Japanese Pokémon Donuts are back Eating Pikachu and Cream

00:00:00 John Daub: We are on. You're live. Oh, yeah. Welcome to Tokyo. We're in Ikebukuro. This is a place that I used to work at. Lots of restaurants, cafes, and also this right here, Donuts. We have the brand new Pokemon donuts from Mr. Donuts. Maybe one of the first in the world. Perhaps. I'm talking to somebody over here. Come on into the stream. This is the hand of PBG and we'll be doing the hands of PVG.

00:00:22 Peter von Gomm: We'll be doing the hands of PVG.

00:00:25 John Daub: Is there something better than with your hands and your voice? Maybe.

00:00:28 Peter von Gomm: I'm gonna pick this guy up. Pick this guy up right here.

00:00:31 John Daub: Don't hurt those poor pedestrians. Hey, guys, we know that it is election night in the United States. There's a lot of noise all over the world tonight. And I thought maybe a sweet diversion from something more Japanese on the other side of the world might be something that's very, very welcome.

00:00:45 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, very welcome indeed. Well, thank you very much for joining us today. Yeah.

00:00:50 John Daub: Hey, you know me, Donuts. I will go the distance. I'll go across the world for donuts. Not for you, but for donuts.

00:00:57 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:00:59 John Daub: Actually, I didn't have to go that far.

00:01:01 Peter von Gomm: I came to my part of the world than he did. Right now we're in this area. I'm going to show you the donuts that we have here. I got these from the Mr. Donuts around the corner. There's a bunch of them in Ikebukuro. You can see the west side of the station has a brand. Well, it's a renovated one. I don't like this kind of Mr. Donuts because you don't pick them yourself. There's some dude, you got to pick them out in a.

00:01:24 Peter von Gomm: Do they at least use the tongs? They don't use their hand.

00:01:28 John Daub: They have tongs. And you put it in there real nice and charged me extra for the plastic bag, as usual. But yeah, this time we have some really interesting ones. Now, they did this last year, these Pikachu donuts. I think it was a little bit different. Maybe it was two years ago, but I remember they had the ears and everything. The details on it were just extraordinary. You have the Pokemon ball, and I don't even know who that brown one is. Do you guys know this guy here?

00:01:53 Peter von Gomm: Right down here.

00:01:54 John Daub: I don't know who that is. That character. It's been so long since I've done Pokemon stuff. But yeah, the menu for Mr. Donuts is really interesting. I like that they do that. I'm not—this is sort of—it's not a commercial for Mr. Donuts, but it sort of is because I just love the way that they innovate with the donuts. They make it real creative, don't they?

00:02:17 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. I don't know if Dunkin Donuts taste the same, though.

00:02:20 John Daub: There's—

00:02:20 Peter von Gomm: There is virtually no variation in the flavor of all of their donuts.

00:02:26 John Daub: They're—

00:02:27 Peter von Gomm: They're a big chain.

00:02:30 John Daub: Yeah.

00:02:30 Peter von Gomm: And they crank them out.

00:02:32 John Daub: They do. They're waxy a little bit. There are better donut places, I'm sure. But I do like the collaborations. It's just sort of fun, right?

00:02:40 Peter von Gomm: Hey, Ramsay's in the house.

00:02:42 John Daub: Ramsay. Ramsay sounds in the house. How you doing? 4053 months. Oh, my goodness. That's a lot of time. Wow.

00:02:48 Peter von Gomm: That's a lot of donuts.

00:02:49 John Daub: We're also going to be talking about some of the foods that we dislike in Japan. I know that Japanese cuisine is the Michelin star, most beloved in the world. Besides maybe pizza. Italian food is pretty good. But there are some things here that we dislike, and we're going to talk about it. Some of them might surprise you.

00:03:06 Peter von Gomm: Well, yeah.

00:03:08 John Daub: Well, maybe we'll think of some. And if you have a list of foods that you think that are at your bottom, I mean, it's an election time. Let's talk about some interesting stuff at the bottom of your list. Not there. Although eventually it does go there. I'd be curious to see what you guys have on the bottom of your list. I'm sure natto is one of them. Fermented soybeans.

00:03:30 Peter von Gomm: And on that topic, I have a very special T-shirt, which I'll show you later.

00:03:36 John Daub: Oh, you just showed me a peek. Is it only in Japan? T-shirt. Really? I don't think I didn't even know I was selling those. Toriyazu nama. You guys look parched. Hey, man, we should get—there's a coffee shop over there. But we didn't want to go. We don't have a permit to film or anything. And I'm quite sensitive. I think people are about that, right? These days.

00:03:57 Peter von Gomm: You're sensitive.

00:03:58 John Daub: I am very. I'm a sensitive person. Speaking of interesting things, inside the box here, we do have an unboxing of donuts. These look really good.

00:04:09 Peter von Gomm: Wow, you really opened up the purse strings on this, JD.

00:04:13 John Daub: This cost me like $10.

00:04:15 Peter von Gomm: Holy moly.

00:04:16 John Daub: I know, right? So what is this one here?

00:04:19 Peter von Gomm: Oh, I'm holding. I'll hold it.

00:04:20 John Daub: Okay, you can hold it here. Yeah. Thank you. The Pokemon Pokemon Ball donuts look really good. Oh, we lost it there. It's at an angle here. These look really good.

00:04:33 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, those are fun. Oh, we just lost.

00:04:35 John Daub: Is there anything inside of there? Is it just custard or—

00:04:37 Peter von Gomm: There's one way to find out.

00:04:39 John Daub: Yeah.

00:04:40 Peter von Gomm: Ask the staff.

00:04:41 John Daub: Ask this. No. Are we lost?

00:04:45 Peter von Gomm: We're not going to actually eat these, are we?

00:04:46 John Daub: Yeah, we are. I've got a knife. If you can't eat a full one, I gotta show the next.

00:04:50 Peter von Gomm: Okay, okay. But let me try to get it back in there without it getting crushed.

00:04:54 John Daub: All right. These he put in real gentle. I don't understand. I thought there was like a gooey top to them. Is there something missing?

00:05:03 Peter von Gomm: Maybe. Maybe the guy fell out of his seat.

00:05:06 John Daub: Did he. Hang on.

00:05:08 Peter von Gomm: Is this cheese? Is that a cheese?

00:05:12 John Daub: I don't know.

00:05:12 Peter von Gomm: What the hell is that? It's like a Pikachu cheddar cheese.

00:05:16 John Daub: We're gonna take a bite in a second. We gotta do this in order here. But they're so delicate. This is my—because my mitts are all over it. And then, last but not least, there's this one.

00:05:29 Peter von Gomm: Salivating. These look so good.

00:05:31 John Daub: Wait a second. It's just this. What the heck?

00:05:35 Peter von Gomm: It's like a cheeseburger.

00:05:36 John Daub: Wait, the ones that I saw were actual Pikachu on there. I mean, it looks like this. They're basically just colored donuts.

00:05:46 Peter von Gomm: Do we have any lawyers watching right now?

00:05:48 John Daub: I think that this has to be wrong.

00:05:50 Peter von Gomm: We need representation, John.

00:05:53 John Daub: It smells real good. I don't understand. Maybe. Did I miss something?

00:05:58 Peter von Gomm: Peter, we're gonna have to get to the bottom of this if we have to start at the top.

00:06:04 John Daub: I didn't see any Pikachu donuts. I want to just go for the historical purposes here. This is the donuts from, like last year.

00:06:13 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. Where's the face?

00:06:14 John Daub: They like that face, right? What's up with the face here?

00:06:17 Peter von Gomm: The face is gone.

