm one of those people hanging out in the street on the corner i don't think they're waiting for food it smells good oh he's making he's putting the gyoza together purple bandit 79 i know from new york city if you're drinking in the streets in japan you you feel like you're doing something wrong the first year i came here and all the foreigners especially from the united states they they were out in the streets drinking because they could i think they did it because they couldn't do it at home and it was just something unique all right they're now preparing i see them they got it in the box now all right we're almost home.

00:49:12 John Daub: I don't know where to eat it though okay wait a second there's like um we'll find a place to eat it i don't think that's a problem there's always another place the problem is it's just i don't want to hang out here in the street because there's like people hanging out here there's people watching me now actually i don't i don't i'm trying not to feel like i'm in a place where i can't eat it so yes we're just going to go ahead and film them they're looking at me and i guess one guy smiled but it wasn't the kind of smile you say before you whip something out like a like a black jack or something i'm cutting it okay Thank you Do you have tissues with you? Mmmm Just a little I'm sorry Thank you Yes all right this is awesome.

00:50:21 John Daub: All right this is a big step we just got here at the [inaudible]. Now I'm going to get out of this area because they're looking at me. They're looking at me. I shouldn't. All right, we're going to go towards Sannomiya Station now. Purple Bandit, my maturity level just dipped. Welcome to my world. All right. Business dudes always hang out in packs. It's for safety. All right, here's a tobacco vending machine for smokers. If you do come here to smoke, you're in luck. They're right on the street. And the amount of brands that they have, like Che, are pretty bad, hardcore. They're pretty bad. I don't know. But you need a TASPO card. A TASPO card is ID to make sure that you're of age.

00:51:19 John Daub: And they put these in because underage kids are getting them too easily from these. So you can apply at the tobacco kiosks. And it takes about a week or something. I was told. I don't smoke. But if you do want to smoke on the streets, you can get that. If you do want to buy it from the machines, you have to get the special card for it. Oh, that guy's sitting where I wanted to sit. All right, I got to find another place. I do have a tripod. Oh, okay, wait a second. I think I got a place. This is good enough for me. It's not the cleanest place at all. All right, you know what? You work with what you're given. All right, check it out. It's not a really clean place, but everything's in a bag. I figure as long as my lips don't touch it, it's good, right? What are you going to do? I'm not going to walk around town with hot gyoza. That would ruin it.

00:52:21 John Daub: So I'm putting a tripod on right now. They are not following me wrong way. Whenever you're in a live stream, you know who worries me the most? People watching. Whoa, there's a bag. That guy's a badass. At least we can do this to a beat now. Hot gyoza. It's in the bag. It's full of cheese in it. Okay, there goes the song. And so we've got this. Hold on a second. What do we got in here? Okay. Very good. Boom. Street food continued. It took like 40 minutes to get to the second course. Well, this is the third if you count the beer. There's a cheese gyoza, and then there's the shrimp gyoza. And we're going to try both of these and see which one is better. What do you think? Is it going to be the shrimp? Or is it going to be the cheese?

00:53:41 John Daub: All right. Oh. Oh, oh, oh. Before you eat it, you have to put in some tare. So the way you do this when you have to eat it on the street, this is the Kevin Reilly way. Shout out to our friend Kuma's Kitchen, who I won't be able to meet up because he's working these days really hard. All you do is you shotgun it. Just put it in there. Do not try to conserve it. Use it all. Itadakimasu. Let's see what we got here. Let's go for the shrimp. Oh, no, no. I'm going for the cheese. Oh, you better believe it. Cheese is first. It's still hot. Ah, perfect. Oh, my. That doesn't look like cheese. Wait a second. Is this cheese? This looks... I think he gave me the regular gyoza. Oh, man. But I shouldn't complain. Any gyoza is fine. I'm not going to take it back. Maybe this is the shrimp. Let's figure it out, okay?

