00:00:00 John Daub: Hello everybody! Welcome to Tokyo and in this episode we're going to be talking about this! This is the Mister Donut very special limited edition ice cream bar with the old-fashioned, and Morinaga has teamed up with them to bring this to you. They did this once before a couple of years ago I think. Ice milk it says right there. Whoa! And we're gonna try this and I just happened to stop at Mister Donut and pick up an old-fashioned so I could compare it to the ice cream bar. How fun is this? So let's try this today and yeah, welcome to Tokyo on a nice beautiful afternoon.

00:00:48 John Daub: Right here. Alright, I found this box here that allows me to allow you to look down on me which is great because then you can actually see more. Here we go. This is not the first time that Mister Donut has done something like this. They have in the past made an ice cream bar. Here it is for historical reference right here. This is pretty incredible. This was the Angel Cream. I don't know if you guys ever had this. It's basically just whipped cream inside of a sugar donut and it's so delicious and this was very popular. I can't remember when this was. I think it was like two years ago or something and they've done something again.

00:01:33 John Daub: I'm gonna try this with this. Yeah, so I went into Mister Donut and I got that donut but first let's try this because it is melting really fast. I thought it was gonna be a colder day. It's not. The sun is making it nice and warm here. Let's open this up. Oh. It's too toned. So we've got here an ice cream with half chocolate, half vanilla and this makes sense because if you look at the package, the old-fashioned that they have in Mister Donut, the chocolate is only on half of it. Here's to Mister Donut. There she is in all her glory. Oh, and I see it now. There's chunks of ice cream on there. Do you see that? Oh, this is gonna be fantastic.

00:02:30 John Daub: All right, is it? Oh, by the way, I did get a coffee. So thank you everybody for that. Itadakimasu (I humbly receive). Very interesting. I think there's pieces of donut in it. Yeah. The only way to really test it now is to get out an old-fashioned here. Now, I'm gonna try the chocolate old-fashioned. Michael Sassano, thank you for making this episode possible. I've got an old-fashioned donut. This is a honey-glazed old-fashioned because they're my favorites. I figured what's the difference? It's a little bit of chocolate. So we're gonna compare the two here. This is what we do.

00:04:03 John Daub: You know, I don't know if it's the same. I just know that they're both good. There's elements to this of an old-fashioned which is like a donut cake. I guess this is how they made donuts back in the olden days. But wow. Anytime you eat an ice cream, you're just so happy, right? You're just so happy. So right now I'm in Monzen-Nakacho which is where I usually come because that's where the Mister Donut near me is located. Just down the street about 500 meters.

00:04:40 John Daub: Where are these Mister Donut donut ice cream bars located? Alright. So I found them at some 7-Elevens. But then the two 7-Elevens around here that I checked, there's one right there, they didn't have it. So I was struggling. I said I was panicking for a while. I said wait I can't find it anywhere because I saw it only at 7-Eleven. And lo and behold, I found it at this FamilyMart right here. What? It's very odd. Ayos Naman Triathlon. Thank you. I hope to bump into you next week running the Tokyo Marathon. Hey! I can't believe that's coming up so fast. And see you soon. Thank you for the super sticker. I think I saw Brandania here as well.

00:05:27 John Daub: Now this is an old fashioned, okay? This is what it looks like at Mister Donut right now. They're going for 162 yen. With the chocolate on there. They have there, see on the right side? You see on the right side? That is a sakura cherry blossom flavored. I believe. Or is that strawberry? So I'm thinking about doing a cherry blossom episode for donuts on Friday maybe. Or probably not. Peter's coming tomorrow so I might do it then. Yeah. Well they also have other donuts here. Hold on. It's hard to delete this. Let's see, here's the other ones here. This is the other side of the aisle. This is the honey glaze. The old fashioned honey glaze. The old fashioned with cinnamon they have there. And then yeah, you were right, it was strawberry.