00:06:18 John Daub: Maybe the location messed up. I—I don't know. I see them in the distance there. I remember the donuts look like this, right. Why isn't it face like Pikachu. I'm kind of—I'm kind of weird. It's a little weird.

00:06:34 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:06:37 John Daub: What? Even the commercial—Something must have happened here. Even the commercial looks like they have these donuts. They wouldn't jip you like this. I can't use that word. Sorry. They can't—

00:06:48 Peter von Gomm: Way to ruin the stream.

00:06:49 John Daub: Rip you off like this. They pull the fast one. I don't even see this—hold on. They have the whole menu behind—beyond here. Maybe there's—

00:06:56 Peter von Gomm: Is this like a whack a mole donut?

00:06:58 John Daub: Hold on. All right, there's an—apparently there's more donuts. There's another Mr. Donuts on the other side. Should we go there now?

00:07:05 Peter von Gomm: They're all gonna have the same.

00:07:07 John Daub: They didn't have it. You want to go over there and see if they have it?

00:07:11 Peter von Gomm: The one with the face on it?

00:07:12 John Daub: Yeah. And the duck inside.

00:07:15 Peter von Gomm: I'll duck inside and see if they have the one with the face on it.

00:07:18 John Daub: Pun intended. Yeah, something like that. I—I don't know. I can't understand why I thought that this was this, but it's not. Because it was in—it was in the wrapping, so I couldn't tell. You want to go check it out?

00:07:29 Peter von Gomm: I'll check. Okay.

00:07:30 John Daub: Here, I'll—I don't want to have that happening here. So we got—well, you're gonna hear two of us. All right, so PVG is going to go and just do a double—do a double take here and check. I'm gonna put the two mics here so you hear me in stereo while he's waiting. We can try one, right? We could try one donut. All right. I gotta take a bite. That was weird. Imagine if they don't have it. I asked them, I said, is that the Pikachu donut? The dude said, yes. Double mic. Double the output. Well, it won't—it won't last for double the time because he'll be back double time. I don't think they had it. All right. Inside is the custard and the cream. That is something special, but it's not the Pikachu one. I'm really disappointed. It's not the Pikachu one. All right. Itadakimasu. I got one for him, one for me. I'm telling you, they don't have it. You know, he said something interesting. Peter did these donuts and Mr. Donuts—they taste waxy. They really do. Angel, no politics. We're getting—and you—all you have to do is open up YouTube. There's a thousand people talking about—a million people talking about politics. I do like in every single bite, there's custard and cream, but this yellow frosting is really bad. It's really bad. No problem, Angel. You can ask Peter who he thinks he's gonna win, but—

00:09:38 Peter von Gomm: He's taking a while.

00:09:44 John Daub: Yeah, it's really disappointing. So my favorite foods in Japan. If I had to make a list as we're waiting for PBG to come back from his check—I would say my top food is probably katsudon. It's breaded deep fried pork cutlet over a bed of rice, egg, usually runny. And then there's—how do I say this?—a tare on top of it that gives it this, like, salty. The texture of it. The crunchy deep fried pork cutlet with the runny eggs and the smell. It's like everything really comes together so well. That's why it has to be in the top three. Of course there's sushi, but it depends on what kind of sushi. Not all sushi is the same. Did they have it? Oh, did you get the weird animal?

00:10:30 Peter von Gomm: The whack a mole?

00:10:31 John Daub: Yeah.

00:10:31 Peter von Gomm: No, I just got the Pikachu.

00:10:32 John Daub: Why you didn't get the whack a mole?

00:10:35 Peter von Gomm: Because I thought you wanted a Pikachu.

00:10:36 John Daub: No, I wanted the whack a mole.

00:10:38 Peter von Gomm: You go back and get the whack a mole.

00:10:39 John Daub: Really? This is so bad, right? It tastes waxy.

00:10:46 Peter von Gomm: I told you. Ah, you got it, though. Super cute. Wait, hold still. Wait. No, wait, wait. Let me do this. Wait, wait.

00:11:04 John Daub: I'm not eating that. You manhandled that. I don't know. Did you even wash before you got up the subway? No, you did not.

00:11:11 Peter von Gomm: My bike—

00:11:12 John Daub: You didn't wash. Your hands bite you?

00:11:16 Peter von Gomm: It's not going to work, is it? Hands in the—

00:11:19 John Daub: All right, I'm going to go get the brown.

00:11:20 Peter von Gomm: The whack a mole.

00:11:22 John Daub: Yeah.

00:11:22 Peter von Gomm: Okay. Well, I will be rude and eat in front of you guys.

00:11:28 John Daub: All right, Don't—Don't steal my other donut.

00:11:31 Peter von Gomm: All right, which one's next? You just had the cheeseburger one.

00:11:35 John Daub: Yeah. Ramsay, silent here. Copy for later. In honor of PBG. What about in honor of yours truly? Thanks, Ramsay. All right, I'm gonna—I'll be right back.

00:11:46 Peter von Gomm: That's the waxiest Pikachu I've ever sunk my teeth into. Thank you. Ramses. Good to see you. How y'all doing? So, yeah, Mr. Donut is definitely the Japanese level of sweetness. They're not super sweet. And that's why there's such a huge, huge hit with the Japanese people. Big chain of them all over the place. Kind of like you would find McDonald's everywhere you find Mr. Donut. The—yeah, it's got a chocolate chocolate coating on the ears and—but it's—it's really all the kind of same flavor. The yellow doesn't have any different flavor than the brown. And it's got a little bit of a cream filling which is semi sweet, kind of like sugary. What do you call that, that baking stuff? Shortening. It's got a lot of shortening in it. So—kind of Twinkie, Twinkie kind of filling. So yeah, this Pikachu has seen better days. That's nice. So John went back to get the whack a mole guy and he'll be back momentarily. So I'll try to keep you guys entertained. So we are on the—what is this?—the west exit of Ikebukuro station. And if you head back over this way on this side of the station is, I think it's called Jiyugakuen and it's a formerly an all girls school designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. So for those of you who don't know Frank Lloyd Wright, he's a famous architect, American architect, world famous. And he also built, designed and built the Imperial Hotel which has now been replaced unfortunately. But it was one of his masterpieces. Built in 1923 I believe and it withstood the Great Kanto earthquake soon after it was completed. Very, very minimal damage to it, which was a testament to his engineering skills. But one remaining building by Frank Lloyd Wright is the Jiyugakuen School, which I highly recommend. If you're in Tokyo and you want to see a cool building, you can go inside and very iconic Frank Lloyd Wright interior and furnishings. And there's also another building that's directly across the street. It's in a quiet neighborhood, maybe a 10 minute walk from here back over my shoulder. But they have a cafe. You can pay like 500 yen, you get coffee, you can take a tour of the school, check out Frank Lloyd Wright's designs. And it's cool—it's a fun little area to go check out. So I recommend that when you're done chomping a Pikachu.

00:15:21 John Daub: Wow.

00:15:26 Peter von Gomm: Oh wow. So those are like M&M's. The eyeballs and the little warts on the cheeks are like generic brand M&M's. Tasty. And John's taking his sweet time. Are you—am I—yes. Some Scott asks, am I still riding a motorcycle?

00:15:58 John Daub: Of course.

00:15:59 Peter von Gomm: I ride my motorcycle every day and you guys can check me out. I do live streams from the motorcycle here in Tokyo. My name Peter von Gom. Japan is the channel. Maybe John will put that link in the description later, but I do motovlogs here in Japan. Car and motorcycle topics. And yeah, we have fun doing live streams when I'm riding to my jobs. I'm a narrator here in Japan,

00:16:30 John Daub: so—

00:16:31 Peter von Gomm: please check out the channel. I will be going next week in a camping car to the Mount Fuji area, filming some things. Filming—basically filming the mountain. If the weather's clear, it should be fun. Here comes trouble. Oh, Killjoy's back. Hey, man. We were waiting for you. Was that—oh, you got—I had both.