00:54:49 John Daub: Okay. Gyoza from a really good-looking restaurant. That's not... Cheese or... I think this might be someone else's order. Hold on. Let's see what the other one is. I'm going to describe the taste in a second. I don't think that that was cheese. I'm going to describe the taste in a second. Let me just confirm what this is. Maybe this is the cheese. Okay. I'm not sure. Do you think this is the cheese? This looks like there's a shrimp in there. All right. Ready? That's so good. That's the shrimp. Aragami. Right. Super secret gyoza mystery. Mystery gyoza. That should be the name of this stream. The super secret gyoza mystery. Super mystery. This. All right. This could be cheese, but I think it's cheese mixed in with pork.

00:56:04 John Daub: But there's a crazy amount of pepper in this. Do you see the pepper? I don't know what this is, but it's really, really good. This is not cheese, though. But that pepper just gives it... I think there's cheese mixed in with the meat. It's got to be. Sheila's writing in gross. I get that. I know where you're coming from. But it's good to me. It's good to me at midnight. It depends what time it is. That's really good. I think it's the pepper. It's a little bit too much. Any food critic would be going, how dare you use that much pepper? And then there's people at midnight that just... They take the pepper shaker and just dump it in their mouth. I love pepper. Black pepper. All right. Here's the shrimp.

00:57:05 John Daub: I've seen competitive eaters. They can get rid of this in like five seconds. I want to see Randy Santel. Come in here and eat that hundred gyoza. Forget the big one. The big one gyoza. Eat the hundred gyoza platter. Oh, man. All right. William writes in, take both at once to the mouth. Should taste better. This is interesting. William, you might have struck an idea here. The internet loves William now. Can we get a thumbs up for William and his double gyoza challenge? I don't know if I can get both of them on. Oh, I did. William. This one. To William and Tyler. It's a two for one-er. Don't try this at home. Well, you know what? No, try this at home. It looks really good.

00:58:37 John Daub: I had to mix it around in my mouth. The flavors were touching on too many different areas in the tongue. Gives me a little bit of confused. It was a little bit confusing, but the pepper and the shrimp kind of fought each other. It wasn't bad, but the black pepper and the shrimp was kind of fighting each other. Yeah. I'm going to have to say that the shrimp wins, but I don't think that that restaurant makes anything bad. I don't think they do. The shrimp. The other one was good, but maybe because I don't know what it is. It wasn't. Maybe it's cheese. I don't know. Or is this the cheese on top that's burned? I wanted full cheese, like 100% cheese. I don't know. It was all really good. No complaints. None.

01:00:10 John Daub: The restaurant. The lineup. I can't complain. It was good. It wasn't shark. It was not shark gyoza, was it? Was it? I don't think so. Shark in Japanese is same. It was not shark. But the pepper masks whatever the heck that meat was. But it was good. Again, midnight snack. Anything after a certain time is really good. We're going to walk around a little bit more until I get in trouble. Because the longer I stay out here, the more suspicious characters. And I'm probably the most suspicious of them all. If you like these midnight snack runs. Wow, the pepper is still there. Click the thumbs up. Give me a like. That's how I know you guys like it.

01:01:32 John Daub: If we get over a thousand likes by even after the stream, I will do another one sometime next week. Because the weather is warmer, it's easier to go out and do a midnight snack run. I'll be back in Tokyo tomorrow. Done. I guess tomorrow is trash day. We can just leave it outside. Does that work? I think so. That was really good. I'm going to go. Alright. So let's walk back towards the station and if we do find something else. Okay, that's tsukemen. Right here. I can show you the menu. Nobody's inside right now. I'm tempted to go in there, but I'm completely full from the gyoza.