00:06:33 John Daub: You know, the more I chow down on this, and you have to eat it all because it's going to melt. I really can taste the donuts. It tastes more like dipping the donut in like cream. Right? I think if you were to dip the donut in the cream you would get this. It's very pleasant. This is not brought to you by Mister Donut. I can prove it. Don't go to Mister Donut. Go to Krispy Kreme. How about that? I think Mister Donut is a pretty unique experience. I like it when all the shops around here, and this is something I've been talking about, and experiences through Only in Japan Go. This is a live stream. This is why I kind of do this. So that you can experience what it's like too. Because these things happen all the time. And they come and then they're gone. So this ice cream bar is going to be here and then it's going to be gone. And then for history, they're going to be talking about it like the last Angel Cream ice cream bar. It's a thing.

00:07:46 John Daub: I got to eat ice cream. What's so bad about that? Ha! What is this one? Tamima Coffee. Looks like a manga series. Oh! This has also been on some Calbee potato chips recently too. So the products, when I guess movies and new manga and anime come out, they really do collaborate with everyday products to bring out more interest in it. Kamen Rider. Alright, itadakimasu with the coffee here.

00:08:25 John Daub: D-Mu, not a thing to you. Not a thing to you. You can watch or not watch if you don't want to. Should do occasional donut eating live streams. I absolutely believe so. Japan does, and I don't just focus on Mister Donut, but they are the biggest chain here in Japan. They do have seasonal donuts because they have to be competitive as well. And it isn't just competing against other donut companies, it's competing against yourself for the consumer. I think it's such a great thing. You see, if a company fails to innovate, that company will be seen as being old in Japan. Thus, you see in vending machines, beverages coming out that are just wacky. They don't do it just to try to sell, well they do it to sell more, but they do it also because they don't want their company to seem old and they always need to be innovating. And donuts, how do you reinvent the donut? I guess you come up with new flavors, new tastes, but Mister Donut takes it a step further. This is why I really respect them. They'll make this. They'll go the distance, you know. They make different products like this. For me, this is part of everyday life of living in Japan. You go to the convenience store, you go to the donut shop, there's one in every corner.

00:10:10 John Daub: For historical references, now you can see in here, let me get in the sun. Let me see if you can see those bits of donut. You see that? Yeah, right there in the center. Alright, I'm gonna zoom in even more. See the iPhone has not been particularly good with the cameras here. It's hard to focus for some reason. You see that right in the center? That's donut. They gotta do more collaborations like this with everyday food. It is chilly in Japan. It's strangely warm. It feels like spring. But the wind is out. The wind is blowing so it feels like 45 or 50. I think it's like 50 in the sun. Japan's not always like this. But you know, Japan is a very long country. It's not like when you're trying to plan your clothing for visiting Japan, you have to keep in mind where exactly you're going. If you're going up north in the winter, it's gonna be cold. But if you're going down to like Hiroshima, Kagoshima for example, down in Kyushu or something, it's kinda warm. It gets, it can get to freezing. But more often than not, it's like 55 or 60. You know, Canadians could get away with wearing shorts. So could the Finns and the Norwegians and the Scottish friends there.

00:12:01 John Daub: So, before I came to Japan, when I first came to Japan, you couldn't find coffee anywhere except for the vending machines. Or coffee shops, of course. But it was hard to find, you couldn't get a coffee at a convenience store so easily. Now, everywhere you go, they've got beans that they grind and filter it into the vending machine, into the coffee machines in every convenience store. If a convenience store doesn't have it, then they're not gonna do a lot of business, because the coffee gets people to come in now. When I came to Japan, the only way to get coffee was from a vending machine. A McDonald's had coffee. It wasn't very good back then. And if you went to the convenience stores, you couldn't get the coffee like this. You had to get canned coffee. That was it. Canned coffee has a long history, and we're gonna see that come full circle. In the 2025 Osaka Expo, they're going to be doing um, that, it was in 1970 at the World Expo in 1970 that canned coffee came about. And now, with the 2025 World Expo in Osaka again, canned coffee will have its celebration. 55 years. It's gonna be pretty cool. UCC, I believe, was the canned coffee.