00:16:54 John Daub: Okay. How's that? I think the cream looks better than the one that I had.

00:16:59 Peter von Gomm: It's like a Twinkie filling, right?

00:17:02 John Daub: All right. This is called a ponde—good gudama. I couldn't—

00:17:08 Peter von Gomm: Okay.

00:17:08 John Daub: I ran out so fast. I know. It's weird, right? Lost my breath. All right. Hey, how's it, Sam? All right, I've disconnected the audio. The mic—there might be a change, so you should get the audio now. But basically we're using this one here. I don't know what happened. All right, so this is some kind of Diglett, but—oh, oh, I gotta turn this around here.

00:18:22 Peter von Gomm: He moves.

00:18:25 John Daub: He does move. You have to pick him up. He's like—

00:18:29 Peter von Gomm: Is keeping him in place.

00:18:31 John Daub: That is weird, right? Oh, look at his butt sticking out. Ooh, ooh. Is it all chocolatey? I don't know, but you're gonna fall through. I guess his nose is keeping him in place.

00:18:50 Peter von Gomm: Well, you know what this is? It's redeemed itself. The filling is actually quite nice.

00:18:55 John Daub: Yeah, it looked better than the one that I had. There's one more that we have to try. There's a—like a ball. Yeah, the Pokeball. All right, so this is kind of fun. Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick.

00:19:15 Peter von Gomm: Cute.

00:19:16 John Daub: All right, the question is, is there cream inside this duck? And there is. Whoa. It's like—

00:19:33 Peter von Gomm: About your wind noise.

00:19:36 John Daub: Oh, God. I'll try to connect it again. Hold on. Are we back? That should be good.

00:19:56 Peter von Gomm: How is it? Donuts, Donuts. One, two, three.

00:20:02 John Daub: All right. The—the rest of it, though, just looks like a regular—that sound is good. So it just looks like a regular pondering, right? There's like a mochi on there.

00:20:18 Peter von Gomm: Much, much. Well, I think I'm gonna leave those donuts to you, my friend. That one was more than enough for me.

00:20:31 John Daub: I think the Pokeball just looks nasty. I don't know. Look on the ground, because that's where they are. I'm just gonna leave it.

00:20:41 Peter von Gomm: What's a nice little square here? I was just telling them about the Jiyugakuen school, which is the Frank Lloyd Wright—

00:20:49 John Daub: Oh, yeah.

00:20:50 Peter von Gomm: Back over that way. Have you been there?

00:20:51 John Daub: Yeah. I used to work in that building over there as an English teacher. Here, let's turn it around. I think that's a little bit better. See the station area? So then if somebody comes to attack us, we can see them—

00:21:03 Peter von Gomm: Like—

00:21:03 John Daub: Like ninja. Yeah. I do like this side because it's so old and retro. On the west side of Ikebukuro station here. The McDonald's is still there, isn't it? On the corner?

00:21:13 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. Yeah.

00:21:14 John Daub: Used to be I would—I would eat lunch at the Fuji Yoshi. What is it called? The one coin lunch place. The Fuji—I forgot the place called like the Yoshinoya. Very quick food place.

00:21:30 Peter von Gomm: Not—I forget, Matsunoya or whatever.

00:21:33 John Daub: I don't know. It's like 500 yen for a katan. I used to get it there. And then there was some sort of really nice katadon place which came here. So I was telling everybody before went back to get the donut that my—my top foods were probably like Katsudon, Sushi, depending on the place—

00:21:47 Peter von Gomm: And burritos. There's El Torito over there.

00:21:51 John Daub: Oh yeah, yeah.

00:21:52 Peter von Gomm: That's one thing—well, get—get to the food that you dislike. But food that I—well, let me just say food that I like that's non-Japanese. I love Mexican food. But there's very few Mexican restaurants in Japan. Yeah, very few. And El Torito is a small chain and there's one right there. I didn't know.

00:22:09 John Daub: Well, there's an increasing number of burrito places. Yeah. Like Frijoles, which is a good go-to. They have—they've increased their shops. There's one at Tokyo Station and on the Yaesu side now, which is kind of cool, you can get sort of a chipotle-like burrito. I don't know if they consider Mexican food. There's also the Guzman—y Gomez. Guzman, what's it called? Yeah, they're pretty good. A little bit on the pricier side. Right. I think Frijoles is still a better deal, but it's not bad. So you can get that kind of fast food Mexican, but like really good sit-down Mexican is hard. And that's a chain. And I found that they're not really that great—

00:22:46 Peter von Gomm: I like it.

00:22:47 John Daub: It's not that great.

00:22:48 Peter von Gomm: Well, dude, for Mexican food in Tokyo it's good.

00:22:52 John Daub: For Japan it's good. Why don't you stand here?

00:22:54 Peter von Gomm: You're like when you keep moving it into your zone.

00:22:57 John Daub: Well, you were moving away. Do I smell bad or something?

00:23:00 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. I didn't want to tell the people watching.

00:23:02 John Daub: Am I taller?

00:23:04 Peter von Gomm: You're just prouder standing on a slope.

00:23:09 John Daub: That's true.

00:23:10 Peter von Gomm: So let me—can I show you my T-shirt?

00:23:13 John Daub: All right. It's not political in nature, is it?

00:23:15 Peter von Gomm: No, dude. So for you have to pan down.

00:23:21 John Daub: I love grandma. I love Uranus. Oh, my God. It is a great planet.

00:23:35 Peter von Gomm: Has anybody been to Uranus?

00:23:37 John Daub: I know that you've been to your own Uranus.

00:23:41 Peter von Gomm: Well, lots of people would love to go to Uranus. And it's—it's a popular place in Indiana. It's a small town.

00:23:49 John Daub: Is it?

00:23:49 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, it's the name of the town. Uranus. And they have a fudge factory there.

00:23:54 John Daub: No, they don't.

00:23:55 Peter von Gomm: Yes, they do. Look at the shirt. Let me see. Hold it down.

00:24:01 John Daub: Uranus. Fudge factory. Uranus, Indiana.

00:24:05 Peter von Gomm: See?

00:24:06 John Daub: But is the fudge any good?

00:24:08 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, it's the best fudge. Best fudge comes from Uranus. That's one of their cats.

00:24:14 John Daub: And then you thought that election night could not get any worse or better. It depends on what side of whatever.

00:24:21 Peter von Gomm: It's a very popular tourist spot and they have really good fudge.

00:24:24 John Daub: I'm not blushing. I'm really curious about the fudge, though. But then I think coming from a place called Uranus, I don't think it's—it'd be hard to overcome the mental hurdle—

00:24:35 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:24:35 John Daub: For some people.

00:24:37 Peter von Gomm: For some people. People that are uptight. Yeah.

00:24:40 John Daub: Nevertheless, Ramsay silent. You live in the great Midwest. Maybe you can either confirm or deny that there's a city called Uranus. Is it a large city or—

00:24:49 Peter von Gomm: It's a tiny, tiny—one horse town. One fudge factory town.

00:24:54 John Daub: All right. Thanks for the humor.

00:24:56 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:24:57 John Daub: Have you had fudge from there? Yes.

00:24:59 Peter von Gomm: Yes, I have.

00:25:00 John Daub: No, from the city. You've been to Indiana?

