00:01 John Daub: Greetings and welcome to Senkyaku Banrai here in Toyosu. This is one of the newest tourist attractions in Tokyo and it's quite an interesting one. It's becoming famous because of its really expensive prices. But I came here because I wanted to give it a chance. We're going to walk through here in this experience. I think that you're also going to decide whether or not this is for you. There's a lot of restaurants here so most likely if you're coming here it's because you're hungry and you want to eat.

00:31 John Daub: It's really convenient. It's on the Yurikamome line, the monorail that's self-driving from Toyosu or Shimbashi—you can get here. You're basically just walking above ground. You never even have to go on the street level. This whole village is shaped or made to look like the Edo period, which is in itself kind of a cool concept. We're talking about before 1868 when the Meiji Restoration started. Everything was made of wood back then. You had these shops and stands, street food stalls. It's just a different way of life that wasn't influenced by anything in the West basically. And that's what you get when you walk through here.

01:16 John Daub: Now ask the PR people. In this window here you can get information, maps and what not. In the back here there's a PR division—ask them what does Senkyaku Banrai mean. I guess the best way to explain it is it just means a lot of customers.

01:34 John Daub: And it's here in Toyosu, not far from the Toyosu market. Let me give you just a quick overview with the map here. We're exactly in Tokyo, are we right now? We're on a man-made island. This is Toyosu, that's the La Vista Hotel, which is actually really nice. It has the number one breakfast in Japan, the Hakodate one. It's funny to see it right across the street. But this construction zone is now the Senkyaku Banrai, that bridge leading from Ginza all the way to Toyosu, the fish market. There's a nice sunny day like today—it's kind of nice to walk around the area. You see over there, that's LaLaport where the KidZania is. There's a mega Uniqlo in there as well. It's about a 15-minute walk along the waterway there, which is really pretty. A section of Tokyo, not one that a lot of tourists go to. Many people are more in the center in Shibuya and this is where we are right now in the city. And by the way, just to point it out, there is a Lawson's here so you don't have to spend a lot of money on food if you don't want to. You just go to the convenience store.

02:48 John Daub: Alright, let's go check it out here. It's going to be interesting for me as well because I have not been here. Alright, there's a sushi shop and you can see the chefs there cooking. So it's basically a place, everyone here is doing social media as well. I'd say most of the people here are foreign tourists or visiting from other parts of Japan. And perhaps Fukagawa. This is an area near Monzen-Nakacho. They've got a lot of famous foods in this area. And you can see they've got a line up of people. I love the way the insides look like food stands from the past. And here is a knife store. So they're selling knives. Famous shop called Kiwami, I suppose. Probably not the place where I would buy my knife. They have Kappabashi near Asakusa. It's probably going to get some better deals due to the competition. But you never know.

03:55 John Daub: They're making unagi here. I like the fact that you can actually just look in the window and see them cooking the food. And the smell is wafting out the window that's open right now, out into the streets. Ah, is that okay? Excuse me. It's unagi, right? Ah! The prices? I was a little surprised. Okay, they're a little on the high end, but it's not too bad. That's about $40 for that. And that's actually really good for domestic unagi, which is freshwater eel, which is so good. It comes with soup and a set. And look, they probably get the unagi from the market as well. You can get just the bento here for takeout. And the price? What? That's a lot of unagi. That's the same price, about $40 for that bento. Wow! And you can go and eat that on the river. I don't know if it's something that I would do because I live not too... just down the street. But it sure smells good, and you know it's going to be pretty good. There's a short line in there to eat. There's a gindako, which is takoyaki. There's a tamagoyaki, which is a grilled egg from a famous shop that's in Tsukiji. They also have a shop here at this market.

05:23 John Daub: This is fascinating. I like this little walk bridge. Walk... what is this? It's like a covered bridge. Oh, you're getting here! That's that famous... what do you call it? Mont Blanc or... I forget. It's basically kuri or chestnut. And you see everybody is doing something like this for social media as well. Here he is. He's cranking it up for another go. They put the frosting in there, the chestnut, and make on top of... what is it, like a pudding or an ice cream? This is fascinating. What should I name it? Is he putting like a matcha powder? I'm not even quite sure. I've actually had this in Shizuoka, where they make the green tea. So everybody who orders it gets it... wants to film it so they can put on social media. This is kind of cool. He's like cranking here. Alright, check this out. Release. The matcha-flavored chestnut. Oh, that's so pleasing to look at. Aloha Michael Sassano. Look at that. Alright, it makes me want to grab it as well. That's not bad. How much is that? Hold on a second. So there are the prices. I'm guessing it's like a thousand yen. That's not too bad. Oh, there it is down there. The smells! Oh my gosh! Thank you. There's such a mix of smells going on here.