00:13:36 John Daub: So, there's a lot of donut in this. I wonder, like, is it half a donut? They should write that on the package. Is it a quarter donut? Half a donut? A full donut that's been crushed up into this? I wanna know. Right? I wanna know. I was gonna do the livestream over at the intersection. I usually do. You get a lot of exhaust, you know, fumes standing on that corner. This is a little bit better. But, honestly, this is so nice.

00:14:24 John Daub: Oh, see a sun. It says here, it turns red, your sticker. It says $1.49, but that sticker thinks it's a $100 super chat. How cool is that? It's a horror, horror show going on up here. So this is what it looks like coming here. So I got this, uh, this was at the, at 7-Eleven. You know, these ice cream bars are a big deal. Everybody loves them here. Usually in the summer. But, another reason they probably did this now was because, I mean, nobody eats these ice cream bars that much in the winter, so this makes you go and do it. And that's kind of good too, because we wanna make sure that Morinaga does well, cause they make good ice cream. Any excuse to eat ice cream is a good excuse.

00:15:33 John Daub: Alright, any questions on this? This isn't gonna be a particularly long one. I'm here for you. If you are a member of the YouTube, uh, well, while I'm waiting for some questions here, if you're a member of, uh, the Only in Japan, uh, memberships on YouTube, I'm gonna be doing a, um, Q&A for travel advice. I'm gonna restart that again, uh, this month. So every Monday, I'm gonna be doing, uh, YouTube, um, Q&As with the members. All you gotta do is pay a dollar and you can join us. You get an emoji for the chat, and I really appreciate it. It helps to, uh, get me around town a little bit.

00:16:12 John Daub: You have to talk about it. And, uh, right now, today, anybody who joins the postcard club, this image was taken by my friend Joe Hatab, I believe with my drone. He was piloting it. This is in Fujiyoshida. It's a beautiful shot. Um, I love this shot because you can see the retro town in old Japanese city, Fujiyoshida, uh, right on the base of Mt. Fuji. In fact, if you went straight on this road, it takes you straight to Mt. Fuji, or so it seems. So, I mean, it does. You can go straight. I will send this to you if you join the postcard club. Um, and there's a another photo on the back. And, at every new sign up, I will send you a second postcard to say thank you. This one is from last month. This is the torii gate of Miyajima. On the back, there's a message, uh, from our family, or from me, and some history. And, uh, every month, yeah, the collection grows. So, thank you to everybody who's been in the postcard club for a very long time. I've been doing it now for six years. So, there's like we're getting up to a hundred postcards. Which is cool. And there's, some people have some amazing collections out there. So, I'm thinking of making it an only in Japan uh, um, postcard book. Where people can put, store them up there. It's just something I love to do. I love the old mail. And Japan has amazing stamps. And, uh, I try to find the most unique stamps. We've had one-yen stamps. We had Snoopy stamps last month. With Japanese, sort of Japanese themes. Um, we had, uh, all sorts of manga and anime stamps. We had Pokemon stamps a couple of times. The Tokyo Olympic stamps. Commemorative stamps for a hundred and fifty years of trains in Japan stamps.

00:18:12 John Daub: Just as, you know, we, I really think the post office should be supported and, and as we get digital, we're still gonna need those, uh, things. So, Gary Johnson is here. Thank you, Gary. It's nice to see you here. Where do you find Saka bars? What do you mean? Demon Slayer stamps? Yes, I still got a bunch of those. And if you, if you ask me, nicely, if you're new sign up, you ask me nicely, maybe I'll put one on. However, uh, Danny told me in Canada Post stole, he got his postcard without the stamp, the Demon Slayer stamp. So I re-sent it to him and I think they did it again. And then he said, just forget about it. I said, how could I, I can't believe Canada Post snatched your Demon Slayer stamp. What? If you, if you signed up and you asked me, I can put on a Demon Slayer stamp. I still got a bunch of them left.

