Curiously Carmen

Eggslut Las Vegas

Eggslut is a quick serve restaurant whose name I have heard tossed around many times from friends travelling to Las Vegas or Los Angeles!

Well, we needed to see what the hype was about and paid a visit during our trip to Las Vegas!

Eggslut is located inside the Cosmopolitan Hotel on the Las Vegas strip. We came prepared to wait, as the online reviews has warned us. The line was not too bad and moved pretty quickly though.

In total, we waited around 20 minutes on a weekday around 11:30am until we were able to order and pay. Then, we waited an additional 20 minutes for the kitchen to prepare the food. You can see from this picture how busy it is!

Fresh orange juice: I was feeling thirsty from all the junk I ate the previous evening, so I decided to try the orange juice. You could tell it was freshly squeezed and it was delicious, albeit pricey.

Sausage, egg, cheese: I had my eyes on the sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich. I liked that it was made with turkey sausage!

My breakfast sandwich was delicious and I can see why people line up for this! The sandwich was a perfect harmony with the gooey poached egg, cheese, turkey sausage, and sauce. The brioche bun was very fresh too.

Bacon: The fiance ordered the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. He enjoyed his breakfast sandwich and had no complaints about it either.

All in all, we enjoyed Eggslut. The total wait (20 min to order, 20 min for food) was reasonable and worth it, but we probably wouldn’t want to wait any longer. This comes from two people who hate waiting in line for any restaurant so take it with a grain of salt. 

Also, maybe we are just big eaters but we didn’t feel full from one breakfast sandwich each. We should have gotten two breakfast sandwiches each instead!

Eggslut Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Travel: An afternoon in Kamakura, Japan

On one of our days in Tokyo, we wandered out of the hustling city center and visited the small seaside city of Kamakura for the day. We actually weren’t planning on coming here, nor have we even heard of Kamakura, but our friend offered to take us around since he grew up near here!

Kamakura is about 1.5 hour away from Tokyo via the subway. We arrived around 12pm and spent about 5 hours there. It was a good amount of time for us to check out the main sights.

Here is an itinerary of our afternoon spent! Hopefully this will help you plan an afternoon there too.

Lunch: Even though Kamakura is a smaller city, there were plenty of restaurants to pick from. For lunch, I would recommend eating shirasu don- tiny, sardine like fish. They are a Kamakura speciality and are caught locally, so it is super fresh!

You can have shirasu cooked or raw. Our friend prefers it cooked, so we listened to his expert local advice and loved it! It is a plain and simple dish but full of savoury flavour. There is a bit of egg and onion as well. 

Many restaurants offer shirasu-don since it is a Kamakura specialty. There are usually picture stands posted outside restaurants, so just pop in and try it. 

Elevated walkway to 
the Tsurugaoka Hachimangū, with traffic on both sides

After lunch, start making your way slowly to the Tsurugaoka Hachimangū shrine. There is a nice, elevated pathway to walk along leading directly to the shrine.

Our friend told us that it’s really beautiful during the cherry blossom season!

Tsurugaoka Hachimangū: This is the main shrine in Kamakura and probably the reason why you’d like to visit! Spend some time walking around the shrine, there is also a pond and other small areas to check out. 

Hōkoku-ji bamboo forest: This is about a 15-20, non-uphill walk from the shrine. The sidewalks are a bit narrow so you will have to walk single file, but traffic is very calm and reserved. There is also a small entrance fee of about 300 yen, or 500 yen for green tea & a cookie. 

I really enjoyed the bamboo forest. There are different pathways and also other greenery in the forest.

It was calm, quiet and a nice nature break from the city landscape of Tokyo (which I loved btw). 

After spending about a hour here, we took the bus to Kamakura station (or you can also walk but our feet were sore) and then the train to Yuigahama station, the coastal part of Kamakura next to the Pacific Ocean.   

Kamakura Matsubaraan: This is a quaint little restaurant specializing in fresh soba noodles. It gets quite popular and usually you need a reservation. Since we were still full from lunch, we went to their cafe instead. Our friend ordered delicious scones, the boyfriend had a coffee, and I enjoyed some apple juice. 

Yuigihama Beach: A quick, five minute walk and you will see Yuguihama Beach. Since it was their winter season, there weren’t many people but apparently in the summer, it gets quite busy here. 

We came at the perfect time: sunset (about 4 pm). It was so beautiful and the waves were so calming. I wish we could have stayed longer and walked along the beach more, but the Big Buddha park closes at 5 so we were on our way.

Big Buddha: This is probably the second most popular attraction in Kamakura, next to the temple. The Big Buddha is probably about a 7 minute walk from the beach. There is a small entrance fee for this as well. They close at 5pm so be sure to get there by 4:30pm!

So, there was our few hours in Kamakura! I really enjoyed Kamakura and thought 5 hours was a suitable amount of time. It was a nice change of pace and we got to enjoy some cultural and historic aspects of Japan. 

Travel: Tokyo Eats – Part 3/3

Woohoo! Part 3/3, the final post of my favourite restaurants in Tokyo! Have you been to any of these places?

Yakitori: We stumbled upon this small bar in Shinjuku outside of Memory Lane that probably fits about 10 people, and had such delicious yakitori. Unfortunately, there isn’t an English name for it nor do I remember the exact location. I’m kicking myself for not taking a photo of the entrance like I usually (always?!) do… ugh!