00:25:06 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:25:07 John Daub: Oh, I thought you're like—you're a west coast guy.

00:25:09 Peter von Gomm: No, to visit. Oh, you only go to Uranus—to visit. You only visit Uranus. You don't live there.

00:25:15 John Daub: So you were in the Midwest before to visit?

00:25:20 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. Yeah.

00:25:21 John Daub: What were you doing there?

00:25:22 Peter von Gomm: Just visiting a friend.

00:25:24 John Daub: Uranus. You have a friend who lives there, you said it's a small town.

00:25:30 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, it is. No, he lives—he's like on a—he's in a suburb.

00:25:35 John Daub: The fringe of Uranus.

00:25:36 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. On the outskirts of Uranus.

00:25:40 John Daub: Yeah.

00:25:40 Peter von Gomm: So we drove to Uranus and got some fudge and it was—it's a cool little shop. Well, what—

00:25:47 John Daub: What kind of fudge did they have? With peanuts and—

00:25:50 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, they had peanut—

00:25:51 John Daub: I like the peanut butter. We used to go at the Baltimore near the National Aquarium. There—they used to have a place that made fudge in the Harbor Place shopping mall. It was really good.

00:26:00 Peter von Gomm: It's so sweet, though, isn't it? It's really rich fudge.

00:26:02 John Daub: Yeah.

00:26:02 Peter von Gomm: You just need a tiny little piece.

00:26:05 John Daub: You gotta make sure they use, like, real organic sugar instead of corn syrup, because then it's really bad. But as long as it's not corn syrup, you can make the argument, right? Yeah, it might be. Okay.

00:26:14 Peter von Gomm: Well, actually, I got some—they sell all kinds of stuff there. And I got some peach—what do you call it?—apple—peach butter. Like apple butter?

00:26:22 John Daub: Oh, yeah.

00:26:23 Peter von Gomm: And I had that T-shirt and a T-shirt, and I had the peach butter in my carry on bags at the airport. Oh, what happened in Indianapolis? The—the TSA guy found it, and he pulls it out and he's like, where are you going with this peach butter? I'm like, giving it to my mom. Well, it's beyond the amount that you can take on board, so I had to sacrifice it.

00:26:53 John Daub: Yeah.

00:26:53 Peter von Gomm: I had to give it to him.

00:26:55 John Daub: Why don't you just eat it or something?

00:26:56 Peter von Gomm: Well, one guy says, if I was you, I'd open and take a spoonful of it.

00:27:00 John Daub: They did that once. I was bringing hummus back. Like, oh, here, I take that. I was like, hummus? So I—I said, can I eat it? He goes, no, because I didn't have time. I needed to get a spoon and everything. I wasn't gonna use my fingers. Right, so you just—what did you do? Give it to them?

00:27:15 Peter von Gomm: Give it to the guy?

00:27:16 John Daub: Yeah. I think he just wanted it, of course.

00:27:17 Peter von Gomm: And he—

00:27:18 John Daub: He—

00:27:18 Peter von Gomm: He took a picture. He's like, you want to take a picture of me with it to show your mom?

00:27:23 John Daub: He said that?

00:27:24 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:27:24 John Daub: Oh, my God. These TSA people—they—they got quite a sense of humor about their thievery.

00:27:30 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. So I'm sure he indulged.

00:27:35 John Daub: Do you have a picture of it?

00:27:36 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, I've got a picture.

00:27:36 John Daub: Oh, my gosh.

00:27:37 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:27:38 John Daub: Oh, my gosh.

00:27:40 Peter von Gomm: So, yeah, I recommend if you're in—in a small town—

00:27:44 John Daub: Yeah.

00:27:45 Peter von Gomm: Indiana hit Uranus. Shoot.

00:27:52 John Daub: One of the things—now we're gonna—we're gonna kind of pivot here to some of the foods of Japan. We've both been living here for over quarter—quarter of a century now, which—it sounds a lot worse or a lot better if you say it like that. And over those years, I have—you know, when I came to Japan, honestly in the late 1990s, I knew almost—almost nothing about Japanese cuisine, even Sushi. I never really had it.

00:28:12 Peter von Gomm: Right.

00:28:12 John Daub: I went to Ohio State in the '90s. We didn't have sushi anywhere. It's everywhere now. We didn't have sushi anywhere in Ohio. Right. It was like peach butter—we didn't have peach butter. Oh, okay. Oh, it's real.

00:28:25 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:28:25 John Daub: Oh, it's real. Okay. So—

00:28:29 Peter von Gomm: So there's the—

00:28:29 John Daub: I can confirm.

00:28:30 Peter von Gomm: Uranus farms peach butter.

00:28:33 John Daub: Remember to put it into checked baggage. I think you were worried—maybe it can melt in the checked baggage or it can get destroyed. So I get worried about putting it in a checked baggage. But there's a certain amount of food that you can put in there.

00:28:43 Peter von Gomm: There's the scoundrel that took it.

00:28:45 John Daub: Oh, you got a picture of him holding it? Yeah. Oh, he's too happy. He's definitely sneaky.

00:28:50 Peter von Gomm: I want some of that peach butter.

00:28:52 John Daub: Do you think he really took it home?

00:28:54 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. So if anybody recognizes that guy, tell him he's on my list.

00:28:58 John Daub: He does look like a nice guy though. I don't know if he would do that. But nice guys always—they're always the ones that are the close up serial killers and stuff, right? That's how they get you to trust them.

00:29:08 Peter von Gomm: Looks so good, but unfortunately interesting. Yeah, yeah.

00:29:15 John Daub: Make a stop by there on the way to Chicago.

00:29:17 Peter von Gomm: Usually we—

00:29:17 John Daub: I go from visit Ohio State and then we get on the car and drive to Chicago through Indiana. A lot of fields empty—

00:29:24 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, yeah.

00:29:25 John Daub: A lot of space. Didn't know about this town. So I'll go and check it out. Sounds like a real hotbed of tourism.

00:29:31 Peter von Gomm: Well, it's one of those places like Wall Drug. Have you been to Wall Drug in the States? There's a—there's a place, I think it's South Dakota. Somebody help me out here. Wall Drug—you start seeing these huge billboards like hundreds of miles away. Wall Drug only 300 miles away or something like that. And you get there and—it's a big tourist trap, you know—putt putt golf and all kinds of things. And this Wall Drug was a drugstore set up in the middle of nowhere—

00:29:59 John Daub: It's weird.

00:30:00 Peter von Gomm: Kind of like this Uranus. So there's big billboards saying, you know, check out Uranus, best fudge factory or something like that.

00:30:08 John Daub: I think Uranus is a lot going for it though. Yeah, it's just weird.

00:30:11 Peter von Gomm: I've heard that before.

00:30:13 John Daub: It's just kind of weird. Okay, can we—let's pivot off of this to Japanese cuisine here, which is probably—probably why most of you are here. So—or maybe it's just for you. I don't know. It's been a while since your last appearance. You've been doing a lot of shows, a lot of motorcycle stuff, cruising around Japan yourself, haven't you?

00:30:42 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, yeah, not a whole lot around Japan, but in Tokyo and I had a bit of a forced sabbatical because I lost my streaming phone.

00:30:47 John Daub: Oh, right. Yeah, his phone fell off of his motorcycle. Put you in the center here again.

00:30:57 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. So I had to wait until the new iPhone came out and then I had to wait for six weeks before it actually arrived. And so I had a long hiatus.

00:31:01 John Daub: Was it worth it? The 16? Well, I guess it was because you had nothing else, but—

00:31:11 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, well, it's—yeah, I haven't really had a deep dive test with it yet, but I will have a chance coming up soon.