00:18:59 John Daub: I can't believe it. Um, thanks everybody for signing up to that. I'm looking back here for some of the questions. How many inches uh, 160 centimeters for luggage? I think somebody just answered that. Um, that's a one and, one and a half meters. So it's like here. Actually, that's, that's quite a lot. But is it dimension wise? Yeah, something you have to think about when you ride the Shinkansen. The oversized luggage requires a reservation now. Um, tourists. They bring these massive bags. It's crazy. On the Shinkansen. It was never made. It was never meant for that. Did bags get bigger over the last 10 years? Or do people just need more stuff? Cause I don't remember people traveling with bags that big. Usually we, you just have one suitcase, right? I mean, you could buy everything in Uniqlo or if you need something, you could buy it in Japan. Shoes, socks, and uh, maybe t-shirts. That's about it. You can buy everything else. Or do the laundry. Which I recommend. Not a place that's there's laundromats everywhere. People just bring in more stuff that they don't need.

00:20:10 John Daub: It'd be fun to see some of the old postcards from the last six years. Maybe I'll do an episode like that. Um, the anniversary for the Postcard Club is in, uh, summer. So perhaps I'll do an anniversary and I'll show all six years of the postcards. There's some pretty cool ones and I gotta, I'm thinking of putting together a collection of them and just anybody who wants to support the channel can buy them all in one clump. A block. Because I can't store them in my office anymore because six years of postcards is getting quite a lot. Some months I don't have many because I didn't order more than I needed to. The first couple of years there's not as many left.

00:20:50 John Daub: Do you know any good bars? Um, actually Monzen-Nakacho would be a pretty cool place to go drink. The street. Look at that dog. He's going into a taxi. There's a street in Monzen-Nakacho, not too far away from here, that is an amazing 1960s drink street. If you just Google search Monzen-Nakacho only in Japan you'll find it. The video I did there takes you through there. That's kind of neat at night. But of course you got Golden Gai in Shinjuku is the go-to for a lot of visitors into Tokyo.

00:21:25 John Daub: Let's walk, John. My bicycle's right here. Should I say let's ride? Aiken's got this special holder that I can use. Okay, let's walk for a couple hundred meters this way. Aiken's got this really cool gimbal holder for the bicycle. He's gonna bring to Japan with him. So I'm looking forward to that. You're welcome. See ya. Taco Bell Jacob writes in here, is Taco Bell a thing? Not really. It sort of was. I went to the test store for Taco Bell in 1998. When I first got here I lived in Aichi Prefecture. They had a test store in Fuji-Gaoka. There you go. It was weird because Japanese didn't go to Taco Bell because they thought that it was a takoyaki (octopus ball) stand. Taco is octopus in Japanese. So... That really confused people and Taco Bell didn't come back until like 2007? Before the financial crisis I think it was? Or maybe a little bit after that they opened up a shop on Dogenzaka in Shibuya and it was crowded. There were lots of people at that launch day. I remember.

00:23:00 John Daub: That was the same time a lot of chains were coming into Japan. Krispy Kreme came in around 2000 and yeah, 2007 or 8. They had a shop in Shinjuku. There's a Starbucks there in front of the Times Square. Mitsukoshi Times Square which is Tokyo Hands now there right near the Oman they call it. The entrance there. The line was 3 hours long and they get Krispy Kreme donuts. I'm not joking. It was a massive store. That building still exists but the Krispy Kreme, they couldn't afford the rent I think and eventually that 3 hour line became 1 hour and then 10 minutes and there's nobody there. And so now they opened up shops all over the country and you can find them in supermarkets now. Part of their plan. Very smart company. Healthy company I'm not sure of it. But a very smart company. You gotta respect that.