07:45 John Daub: It's really easy to criticize places until you come here and then you start to think, you know what, this is kind of fun. This is taiyaki. You can probably get that... this is the big test here. How much is it? Alright, an butter taiyaki, 400 yen. That's definitely on the higher end. But, yeah, what is that? For foreign tourists, it's like $2.80 or something at the exchange rate. That's not too bad. Yakiniku restaurant. This reminds me of Kawagoe a little bit in Saitama. That's more of an authentic experience because it's a real Edo town. Yay! Senkyaku Banrai. Quite a vibe here. Kind of a little plaza. You can see the buildings, more of a facade. And the fish market, you see the metal above there, that's the fish market, which you can't really go inside. Quite a windy day today. But I like these picnic tables so you can get something from Lawson's for 100 yen and some taiyaki and just eat it here. So yeah, the food is a little pricey, but it doesn't mean that you have to buy the pricey stuff. You can get pretty much... oh, look at that. Feels very much like a festival here in Tokyo. So that's a yakitori going on there as well. That's an ayu, which is a sweet fish. I can get a better view in here. Wow. You can have that sweet shoyu sauce kind of wafting over in this direction. The ayu fish, usually it's a sign of something that you find in the countryside. But you got that right here. It's so good. Usually it's kind of put in some salt. And yeah, you can eat the fish and the head and the tail. It's kind of like the taste of the countryside to me.

10:17 John Daub: There's some restaurants on the ground floor if you walk over. So this is maguro here. This shop is selling grilled maguro as well. Oh, tataki. Oh. Do you want to grill it right away? Yes, I'll grill it right away. Oh, really? Yes. Is it okay to film? Of course. Really? Yes. So, I'll just grill it here. And then the fire will burn out. Wow. So, not Tosashimizu, but where? Tosashimizu and Susaki. Oh, Susaki. I've been to Kochi recently. Really? Do you know John Manjiro? The story of Nakahama Manjiro. Yes, I know him. Oh. So tataki is really delicious. But it's going to take a little bit. They use the straw here. I'll come back here. Thank you. So, we'll come back a little bit here.

11:25 John Daub: I just finished an episode for the main channel on John Manjiro. It's about 30 minutes long. It's taken forever to edit. I really apologize. I haven't put anything on there for a while. But when you watch it, you'll understand why. It's basically a 30-minute documentary that's on one of the most inspirational people and someone who's really impacted me here in Japan. Oh, this is char-grilled shrimp. Look at how big they are. Sugoi-ne. It's really big. This is probably coming right from the fish market. So it tells you the prices in English. A5 wagyu, which is spelled wrong, but I'll let that pass. 4,300 yen. And that's a little bit much. I'd rather just get the king prawn, which is on sale today. Hey, that's always good. You can see the prices are fairly reasonable. I think it's all coming fresh from the market.

12:28 John Daub: And here's the entrance from the riverside. So I want to show you here, now that we've kind of come to the end of the line here, that's pretty much it. Now there's some shops inside here. Let me show you the map. This is what it looks like. Apparently there's a third floor as well. And you can go inside. I guess that would be ideal if it's raining. You don't want to walk down this place. They wanted to make sure when they built this that you would have a place to go in bad weather. Or cold weather. It's kind of chilly with the wind coming. As you can see in the inside, it is quite an interesting place. I mean, to be perfectly honest, this is literally an eight-minute bicycle ride from my house. So I might come back here again with Leo just for the heck of it. I mean, if you lived in the neighborhood, right? But it does have a pretty interesting vibe to it. And you're going to have to be the judge whether or not you like it. So if you want to come here yourself, that's up to you. I just present it. I think it's initially got kind of a bad rap by showing that the food was super expensive. And it kind of, it's more expensive, but there are options.