00:31:22 John Daub: I decided to hold off on it and I decided to hold off on getting a new MacBook Pro too. It's like it's not enough of a change right now for me yet. They're real incremental now. Then they might not even do anything next year, they said.

00:31:30 Peter von Gomm: So no model change at all.

00:31:35 John Daub: So you're talking about sushi. So the first time you never had sushi when you were in the States?

00:31:42 Peter von Gomm: The first Japanese food that I really had was the first day I arrived in Japan. It was—I was in emergency session to replace an English teacher that was fired. So I got here in five weeks. It was the quickest that they brought anybody over back then. And I remember just the jet lag was really bad. From Kansai Airport, I get into Okayama. I wake up at 4am—I don't know what's going on. There are these English teachers that were at the training center and they took me to eat soba in the morning, which is weird. So that was my first Japanese food, which is really interesting. And there's this one guy, this Japanophile weirdo, wacko job—he would be a weeaboo. He knew like, oh, I know everything about Japan kind of guy. Yeah, he took us into the thing. He's ordering a Japanese soba. He told 200, trying to act big and tough. I was kind of impressed, I have to admit. But I thought he was still kind of like a D-bag, right? But I said, boy, this food is kind of plain, you know, I wasn't really impressed with it, but then it started to get into the richer dishes—tempura, katsudon, donburi, all sorts of stuff like that. Wagyu steak and teppanyaki, okonomiyaki. You could start to find where you fit into that. And then over time, over the next 25 years, I've gradually gravitated to some of the foods at the extreme palate sensations, like umeboshi and natto—

00:33:02 Peter von Gomm: And really miso—

00:33:05 John Daub: Okra.

00:33:06 Peter von Gomm: Right, right.

00:33:07 John Daub: Okra's not—why is it okra so sticky here? Because the okra I had back in the US is never like gooey, right?

00:33:14 Peter von Gomm: They call it, like, neba—neba—is that right?

00:33:17 John Daub: Gooey okra. Yeah.

00:33:18 Peter von Gomm: Like the natto, it has a stringy stuff that comes off of it. Yeah, it's—I have a similar experience. Most of my—my Japanese food experience was after coming here. However, Portland has quite a few, like a Benihana. And, you know, that's not really—

00:33:39 John Daub: Oh, yeah, we've had Benihana before, right? Yeah.

00:33:39 Peter von Gomm: But we sometimes go out for Japanese food. My dad was a big Japanophile and really into the foods and the culture, so we'd go out. But yeah, obviously the—the majority of the exposure has been here. You were talking about Japanese foods that you dislike.

00:34:14 John Daub: Right. Well, before you get into that—so you had more experience with Japanese cuisine also because you're on the West Coast, I think that had a lot to do with it. What were some of the Japanese foods you mentioned? Benihana. What else was there for you?

00:34:29 Peter von Gomm: This is before you—a long time ago.

00:34:31 John Daub: Yeah. Before you came, it was like onigiri was like wagyu—I don't think Wagyu was a thing 30 years ago.

00:34:37 Peter von Gomm: No, it was more like—like rice dishes, from what I remember.

00:34:40 John Daub: Yeah. And—

00:34:52 Peter von Gomm: Like tonkatsu or anything like that?

00:34:56 John Daub: It could be—it is slanted to keep the water from flying out. I guess the flooding would be more like it.

00:35:04 Peter von Gomm: So how much would it cost you to go walk through that fountain—

00:35:09 John Daub: No, I'm not gonna do it. No money. You don't have that kind of cash.

00:35:14 Peter von Gomm: I just went to the bank.

00:35:16 John Daub: All right. You are shorter—I guess it is the slope. You are shorter. Foods that we dislike. So what are the foods that you do like?

00:35:29 Peter von Gomm: Well, all of those you just mentioned. I love tonkatsu. I—

00:35:33 John Daub: They can deep fry stuff so much better here. I don't know why.

00:35:53 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, well, the trick is changing the oil. You gotta change that oil out often. And having clean oil is key to deep fried foods, I think. So tasting is good. I love sushi, of course, but I don't do sushi a lot because I like to treat it as an event. Like, if I go out for sushi, I want to go to a nice place.

00:35:56 John Daub: Make it special.

00:35:59 Peter von Gomm: But one thing I am not crazy about, which the Japanese are crazy about—and maybe you—you like it—it's like om rice.

00:36:06 John Daub: Ah, I got a picture of that. Yeah. Om rice.

00:36:11 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, there we go. For starters, I'm not crazy to have a bunch of ketchup on food. That's one. But also the om rice that the Japanese—omelette rice. Omu is like omelette. So the omelette rice that the Japanese prefer is—it's a rich, runny egg—

00:36:31 John Daub: It's not fully cooked through. Yeah.

00:36:36 Peter von Gomm: So it's like a runny omelette with rice stuffed inside. And—

00:36:36 John Daub: Yeah.

00:36:36 Peter von Gomm: I just don't go out of my way—I would eat it, but I don't go out of my way to order it. And there are specialty om rice—

00:36:43 John Daub: Oh, they're quite good. I'm surprised. What about, like, Hayashi rice or curry rice or any of the other—

00:36:51 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, I prefer—

00:36:52 John Daub: Right.

00:36:56 Peter von Gomm: It's that runny egg thing. That's a bit of a downer.

00:36:59 John Daub: The egg is so fluffy. And the way that they kind of take that omelette and go—yeah, it's kind of neat. There's different ways that it's prepared as well. I think sometimes chefs can get a little bit creative with it. But, yeah, it is a runny dish. I was amazed that you said that one, though, because there's so much worse stuff. Maybe it's ingredients, but—if you had to pick the worst food of Japanese cuisine, I would probably say this one here. Do you guys know what that is?

00:37:26 Peter von Gomm: It looks like maracas.

00:37:28 John Daub: No, it looks like—I thought it was like an animal heart. Because it looks like—like a heart. It's actually called Hoya, which is a sea squirt. And they eat this up in Iwate, Aomori, northern Miyagi, Fukushima, up there, maybe southern Hokkaido at this time of year, I believe. And I remember they—the guy brought it out the first—I didn't taste it for the first 10 years or something. Hoya and guy brought it out. He goes, oh, dude, you gotta try this—

00:38:17 Peter von Gomm: Oh, yeah.

00:38:19 John Daub: So we're drinking and I try like, oh, what the hell is this stuff? It tastes like poison. I thought he was poisoning me. I said, this tastes of poison—or what I would expect hitting the top of your palate. It's up there. It's like turning you into Joker—

00:38:48 Peter von Gomm: It's kind of like namako, which is sea slug.

00:38:52 John Daub: Yeah, those are—not very good.

00:38:58 Peter von Gomm: Too chewy and—no way.

00:39:00 John Daub: Yeah. This one seems to be a lot of the tourists—the one that they don't dislike the most here—this is natto. Fermented soybeans. It's a superfood, though, they call it, right?

00:39:09 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. I don't mind it. Put a little mustard on it and—

00:39:12 John Daub: But when you first got here, I think you did mind it, right? The smell and the texture and the look of it kind of gets almost every single Westerner who comes here. Natto is like a stay away. But there's something with the fermented foods, right? It grows on you. Palate-wise, taste-wise. Now you—we're both way off of camera. Okay? Come back here.

00:40:09 Peter von Gomm: Take a step back, and maybe the earth is spinning.