01:02:42 John Daub: They're also selling gyoza. But they also have the toppings for the tsukemen. Including... Oh, no, that's otsumami. Otsumami is just like finger food. Just like hors d'oeuvres or snacks. Otsumami set has hanjuku tamago, it has menma, which are like bamboo shoots, and has chashu steak. Like, look at those pork cutlets. Whoa. And then they have these aburi, like oily, oily steaks. Oh, man. Just to pick at. This is, this isn't even including the, um, the tsukemen. And tsukemen is served separately. It's noodles on one side and soup on the other. And you take the noodles and you dip it in the soup. The noodles are typically cold and the soup is hot.

01:03:29 John Daub: And the mixing of the noodles into the hot soup brings out the flavor of the noodles. And, uh, the noodles will eventually start to get, sorry, the soup broth will get a little bit cooler. And you can usually, um, warm it up. They'll have something called a yaki-ishi or a grilled stone that you can throw in there. And that starts to heat up the broth again. Because naturally the noodles being colder will cool down the broth and then that ruins the flavor a little bit. But usually tsukemen... You can get an amazing amount of noodles for the same price. This one you can get up to almost a kilogram of noodles. 750 grams for the same price for free. It's all the same price. If you go to 900 grams, you have to pay an extra 100 yen. That's a kilogram of food for like $9. That's insane. It's a really good, really good price.

01:04:23 John Daub: Tsukemen is one of my favorite foods. Maybe a little bit more than ramen. I don't know. It's a tough one. They have gachapon outside. Wow. Those are good. Torikizoku. It's considered, according to everyone's friend, Simon Martino, it's one of the cheapest places to eat. I like how Coco Ichibanya is the curry house. And they're really, really, really promoting to Westerners a taste of Japan, Coco Ichi. I like that. And it's in Korean on the bottom. They're really doing a good job of helping. They know that a lot of the restaurants are kind of intimidating for first-time visitors to Japan. The menus are in Japanese, so people don't know what to order. That kind of frightens people because you don't know what you're ordering. You don't know what the ingredients are.

01:05:31 John Daub: So people don't typically go there. But for curry, they have menus in English. And it's so easy to get. You don't have to know what's inside because you can see the ingredients in the curry. It's kind of a safe haven. And if you want some good Japanese food, curry places are... It's better than going there. All right? If you come to Japan and you stop in at McDonald's more than once, dude, no. Stay away. The burgers might be, you know, neat to try once. No, don't do it. Stay away. These are... We call these people koji samurai. Koji means construction samurai because they got their swords. Koji samurai. And they have the vests. Green light, green light.

01:06:41 John Daub: I always wanted to get one of those light sticks. Like 20 years ago, they've had those light sticks. And we didn't have like light sabers now. I guess you can get what looks like Star Wars light sabers more realistic. But back then, that's all we had. So maybe parents were given them. Their kids. Like construction light sticks. I don't know. But they're pretty cool. They cost about $20 at shops with working supplies. All right. So here you go. This is the end of the line. This is Sannomiya's central gate. This is where at the end of a night, office workers will wish their coworkers goodnight. And they'll say, otsukaresamadeshita. And thank them.

01:07:36 John Daub: That's Kobe at night. It's a pretty chill place. It's not Tokyo. It's Kobe. It's not the realm of that. If you got a chance to take a look at some of the restaurants that are serving Kobe beef, some of the restaurants that you'll see if you yourself come to Kobe, you'll have a better idea of what's going on. And you can decide whether or not you think the nightlife is worth it. You can jump into a ramen place. There's not too many options. But if you're hungry at midnight, you venture outside your hotel, you'll be able to find a place to eat. And I think you'll be pretty happy with the choices. They're just not street food. But I'll be back. I like Kobe. Kobe's a nice place to visit. I'll be back. Thanks for watching, everybody. Have a good night. Leave a comment below if you have any suggestions for episodes to do in the future. I might do another livestream from the Kobe-Osaka-Kyoto area before I go back to Tokyo tomorrow to get back to work. We have a lot of stuff brewing for the main channel. See you. Good night, everybody. Good night. Good night.