00:24:00 John Daub: I love this town. Monzen-Nakacho. I'm just kinda walking around. I'm gonna go home. So I got a new episode on the main channel coming tonight. I can tell you what the theme is. So I went to Niigata Prefecture. Alright. It's a snow country and I was very interested in something I saw in the news. Of course you all know that I'm a big fan of the food that we eat and the background behind it. In particular with the beef in Japan because it is so different than in the United States. Japanese Wagyu beef. I don't eat a lot of it unless I'm filming about it. But I'm fascinated with the regionality and the stories behind it. Niigata doesn't only have 5 Wagyu beef brands. It's one of the prefectures in Japan with the least amount. Next door is Yonezawa in Yamagata Prefecture. What Niigata does have is a very unique way to age the beef. They do something called snow aging Wagyu.

00:25:16 John Daub: I don't know if it's just some sort of fad or a trend or if it's just some sort of gimmick. But the only way journalistically is to go there and to find out. But what I learned was that they snow age this in yukimuro (snow chambers), which is a traditional way that Japanese used to refrigerate things a hundred years ago. They would get all the snow in March because there's a lot of snow in that area and they would just make mounds of it. Pack it down with rice husks and then put more snow on top of that and keep doing that to insulate it. And even in the height of summer in July there's still snow and the temperature inside the yukimuro is a constant 1 to 2 degrees Celsius which is freezing. Just a little bit of a freezing which is great because it doesn't require any energy from electricity. The temperature inside doesn't fluctuate so the food tastes better. Like a refrigerator will get warm and then cool down again and then get warm and cool down again and the vibrations do have an impact on the food. But in a yukimuro there's no vibrations and the temperature stays a consistent temperature throughout the entire year. So you can do snow aging in July because it is still 1 to 2 degrees Celsius. I went to the yukimuro at the end of the cycle and there was of course snow that had fallen throughout the year. But I went inside the yukimuro and I saw them aging the beef. Then there's a restaurant here in Tokyo that I went to eat at called Tsubame Sanjo Beef and I interviewed the owner and he cooked me up a snow aged Wagyu beef from Niigata and I had some words to say about it. Which is going to be in the episode that is tonight.

00:27:11 John Daub: When are you meeting up with Peter again? Tomorrow. I'll probably do a live stream as well. We're doing for the Kickstarter of the documentary is out. All the things have been delivered. There's some people that just received their packages yesterday, which is crazy. So the Cmail does take some time. But some people got their shout outs a little bit late. So we're just doing, Peter's coming to do a couple of the last shout outs for people who sent that in too late. And if you haven't told us what your shout out is, we can't do shout out unless you tell us what we should shout out. So you have to send that to us and we'll do that tomorrow. But I think there were only 6 people who hadn't done that yet. There's still about 6 people who didn't send in a survey yet either. So it's really hard to get it. Hey Jennifer, long time no see. Wow. I live in Tasmania. I'm really glad you enjoyed the documentary. It's over an hour and a half. I think it's just an hour and a half. Yeah, we put a lot of work into it. When you do that and you want it to be perfect, it takes a little bit of time. But it's fun.

00:28:15 John Daub: So, main channel episode coming tonight. If you're on the Discord server, if you're a Samurai Patreon supporter, you already saw the thumbnail. You already kind of know that it was coming. But I might go back to this restaurant and then order another steak and then do a live stream there because it's really special. I wagyu steak once a month I might eat it and it's just a special experience and I never get a big size. You don't need to eat a lot of it because there's salad, there's different things that you eat around it. And then you can have like 100 gram steak and that's not a lot. That's enough for wagyu. It's so good. It's so tender. It's different. They should make a wagyu ice cream. I would try it. I might not enjoy it. I might try it.

00:29:07 John Daub: Kelvin writes in here, I'm more interested in the cheese. Speaking of which, Kelvin, I released yesterday a Japanese cheese video on this channel. Or was it two days ago? Yeah, a lot of people hadn't seen it yet. So if you're interested in small craftsmen, Japanese cheese craftsmen who travel the world, he gave us a sampling of all the cheeses that he makes from his cows in Japan. It's crazy. So check that out on this channel here. It's an edited video. You're going to enjoy it. It's like 8 minutes long. We went to go see the cows that he milks to make that cheese. I love the fact that everything is so self-sustained right in that area. It was a good episode.