00:40:37 John Daub: Camera's okay. But my point is, like, I think the fermented foods really grow on you—like miso, the okra, the mountain potato that's all mushy. You ever go to like the—the hotel breakfast buffets—you get some rice and they always have like this a vat of mushed up like white stuff. And you're like, oh, what is that? That's that yama imo—yama imo. You dump that on there, it's like, oh, it looks like somebody just yacked all over my rice. And then you try it and it's like, it's real good with shoyu on there.

00:41:18 Peter von Gomm: One thing that I really loved when I first came to Japan and I've been looking for it ever since is—and it's called akebi—akabi—I think I'm saying that right. It is a fruit, a mountain fruit that it's—it's rare, it's hard to find. And when I first came here, I was here like only a month and this Japanese family kicked me out of the nest—

00:42:20 John Daub: Wife's family.

00:42:26 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, they—we were out and I think we were in around Nikko and they found this akebi—akabi—it's part purple and you like crack it open and inside is a white meat and it was so delicious. And I've been looking for it ever since.

00:43:00 John Daub: And I have something from Okinawa, something tropical or something—

00:43:05 Peter von Gomm: Right. But it's not—it's not tropical—it's like—it's like in the mountains of—of Honshu.

00:43:18 John Daub: All right. We got—trying to search out this thing here that's interesting. And I found a lot of weird stuff. You go to Okinawa, you find a lot of unusual things. I think that was emigrated from deep China that went tropicalized or something. Including the fish. There's some really interesting facts. I love eating in Okinawa because it's so different the cuisine than in—in the rest of Japan. They do—they do karaage chicken pretty good down there too. They do a lot of good stuff. But Okinawa cuisine certainly—I know there's some similarities to Hawaiian cuisine as well. I thought with the Spam and stuff. I think it has to do with the American occupation and all of the history in the last 75 years, for sure. What do you got here? Oh, you got a picture of it?

00:45:09 Peter von Gomm: I'm trying to find—I don't think that's it.

00:45:51 John Daub: Yeah, I've seen it before. You see it at certain—only in season—right. It's not something that you get imported. So it's—it's certainly only—

00:45:58 Peter von Gomm: And it's only in the mountains growing wild.

00:46:08 John Daub: But that reminds me of this time of year in autumn. There's one kind of like a flower fruit that I just absolutely love.

00:46:12 Peter von Gomm: Persimmon.

00:46:14 John Daub: I do like that. But I like what they do with it by drying them. And you get the hoshi gaki. What is that? What's called—right, Hoshi gaki, the dried—the dried cookies—

00:46:39 Peter von Gomm: Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah.

00:46:42 John Daub: They're like super sweet, almost like candy. You seen those? If you go out to, like Niigata in the countryside, they have these hoshi gaki on—just like sun drying sun, like dried fruit, right? And you rip it over—it's basically like candy. And sometimes they put a little bit of sugar on it. Just a little light sugar coating. You can't have too many of them. I'm sure it's healthy, right? It's got fiber and natural sugars. That's intensely sweet, though. This time of year—you can find it. Every supermarket has hoshigaki. But you got to get them from the countryside. Not the processed ones, you know?

00:47:56 Peter von Gomm: Right, right, yeah—the organic ones.

00:48:00 John Daub: So there's not really much that I disliked when I came here. I thought that soba—I'm an udon person over soba. I thought that the soba was kind of tasteless and boring buckwheat noodles. But it grew on me—it grew on me because you can put—you get tempura on the side, you can make it a little exciting.

00:48:29 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:48:30 John Daub: But when people get excited about soba, like, oh, I hear there's a good soba place down the street—I'm like, you know, yeah, soba's not exciting. I wish I had—like—yeah, yeah. I don't get excited about soba. What food—what Japanese food gets you excited?

00:48:43 Peter von Gomm: Tonkatsu.

00:48:45 John Daub: Tonkatsu, right? Yeah, yeah. Deep fried breaded pork. I—I don't know. Oyakodon would be the other—like, if we go donburi, katsudon gets me excited. Tonkatsu. So there's two, like, katsu dishes, right? There's the tonkatsu, which is the breaded pork cutlet on the side with a little bit of that Worcestershire soy sauce and rice. And miso soup usually has a teishoku set. Then there's—they put it on into a fry pan with the runny egg and the tare, and they boil that up and that sauce goes into the bread on the bed of rice and you have the katsudon. I get excited about that stuff. In fact, I took Irvin Irvine to one of my favorite places in Ginza, which remains a secret, although I think some people have discovered it. Irvin, did you tell anybody?

00:49:26 Peter von Gomm: I don't know who's watching. Tonkatsu. I think we win. Okasa.

00:49:31 John Daub: Yeah, I think I might have taken you there. It's cheap. The chef's been doing it for like 50 years. And it's a generous piece of pork cutlet on top of there. And you know, I didn't—I grew up not eating pork because my mom's from India. She's like, I don't make that. She made bacon, which is weird, but not the pork cutlets. And yeah, I found it—it's quite quite tasty.

00:50:21 Peter von Gomm: Well, there's some really good tonkatsu places in Tokyo that are—that are kind of like—you know, specialty tonkatsu shops. One of my favorites is called Butagumi which is in Nishi Azabu just down the street. If you go down the hill from Roppongi, Roppongi Hills and near the Tsutaya. No, no, no, no, no—no—that's a different direction. No, down the hill towards Nishi Azabu, towards Hiro if you're going good. Yeah, down the hill, down the hill—

00:50:38 John Daub: To Nishi—the Gonpachi. Yeah. The Kill Bill Restaurant. Tarantino is inspired by this restaurant in that area. There's a Hobson's ice cream—

00:50:50 Peter von Gomm: Exactly. Just—just near there on one of the side streets called Butagumi. The chef is a former French chef, I believe, and started this restaurant in this cool old Japanese style house. Old Japanese house—

00:51:36 John Daub: Interesting.

00:51:37 Peter von Gomm: And they have a menu, a big menu of pork from all over Japan. So you can choose like Kurobuta—Black—Yeah, yeah. So you choose—you choose it and then the—every day they have select number of a particular type of—of pork and you get a little number plate with it. It's really nice. Really. It's not cheap but it's—it's a really good place to go. Butagumi, check it out.

00:52:25 John Daub: I want to see—I've asked people a while ago to write in their list—the moderators—dude, can you guys see anything? Because I might—this was so long ago I asked for these lists here. If you—if you wouldn't mind saying again, I'll try to catch them here. Yeah. And in terms of the foods that I love, I can't—I don't think I really hate anything anymore. There's nothing that besides Goya that makes me go, I can't eat that—

00:53:15 Peter von Gomm: I don't like vinegar or Goya—

00:53:20 John Daub: Hoya, Hoya. I don't like vinegary dishes so much. That vinegar seaweed dish that always comes—

00:53:46 Peter von Gomm: In the breakfast, right? Right, right—

00:53:51 John Daub: That's sort of like regurgitated—like grossness. It smells—it's too—like—

00:54:01 Peter von Gomm: I know what you're talking about—

00:54:03 John Daub: Yeah, I don't like that stuff.

00:54:06 Peter von Gomm: It usually has like the sea grapes in it, right? Doesn't have—you know, those little sea grapes—

00:54:14 John Daub: Not the sea grapes, but it's like mushy seaweed and vinegar. It's like—just not good. These are pretty good. List of—list of your best—your list of your worst. It doesn't matter too much. I guess though—your best foods—here to see if we agree with it. Let's say positive because it's an election day or what—

00:54:48 Peter von Gomm: What Japanese food do you want to—

00:54:53 John Daub: What do you crave? It's funny though, because we didn't say ramen. Yeah, I—I would say like gyoza and ramen. I don't know. I really love it. Do you get excited about that as well? Which one would you get excited? Tonkatsu or tonkatsu over ramen? Yeah, me too. That's funny.

