Hello everyone! I hope you all had a rocking 2018!
We had some pretty incredible shows through the year. We were all kept very busy, especially through the summer and we’re always excited to see people from all over coming back to see us again! Whether you’re a regular with us or a new customer checking things out, we’re glad to have you stopping by and finding whatever book or game or anything else you were looking to pick up from us. We’ve seen so many faces over the course of the year it’s amazing to see so many different people from different places, near and far. There’s few parts of the globe we don’t run into at least someone hailing from and it’s always cool to hear about that. Did you know most of our staff has travelled to far more than just Japan? It’s true! Our regular travel is also part of why we accept most foreign currencies if you’re purchasing from us. We might be heading there, or we can at least exchange it easily so you don’t have to.
So on to the food! Have you ever been to Montréal? They have some excellent food options available. This was taken at the Montréal Pool Room. They’re famous for having some of the finest hot dogs around, and the poutine is delicious. Grab a bite!
One of our favorite pizza places is mostly available in the south, and it’s called Hungry Howie’s. With some delicious toppings and absolutely delectable crust flavors, we always seem to go back when there’s one in our area- not always easy, since they’re pretty scattered through the southern part of the US! Mostly available in Louisiana, but we’ve run across them near Nashville, TN and in San Antonio, TX as well. Delicious!
We don’t always eat at fast food places, but when we do it doesn’t hurt to have a good (or amusing) atmosphere. Check out this KFC in the Atlanta, GA area that looks like a chicken. It’s a chicken, I tell you, a giant chicken!
Our favorite wings are at Quaker Steak & Lube. A Pennsylvania staple, it’s everything that B-dubs wishes it could be. Their wing sauces are numerous, delicious and number over two dozen, plus their monthly special sauces. They had a phenomenal one last year called butterscotch barbeque that I truly hope returns on the regular menu- it was amazing! Give them a try if you’re near one, you’ll be happy you did.
There are of course dozens of other places we’ve tried and more we intend to visit in the coming year! That’s all for now but we’ll have some more updates, food and otherwise, in the foreseeable future. Really. No more 3 year delays. I swear.
In the meantime, be sure to check out our social media and follow for updates on where we’ll be and what’s currently going on! Looking for something specific? Ask! We are always happy to see what we can do for our customers. Hope to see you this year as we go into 2019!
This article was brought to you by the letter H, and written by our very own @kortir
I can’t believe it’s been almost a year, but we’ve had some juggling of staff and a lot going on, and as usual the poor blog is what gets the least amount of love as a result. But now that we have some new faces on board, let’s go update the food blog that is the main part of our site! This is @Kortir this time with the write up, because the writing bug hit me at 3am of all things.
Fortunately Ohio this year wasn’t nearly as cold as it seems to have been last year, and so much the better for it. That isn’t to say it wasn’t cold, because it WAS, but there weren’t any flight delays or massive piles of snow dumped on our heads and the temperatures stayed above zero, so that’s improvement right there! The van still turned white from all the road salt this year again though, so some things stay the same.
I actually started early with the food, stopping at a Sheetz on the way and deciding that what I needed at 10 in the morning was The Big Mozz, a delicious burger they came up with that has mozzarella cheese sticks, provolone and marinara on board, and probably all sorts of terrible for me. I’ll probably have one again next time I’m heading that way.
Thursday night we finished setup fairly late, our restock made sorting take some serious time so we found a Quaker Steak and Lube to eat at. Always a solid place, we enjoyed chowing down on some wings done right and made plans for our other two nights, both locations featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.
The first was a grilled cheese bar called Melt. I had Parma, Italy, and it was divine. You can tell the bread is homemade, and the sandwiches are so big it’s hard to actually eat the fries along with it. We were all very full, very tired and very satisfied at the end of it, and waddled our way back to the van. Next time, I hope we can do this without the rain.
The second was a return to Schmidt’s, the traditional Ohayocon visit to a German restaurant that just can’t be beat. The wait was a little on the long side, but well worth it for all you can eat sausage and cream puffs the size of a large plate in diameter. Seriously, these things were huge. No pictures because we were so hungry we ate everything before anyone thought about taking pictures. Just #CleanPlateClub for us!
Most of the rest of the weekend was fun, silliness, meeting some Twitter denizens in the real life, and hearing the dulcet tones of at least one person playing “Pocket Mortys” in our off times. Rick and Morty is kind of the fad right now.
Thanks Ohayocon, for being a fun convention- we’ll be back!
Time to end this here, but I’ll come up with something more to say for Katsucon.
Hey guys! Katsucon wasn’t too long ago and now you get to hear about it!
This show is a favorite for us because we get to see a lot of people that we really enjoy just hanging out with. This is also the show where the dreaded Otakon sign-ups, also known as WHY ARE YOU PUNCHING MY FACE TO GET A BETTER SPOT IN LINE, takes place. We also had a few weather related issues that kept staff from getting there in a timely manner, but that’s alright!
CURSE YOU WEATHER……CURSE YOU OTAKON……CURSE YOU ZELDA….wait.
After many zany adventures with American Airlines, full of madness, spite, and a hate I have never known, all of us finally made it to Katsucon in a MOSTLY timely manner, DESPITE the cold snowy weather. Though we were met with cookies and delicious alcohol brownies made by our good friends Barry and Bob! Bribing us with food is the easiest way to our hearts.
They may LOOK ordinary, but dear god are these things good.