00:29:54 John Daub: And I love that the doggy is overrated. Too much fat. Kaiser, I don't think you're really eating it right then. It's a different kind of fat. Actually, you know what? I take that back. Kaiser is not wrong. I think there's a steak for everybody. Everybody has different likes and dislikes. There's no right way to eat it, Kaiser's. So if you like a meatier steak, you can have it. But here's where you're wrong, Kaiser. When you think of the too much fatty steaks, you're thinking of an A4, an A5 ranked, a BMS marbling of 10 and above. Or maybe like 7 and above. If you eat a BMS marbling of 4 or an A2 or A3 ranked Wagyu steak, it might be perfect. So don't say that Wagyu is too fatty. That's not true. You're just picking fatty Wagyu to eat. So don't say that Wagyu is too fatty. Not all Wagyu has incredible marbling. There's Wagyu that has very balanced marbling that's more akami (red meat) or the red meat. So I want you to keep that in mind, Kaiser, when you talk about Wagyu beef. There's something for everybody, but what people want the most is that marbling. And that oil in Wagyu beef doesn't taste like normal fat. It tastes more like it has the consistency of olive oil. It's a totally different taste than other beef and it's more fat, basically based on diet and the breed of the cow and through the happiness of it. There's a whole psychological science behind it, if that's even a thing. They do an amazing job of making it better. Better treatment of the cattle creates better beef. It's an amazing thing that they're doing here.

00:31:39 John Daub: I do know my beef. I was in the processing plant when they're looking with the flashlights in there to check out the marbling. Not everybody wants A5 fatty marbled beef. Again, it's not the same kind of fat. It just makes it juicier. The best meat is when the fat is marbled throughout the red meat. This is a fact. But not every day and not every cut of meat needs to be like that. In fact, American beef can be extremely good. In fact, aged beef is probably better with American beef than aged beef. I don't think aged beef needs to be dry-aged. You don't need to dry-age wagyu beef. It's already tender. Dry-aging breaks down. It's just a waste. You have to cut off maybe 30% of the meat if you dry-age it. Wagyu is already super tender. Especially in the upper tiers of it. Dry-aged wagyu beef to pay extra for that is a waste. You're getting totally ripped off. That's just my opinion. You don't need to dry-age wagyu beef. It's just a way to get you to pay more money.

00:33:01 John Daub: First of all, your brick wall. That's a tabihodai (all-you-can-eat) with various cuts. It's a good start to try wagyu. Try a kamami if one doesn't like the fatty. Exactly. There's wagyu beef that is less fatty. In fact, if the cattle has given birth and is a mother, they do eat that. A little bit past 32 months, they have less fat in that meat. It makes a good steak. When you think about it like that, you'd say, wow, really. I think it's important for us all to know where our food comes from. I'm not a vegetarian, but I think if everybody respected their food, they probably would eat less meat or have more respect for it. It doesn't come from the supermarket. That's my point. I could talk about meat forever, but this is an ice cream episode.

00:33:53 John Daub: Beef bacon, enjoy the fat proper. That's another way to go. Again, you need animal... I mean, you kind of need a little bit of animal fat in your diet. I think maybe we eat too much of it, perhaps. If that's possible. We have to stay healthy. We need a little bit of it. You can get that in other sources, too. Like nuts and stuff. I'm trying to eat healthier, too. I'm eating way more vegetables than I am meat. I like meat. I enjoy it. For Japanese cuisine, it's become quite a part of it. Just like the ice cream. The way they can take donuts and put that into ice cream and make it gourmet. For $1.65.

00:34:39 John Daub: Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you tomorrow. I've got to get back to some final editing on that video, but it's going to be coming tonight on the main channel from Niigata. Snow-aged Wagyu beef, baby. It's going to be an episode about 10 minutes long. Can't wait to release it and hear your feedback on it. Bye, everybody.