00:55:19 Peter von Gomm: I had ramen yesterday.

00:55:21 John Daub: The crispy meat. The crispy on the outside, the juicy meat on the inside. And that savory, tangy sauce. It's—

00:55:31 Peter von Gomm: I know where you're taking me for lunch.

00:55:35 John Daub: Really? It's—it's funny though that we didn't mention ramen.

00:55:40 Peter von Gomm: Well, but it's so common. Ramen's more common than the tonkatsu.

00:55:45 John Daub: Maybe that's why.

00:55:46 Peter von Gomm: Right?

00:55:47 John Daub: Yeah. You can get it just about anywhere. There's two—maybe it's—you know what it is? There's too many of them. You don't get excited because it's watered down—like not the ramen, but the industry's watered down. There's too many of them. Too many kinds of them. You have to pick one. I like karamiso negi ramen, which is as specific as you can get if you can find it. But not all the ramen shops have that. But it's not to the point where I—I crave it as I would like tonkatsu. It's interesting.

00:56:42 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:56:43 John Daub: I do like oyakodon, which is egg and chicken in an egg dish. I love karaage—deep fried chicken here. I love tempura—if it's done well, you know, well done tempura. I also think that the cuisine in different regions of Japan are quite—quite interesting. Hiroshima style okonomiyaki. I could go for that—

00:57:15 Peter von Gomm: That's a good—that's a good comparison.

00:57:18 John Daub: In China, it's called the fruit akebi is August melon. There we go—

00:57:24 Peter von Gomm: Akebi. Is that right? Did I get it right?

00:57:27 John Daub: The name Joy writes in here. Katsudon, gyoza, ramen, soba, curry. Worst is natto. Predictable. Predictable.

00:58:09 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:58:11 John Daub: Somebody ate their weight in sushi. I find that easy to believe. Sukemen as well. Wagyu is number one. Okonomiyaki—number two, kaisendon. Interesting. I would say that that's also pretty good—if you get a good one, curry, some good oyakodon. All right. That's a pretty good list here. So it gives you an idea of what people are thinking. Go ahead—I'm sorry to interrupt you—

00:58:40 Peter von Gomm: You're talking about okonomiyaki—yeah, the Hiroshima and the Kansai—

00:58:51 John Daub: Right?

00:58:52 Peter von Gomm: Versions. Osaka version—

00:58:55 John Daub: Osaka version.

00:58:57 Peter von Gomm: So a lot of people are like my wife, for example—she is adamant that we have to have the Hiroshima from Hiroshima. So they like to have the Hiroshima okonomiyaki, which has the noodles in it. You prefer that?

00:59:16 John Daub: The noodles? Yeah. It's harder to construct. If you go out to eat—no, if I eat at home, I like the Kansai version because it's easy to make—

00:59:27 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

00:59:28 John Daub: If I go out to eat, I want Hiroshima because it's harder to make and it's just tastier. And it feels more like an event where—if I could, I could make it so easily at home. I don't want to eat that when I go out so much—unless I'm like drinking with the boys or something. I really don't want to—yeah, I prefer that. And I'm—I have spent two years in Hiroshima, so I kind of have that as my soul food might be. I understand. Yeah. Your wife's from Hiroshima, so you got to eat that—

01:00:06 Peter von Gomm: This guard man behind us—ojisan walking by right now, right here, coming out of John's shoulder, there he is right there. Earlier, I was watching him, and he was playing guitar. Air guitar, like nobody was watching. Yeah, he's kind of like—what else?

01:00:38 John Daub: He's just walking around, the poor guy. This is some area known for artists, this area. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. When it comes down to, like, foods that we hate, I think, you know, natto and Hoya and like—soba. I wasn't really big into—there's foods that are boring here. What do you think about the New Year's foods? The food that they make you eat soba on the 31st to cleanse yourself—

01:01:08 Peter von Gomm: And then, yeah, ozoni, ozoni—

01:01:12 John Daub: I mean, it's good, but it's not like—it's so Japanese that there are special foods that you have to eat. The black beans—you have to eat a certain amount of beans—

01:01:33 Peter von Gomm: You know how they make those black beans?

01:01:36 John Daub: I don't know.

01:01:36 Peter von Gomm: They put some tetsu, some steel in the pot and that—a little chunk, like it could be a nail or something. And that makes these black beans really, really deep black and shiny—

01:01:49 John Daub: Interesting, right?

01:01:50 Peter von Gomm: So, yeah—

01:01:52 John Daub: Ancient Japanese secret.

01:01:54 Peter von Gomm: Ancient Japanese secret. And that they're difficult to make—

01:02:00 John Daub: Well, you're moving out of the side again. Why'd you move?

01:02:06 Peter von Gomm: I'm telling you, it's because of this mist—

01:02:10 John Daub: Oh, my God.

01:02:11 Peter von Gomm: Getting wet—

01:02:16 John Daub: It's raining. You lightweight. Hello over there. Can't handle it—

01:02:26 Peter von Gomm: Well, it's like we're at Viagra Falls—

01:02:30 John Daub: Oh, the wind changed—

01:02:35 Peter von Gomm: Here, I'll hold that. Yeah. Let's go on the other side of the fountain—

01:02:41 John Daub: Okay.

01:02:42 Peter von Gomm: Come on—

01:02:45 John Daub: Where are you?

01:02:50 Peter von Gomm: Oh, there he is—

01:02:53 John Daub: Let's come by this pole here. Maybe just stay at a people position. Yeah, we can wrap this up. I think we're—

01:03:05 Peter von Gomm: Yeah.

01:03:06 John Daub: Come to the end. Was there anything you guys wanted to ask? PBG? It's been a while—

01:03:16 Peter von Gomm: No. Okay.

01:03:18 John Daub: See you guys. No. Okay. That's it. What? Oden is delicious in the winter. That's the thing, you know, I think it's really hard if you're talking about Japanese foods—a lot of it has—has evolved. The longer we're here, the more we start to like just about everything. But we also see the differences in the food based on the seasonality of it and the location. So there's certain foods that are famous in certain areas at certain times of the year, which makes it complicated because—like, have you ever tried kiritampo, the dish from Akita of the—the rice sounds familiar—they're like rice dumplings that are—are cooked in—

01:04:14 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, yeah—

01:04:15 John Daub: Fire. And then they're thrown into soup. That's so good. Well, you can't—you're going out of the video again. Sorry, sorry—

01:04:28 Peter von Gomm: I got ants in my pants. So—yeah, somebody mentioned the oden, which actually—you can get it like the conbini. Right over here. 7-Eleven. When the winter fall comes along—

01:04:45 John Daub: They took away the vats that you could pick. Yeah—you know, the—you can't do that anymore. Really? Yeah, because of some sort of—

01:04:56 Peter von Gomm: They serve it themselves now?

01:04:57 John Daub: No, they have it in a bag that they microwave or something—

01:05:00 Peter von Gomm: That's no good.