13:54 John Daub: So let me just take you in the inside a little bit. See if the signal holds out. There's a lot of people here. So I don't know if it's going to work. What is that? A brulee? I'm not sure. Something matcha dessert. Holy smokes. Okay, so they did make something on the inside here. Fingers crossed on the signal, everybody. I'll do my very best. But there's shop after shop after shop after shop inside of there. And I'll walk a little bit just to see what we can see. Oh, they got a Japanese sake that you can try here. And they just told me that there's some sashimi that they just cut. So it does feel very much like a Japanese market. They're shouting at you, like, come over here for some sashimi. Come on over here. We got some fresh seafood. We got some wagyu grilling over there. There's some stools that you can sit at the counter to experience some food here.

15:17 John Daub: This is the tataki. I was hoping that they would be grilling the tataki. They get a really big fire going for that. But it doesn't look like they have it going right now. We'll come back. The thing with tataki is that when you get it, it makes a really big... That's a good-looking burger. Wow. Looks like they're grilling some beef there. Oyster bar. Looks like they're still building booths and restaurants in here. There's a third floor. It looks like it's got ramen. Okay, so the third floor is a food court. And there is some ramen up there. Some gyudon, some places for maguro, some kaisendon. But it looks like you can do some street food here. Certainly going to give Toyosu Market... Sorry, Tsukiji Market a run for its money because Tsukiji Market has become quite famous for having street food now. This is more like a street food thing. It's a theme park. Look at that. Okay, looks like that shop just opened. I'm not sure what that is. Some kind of confection. Oh, wagashi, I think. There's some fruits and you can see the flowers for them just opening up the market. It's brand new. This is brand new. That is interesting. Oh, this is that burger. This is the maguro katsu burger. Oh, they just took it away. The maguro katsu burger. This is interesting. And it's about, I don't know, like 10 bucks for that. That's not bad at all, really.

17:58 John Daub: Wow, there's some places that really do have lines. We've come full circle here. I'm going to take you down to the first floor now to show you some of the restaurants down there just to give you a feeling. There's a third floor as well. I'm not going to go up there. I'll leave that for you and your imagination. But there's ramen apparently. Oh, okay. Across the street, you see the La Vista Hotel. I was telling you about that. The Hakodate Hotel, the La Vista, Hakodate Bay has the number one breakfast or the top three breakfasts in all of Japan. And I was talking about in the news the kaisendon here is like $150 or something, which is just outrageous. But you can get an all-you-can-eat kaisendon inside the La Vista. I don't know about here, but the one in Hakodate, it's part of the breakfast. And you can load it up and eat like crazy. Wow, it's so windy. All right, let's go quickly to just give you an idea of what it looks like from the outside. It does look kind of like an old Edo period village. That gives me more of the vibes of a theme park than it does an actual, you know, like a real village because it's not. It's a theme park of food for the day. It's a theme park for tourists. You can't fault them for trying it. I think I will probably come back. It's fun. It's fun. You get a chance to try a lot of street food, but I would say, I don't know, this is a tough one for me. Toyosu versus Tsukiji. Now there's a battle because now there's a reason to come to Toyosu because there really wasn't a lot here. Now they're starting, there's hotels, there's the La Vista. I think there's a JAL hotel nearby. There's, you know, the market, which has guided tours. But it's not the same thing like it was in the old days. It's in Tsukiji. Of course, they've modernized it all.

19:06 John Daub: Let's see, because they just ordered something, maybe they're going to cook it up. So I'm kind of excited. Let's just wait for a second. I have to be patient for the show here. I'm hoping now that they start to grill. Okay, wait, hold on. Something's going to happen. I think he's going to—somebody just ordered something, so maybe he's going to start to get a light, a match, and start to torch some of this tataki. Oh, there he goes, here he goes, here he goes. Chunks. There we go. All right, we have it. That is a big chunk. All right, get ready for the show. None of the tourists know what's about to happen. That's a pretty big piece of the fish there. Here we go, here we go. How is it? This is going to flame up real fast. Oh, mama. I'm getting real hungry. He's waiting for it to start to burn, and here we go. Now he's going to put the fish in there. There you go, it's in there. Oh, and it's taking on—it's cooking, and it's also taking on the flavor of what it's being heated with, and that's going to make it—oh, my gosh. He's moving the grass around a little bit. He's really stoking it up. Whoa. Now that's a fire. Michael, is that going back to Eddie Murphy? Oh, man. You had to be born in the 80s or the 70s to get that. Oh. Tataki. Now people are starting to come. You can see it really does bring—there's something awesome about tataki. It brings people together. It brings people in when you see this mega fire. Look at it. The dancing flames. Yeah, no gas is used. The ingredients probably all come in from Kochi Prefecture, which I love. And there you go.