We also got some good dinner and good food with a lot of good people at McCormick & Schmick’s, a nice fancy restaurant we happen to enjoy! Everyone had a good time, with jokes and stories, brushing hair, painting nails, and…look everyone had a good time ok?
A few of our favorite people! Not pictured: our other favorite people!
On a side note, the Otakon sign-ups ended up being a lottery system, so less people got punched over getting their favorite spots. Efficient, and less hurtful, I can get behind that!
After a weekend full of travel delays, crazy weather, and awesome people, I got on the plane to see this guy staring into my soul.
“Hello, I’ll be your guide to madness as I stare into what’s left of your psyche. Welcome aboard!”
First off, sorry about the delay in the post, a few staff members have been moving around, and between packing boxes, juggling schedules, and the Seahawks winning, a few things got overlooked! We’ll try to be more punctual from now on!
So Ohayocon. Let me first say it was the coldest convention we’ve ever been to!
Winter wonderland, until you realize that there are at least 45 dead yoko cosplayers out there underneath that white snow.
Temperatures in the single digits, and wind chills in the negative teens. Yeah. COLD doesn’t begin to describe it.
Trust me, however warm this guy was inside, the minute he stepped outside he became a frozen, nutritious, horseicle.
Other than the crippling cold, it was a great time had by all, and many a delicious foods were eaten. There was one thing however, that was pretty much constant through out the weekend. Caramel, peanut butter, and chocolate all lumped into one piece of popcorn. This unholy trinity of deliciousness was readily available in a shop downstairs for mere DOLLARS.
Crack, but cheaper, more delicious and you only have to inject it directly into your femoral artery once, while simultaneously shoving as much in your mouth as possible. I may not know how crack works.
Despite Columbus being the cold callous heart of the arctic “polar vortex”, it is home to many distinct restaurants. One particular tradition for us is a place called Schmidt’s, a German restaurant that’s been around since 1886, and hasn’t really changed anything on its menu in that time.
So much food. That’s all we really do here at Hen Da Ne according to some. We just sell doujin to fund our food habits. I’m here to tell you right now, that is entirely and utterly true. It’s all we live for. What delicious thing will enter our tummies next?
Ohayocon was great, and we loved every minute spent INSIDE with all the attendees.
Till Katsucon, and our reports of more food, and good friends!
I figure since we go to Japan so often, we’d cover only a few different points, so we’d always have something different to talk about each time! So here we go!
I have to say going to Japan, one of the things we all look forward to the most is the food. Anyone of you who know Andrew also know his love of all things delicious, so it is here that we find some of most delicious things! Take this for instance:
This is katsudon and it is DELICIOUS, and a tradition for myself and Andrew. We usually have it the first night we’re in Japan, right after checking into hotel. We got to share this tradition with Sam (who some may know on the twitter as Regris_Kallen) and he thought it was pretty good too.
Another one of the dishes that keep us going while scouring every shop we can. GoGo Curry is definitely a place we frequent, and can fill our stomachs with breaded pork and curry of rice of every size. There’s even a 2.5kg challenge in which they serve you 5 POUNDS of food and challenge you to finish in half an hour.
Hendane Horse even tried this once, and failed. It was amazing to watch though.
Let’s move on from food for a moment though, as I can’t forget to mention the two main reasons for this trip. Comiket 85, and New Years Day.
Let’s start with C85.
This is one of EIGHT halls designed almost exclusively for Comiket. Welcome to Tokyo Big Sight.
Imagine waiting in line for 4 hours, behind thousands upon thousands of other people who got there earlier, or even the night before,, in the cold (or hot if it’s summer), mapping out your route to get to all the artists you want to see and buy from, all the while praying that you won’t get to them before they sell out. That is Comiket. All the craze of the most crowded Black Friday mall opening, times a a couple hundred thousand people. Why do we do this? Why subject ourselves to this insanity? Well, simply put, it’s a blast, and an experience like no other. With hundreds of big name artists that change out every day, scores of pro cosplayers, and enough doujinshi, games, cds, tapestries, and everything in between to fill SEVERAL suitcases, we’ll struggle to see half of all this. This goes on for 3 days, while we search out the very best products, and then bring it all back for you guys.
The pain is all worth it. Suck it up man!
After this frenzy, we also like to relax, which brings us to the second major part of the trip. New Years Celebrations! On January 1st, we head on out of Tokyo proper to Kamakura, with its combination of temples, shrines, stores and festivals. This place has it all. The first place we go here is Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū, the Shinto Shrine in the center of the city. We make a prayer here for good fortune and luck for the year.
Along with pretty much everyone else within 1000 miles.
After saying our prayers, we fill ourselves with festival food, see the sights, and generally have fun the whole day! I highly suggest if you go anywhere for the New Years, it’s here.
Before I get rambling on about a million other things, we’ll bring this entry to a close, with what can only be described as the best.
THIS.
It’s EXACTLY what it looks like.
This is from Honey Toast Cafe. As you likely guessed, Honey Toast is a small square loaf of bread, hollowed out, then filled back in with even smaller cubes of bread, doused in honey. Cover it with ice cream, chocolate, berry, maple, or any combination of different things, and this is what you get. In addition to having these, the cafe also has honey drinks, desserts (and no the Honey Toast ISN’T the only dessert here), and a few sweet flavored entrees. I miss it already.
Next up for us, YUKICON Finland, and OHAYOCON 2014!
In the meantime, I leave you with this image that describes Andrew’s love of Honey Toast, and well, all food really.