01:05:01 John Daub: Not the same. And then they used to be a big—dump it into the—

01:05:07 Peter von Gomm: A big pot that they would—it was constantly simmering. Yeah, simmering in there—

01:05:13 John Daub: I guess it was like a sanitation issue or something—

01:05:16 Peter von Gomm: I could see that—

01:05:18 John Daub: Maybe—maybe they'll bring it back. Could have been because of the—you know what, over the last five years, four years—but no—what—

01:05:30 Peter von Gomm: Oh, that—speaking of that, on a—a somber note, I just wanted to—some—some of you watching may have seen on my channel a video I did about my friend Endo-san, who is a Bruce Lee fan. So I did a story about him. He was the composer of Bruce Lee's—one of the Bruce Lee movies. He passed away. I got an email from a friend of his a couple days ago and I didn't realize it, but he had passed away in July. So—sorry, Endo-san. I said Endo-san. Really, really interesting guy. And I'm sad to hear that. Yeah—

01:06:15 John Daub: So what did he like to eat? Since it's about food? How'd you get this? Well, I guess question is a question about PBG though—

01:06:35 Peter von Gomm: We had a custom Bruce Lee cake made, so he loves cakes. So we brought a cake to his studio. He had a studio. That's how I first met him. I recorded at his studio and really, really interesting guy. A big otaku had lots of like fake guns—you know that some collectors have. Japanese people have fake guns—

01:07:00 John Daub: I've noticed that the old timers—

01:07:02 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, yeah—they like these old—

01:07:04 John Daub: Those are the toys they had when they were kids. Right. You don't see that anymore in the Japanese toy stores, but guns used to—

01:07:10 Peter von Gomm: Be real big, real looking. I mean, very authentic, very realistic—

01:07:14 John Daub: Like the Nintendo—do you remember the Nintendo PlayStation? We had the Nintendo NES that came out the game Duck Hunt. The guns in the Japanese market were different than the guns in the US market. The US ones looked like a laser zapper. In the US it looked like a—like a—like a Colt .45, like a revolver. Real—

01:07:33 Peter von Gomm: Wow—

01:07:34 John Daub: Wow. That was pretty amazing. That's pretty interesting. Matt Alt told me about it when we went up—I did an episode on it. If you haven't seen it on Japanese toys, 1960s to 2000s or something, it's pretty fascinating stuff. Different markets, different—different tastes and toys and in foods. But yeah, go check out his channel. It's called Peter Von Gom Japan. Yes, please. He's very, very famous for taking—taking you to motor shows, right?

01:08:01 Peter von Gomm: Yep. Motorcycle and car shows—

01:08:05 John Daub: There's a lot about the Gastons and the gaskets and the gas cans. Gas cans. And if you want to see us getting into trouble, we've got a Hokkaido series where we rode a motorcycle around for five days and then in an RV for five days and got a little bit of trouble. At least one of us did—

01:08:23 Peter von Gomm: A little bit of trouble—

01:08:25 John Daub: But we made it back—

01:08:26 Peter von Gomm: A little bit trouble. Yeah. Made it back—

01:08:28 John Daub: I might have fallen off the motorcycle a couple of times—

01:08:31 Peter von Gomm: No, I don't remember that—

01:08:34 John Daub: Maybe a few times. The only thing hurt was my ego, which thankfully is small and easy to crush—

01:08:40 Peter von Gomm: Yeah—

01:08:41 John Daub: But I hope that everybody stays positive out there. You know, I know it's—50% of the people in the US are going to feel hurt today and tomorrow—

01:08:48 Peter von Gomm: You just had to bring that up, didn't you?

01:08:51 John Daub: Well, I think it—I think it's indicative of the times. And 50% are not. And look, at the end of the—

01:08:56 Peter von Gomm: Day, we're all Americans, so let's everybody—

01:08:59 John Daub: I think, Joy—we all just get along. Yeah, we all—yeah. It's an important election and nothing really—what I've noticed is the next day is just fine. Like, do people think that the earth's going to crumble if this person or that person—is—It's always pretty good. And then four years later, the Super Bowl. Yeah. Four years later you get another shot at—at liking it. But I was—this was maybe the most like, I don't know—really ate at me, huh? Yeah, yeah, really ate at me. Especially the celebrity endorsements and stuff which got—got into me. Everybody had to express their opinions—

01:09:35 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. It definitely took a—took on a life of its own—

01:09:40 John Daub: Yeah—

01:09:40 Peter von Gomm: So best of luck to each and every one of you guys watching and thanks for having me along today. I appreciate the donuts. We didn't eat the Pokeball—

01:09:50 John Daub: Probably for better. You want—you want to eat the Pokeball?

01:09:53 Peter von Gomm: Maybe you should bring that home. What's that sticking out of there?

01:09:57 John Daub: I don't know. You want this caramel one?

01:10:02 Peter von Gomm: I bet you Leo would enjoy a Pokeball—

01:10:05 John Daub: Maybe he doesn't know what they are. He hasn't gotten into Pokemon yet. Do you want—do you want it?

01:10:10 Peter von Gomm: No, thank you. I'm all right. Yeah—

01:10:15 John Daub: So—but I would say that none of them were our favorites—

01:10:19 Peter von Gomm: Yeah. Like I said, it's—am I right or am I right? They all kind of taste the same. It has—whether it's chocolate or if it's orange or yellow or whatever, it's all the same flavor and it's just—it's—it's waxy and it's not really high end tasting donuts. And I love donuts, so I don't go to Mr. Dough. That's what they call it—Mr. Donuts—

01:10:37 John Daub: That's right—

01:10:37 Peter von Gomm: I don't go there very often—

01:10:39 John Daub: I don't go there very—I like the weird stuff. The chestnut ones are pretty good, but it's mostly—not a lot of hits these days. I think it's the waxiness of it. But—

01:10:47 Peter von Gomm: But I had a great donut yesterday, which I—I often go to—it's called Dumbo Donuts—

01:10:53 John Daub: Oh, I heard about the new ones. Yeah, there's a lot of really stylish ones coming out there—

01:10:58 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, some good ones. Mori Donuts in Kagurazaka is great—

01:11:01 John Daub: Is that the one you took me there? Yeah. Those are really good. Yeah, those are really good—

01:11:05 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, those are good. Like American style cake donuts, like—

01:11:10 John Daub: Pay for that though—

01:11:11 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, you pay for your gut. Yeah, your gut pays—

01:11:14 John Daub: No, I'm talking also the—they cost like three times the price. But I think maybe four times the pleasure though—

01:11:20 Peter von Gomm: Yeah, for sure—

01:11:21 John Daub: For sure. You have to think about that. All right, everybody, I'll see you in another live stream. Let's end this here. It's almost an hour here. Take care. Don't worry about everything. Tomorrow is going to come and I'll probably be back with another live stream. I'm planning to go tomorrow to the Tama region of Tokyo out into the west. Maybe I'll take you with me. I got to do a couple of videos in a wasabi field for the main channel, which is interesting. I didn't know they had wasabi in western Tokyo, but I didn't know either—

01:11:49 Peter von Gomm: Mitake is cool—

01:11:51 John Daub: It's great hiking. Hike up—

01:11:54 Peter von Gomm: Okama. It's just on the border of Tokyo—

01:11:58 John Daub: Have you take the cable car up to the top there? Yeah, I'm going to do that tomorrow if we can, and a couple of sake breweries and then call it a day. And if I have some time, I'll take you with me. So don't forget to subscribe. And if you're a Motorhead or just want some—some fun and see this live streams—

01:12:20 Peter von Gomm: On the motorcycle here in Tokyo. Yep—

01:12:23 John Daub: He's working his way to 100,000 subs, right?

01:12:26 Peter von Gomm: Close to 50—

01:12:27 John Daub: Closer to 50. But hey, it all tumbles from there—

01:12:31 Peter von Gomm: Right? So just—my target is 1 million. So I need 950,000 of you to subscribe—

01:12:39 John Daub: Yeah. There you go. All right. Take care—

01:12:42 Peter von Gomm: It's long—

01:12:43 John Daub: Look at the bouquet we get. Nice—

01:12:47 Peter von Gomm: What's behind me? Oh, brown wall—brown walled by—