22:05 John Daub: I hope this gives you a pretty good overview of what you would get if you come to Senkyaku Banrai in Toyosu. Let's go down to the first floor to take a look and see what it's like down there. There's a third floor as well. I'm not going to go up there. I'll leave that for you and your imagination. But there's ramen apparently. Oh, okay. Across the street, you see the La Vista Hotel. I was telling you about that. The Hakodate Hotel, the La Vista, Hakodate Bay has the number one breakfast or the top three breakfasts in all of Japan. And I was talking about in the news the kaisendon here is like $150 or something, which is just outrageous. But you can get an all-you-can-eat kaisendon inside the La Vista. I don't know about here, but the one in Hakodate, it's part of the breakfast. And you can load it up and eat like crazy. Wow, it's so windy. All right, let's go quickly to just give you an idea of what it looks like from the outside. It does look kind of like an old Edo period village. That gives me more of the vibes of a theme park than it does an actual, you know, like a real village because it's not. It's a theme park of food for the day. It's a theme park for tourists. You can't fault them for trying it. I think I will probably come back. It's fun. It's fun. You get a chance to try a lot of street food, but I would say, I don't know, this is a tough one for me. Toyosu versus Tsukiji. Now there's a battle because now there's a reason to come to Toyosu because there really wasn't a lot here. Now they're starting, there's hotels, there's the La Vista. I think there's a JAL hotel nearby. There's, you know, the market, which has guided tours. But it's not the same thing like it was in the old days. It's in Tsukiji. Of course, they've modernized it all.

24:15 John Daub: I'm going to take you down to the waterway and show you another reason why you might want to come here. But the best way to really understand whether or not it's worth it is to watch this video and then do your homework. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. And this is part of it for me too. Across the river and across this bridge right here, you get straight to Ginza and you'll see... Are you okay? Yes. You'll see that's the Olympic Village. And they just started moving in residents like two years after the Olympics is over. What a disaster of a project. But they just opened up across. So if you go across this bridge, there's also another shopping mall that just opened up like about three weeks ago. So that's kind of an exciting development. But that's mostly locals and residents. And Kanae said, let's go and check it out. And I said, okay, but maybe not this week because I have to finish a couple of videos. However, it's a pretty exciting thing. When all these things start to open up in your city and things feel new again. This is the reason why I've been running here along this path for the last six years since I moved to this area of Tokyo. It's really wonderful. No traffic, no cars, lots of open space. You can walk here. There's a barbecue area that you have to rent though. And the place that probably Kanae and I go to the most is right at the end here. Do you see that orange building in the center? That's LaLaport, which is a shopping mall. And you might find us there on the weekends just having a coffee or hanging out for an hour or so. It's what I do because I live, this is sort of my backyard. Ginza is my front yard. You can see I have the bicycles just right here. I parked it somewhat illegally with Leo's seat right here. He just had his third birthday. We went to Tokyo Disneyland first party. It was a really fun time. But I'm glad to be back home because it's just so crowded to go to Tokyo Disneyland. And this is a Monday and you saw how crowded it was. That was a Monday. I wonder what it's like on the weekend. But you get really beautiful views of Tokyo Bay. If you go all the way down to the end, that's my favorite place. I'll buy a bento and I'll go to the end and there is this like, I guess like an amphitheater seating where you can watch the boats over the Tokyo Bay. I've been there, taken you there like three or four times in other live streams. But it's one of my favorite places to just sit outside. In particular on a warm day. Not today because it's just kind of chilly with the wind. But it's, well thank you Daniel for the happy belated birthdays for Leo. He really appreciated that. Well thank you for that. I appreciate it.

27:18 John Daub: Alright guys, that's all I got for you. If you liked it, hit that subscribe button. I'll see you in another episode pretty soon. As I take you to some place new, possibly tomorrow. Tonight I'll probably be going to Shinjuku. I might do a quick live stream from there. But I have to get some video for an episode that I'm doing on food in Shinjuku. Which I hope will be released this coming weekend or so. It's good news. Alright everybody, mata ne. See ya. Stay warm. Woo, it's cold out here. It's windy. Oh, cherry blossoms are just starting to bloom. So you'll probably see some blossom videos coming up pretty soon as well.