Near the end of our trip, we tried to go back because it was so delicious but couldn’t retrace our steps. 🙁 You’re probably wondering why I’m even posting this if I can’t remember the name? It’s because I like to look back on all my posts as memories, so I want to see this when I look back on my trip.

Kagurazaka Kurikoan: In part 2, I shared a taiyaki stand that we randomly came across in Akihabara, Akihabara Kurikoan. It was our first time trying taiyaki, and we fell in love with the taste so much that the next day, the boyfriend researched some places and came across Kagurazaka Kurikoan! It is a small cafe bursting with many different taiyaki flavours.

Compared to the first place, Kagurazaka Kurikoan had a lot more filling. We tried the regular custard, matcha, and cookies and cream. My favourite was the custard. It was so rich and creamy!

Menya Musashi: This was a ramen place in Shinjuku. Ramen and my sensitive stomach does not sit well, so I opted out while the boyfriend went for a quick lunch. He tried the Musashi ramen which is a combination of chicken, pork and bonito broth which was delicious.

Shin Udon: This is a small little place in Shinjuku, hidden from the main and busy area. They make their udon fresh here and it did not disappoint! The boyfriend’s chilled udon was very unique. It came with some citrus peels (?) which added depth to the chilled udon and beef. I ordered the normal soup udon and it was full of umami flavour.

Tsurotontan Udon: The second udon place we tried, and last meal in Tokyo. Both of my local friends recommened this udon place, so we went to the location at Haneda Airport before our flight back home! I was quite shocked to see people line up for an airport restaurant. However, this udon was spectacular! They had pretty unique types such as the duck meat udon (so delicious), chilled udon with spicy cod roe, egg swirl udon, and more!

Yummm! I know I’ll be looking back at these posts and be drooling over all the delicious food I ate. Until next time Japan, you won’t be able to get rid of us!

Travel: Tokyo Eats – Part 2/3

Continuing on our food adventures in Tokyo, Japan! Funny story, I was only going to do two parts… but then I showed the boyfriend, and he kept bringing up other restaurants I didn’t talk about. So two became three! This isn’t even all of the restaurants we ate at in the 8 days. Come to Tokyo with a hungry stomach!

Hakushu Teppanyaki: OMG, Kobe beef. This was our one major restaurant splurge… we both did not want to leave without trying Kobe beef. We were worried that we couldn’t get in without a reso, but luckily the owners squeezed us in the same night.

The Kobe beef was life changing… I’ve never had such amazing steak before. So incredibly soft, and buttery.. we were on a steak high for the rest of the evening. We thought the bread was a bit strange, but it is used to soak up the precious Kobe beef juice so you can enjoy that after the steak. Highly recommend having Kobe beef at least once in your life!

Sushi Zanmai: This is yet another chain in Tokyo, and personally, my favourite nigiri sushi of the trip! We went to two different locations, in Shinjuku and Shinokubo, but I liked the one by Shinokubo more. I’ve never had such amazing and fresh salmon nigiri in my life… for only 100 yen which is $1.15 CAD!

They also had really good fatty tuna. This is more of a sit down restaurant where you order. It was also really cool to watch the sushi chefs make our nigiri. They do it so fast and artfully!

Sutameshi: This was one of the restaurants that we randomly stumbled across, and turned out to be really delicious! The one we went to was on the second floor of a building in Akihabara.

Japanese people love their hamburger steak, which is essentially a hamburger patty with a side of rice and sauce. I couldn’t leave without trying one, and it was so good! The patty was simple but juicy, and the curry sauce went well with it.

The boyfriend ordered a fried chicken bowl and it was so good as well. It had a very strong garlic flavour, like deep fried garlic chicken.

Daily Chico: Eight. Layer. Soft. Serve. Need I say more?! We came here on the last day following a recommendation from a friend. It is unassumingly located in the basement of Nakano Broadway.

The flavours change often, but the 8 eight flavours we had that day were: vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, coffee, chestnut, grape, green tea, and soda pop lemonade.

Akihabara Kurikoan: Going to Akihabara was full of pleasant food discoveries! A couple of hours after having lunch at Sutameshi (see above), we randomly saw a stand that served taiyaki. Actually, we spotted it because we wanted matcha soft serve. At the last minute, the boyfriend decided to also try their taiyaki since most people were ordering that.

Well, it was a wonderful decision on his part because it was delicious! Surprisingly, we both have never tried taiyaki before. The matcha ice cream in Tokyo has a more natural and earthy flavour, so don’t be expecting the highly sweetened matcha from Starbucks. Both the soft serve and taiyaki were delicious, and this spontaneous decision led us to source out other taiyaki places on the remaining days of our trip.

Travel: Tokyo Eats – Part 1/3

After 5.5 years of talking about our dream trip to Tokyo, the boyfriend and I finally brought our dream to fruition this past week! It was surreal being back in Tokyo for the second time and I can easily say that it is my favourite city in the world. We stayed a total of 8 full days, plus 2 half days for travelling.

In these 8 days, we ate a lot and did not come across a single meal that we didn’t like! Here are some of the restaurants/chains that we visited, and I would recommend giving a try. I’m not going to list every single restaurant we ate at because the post would be way too long!
7-11: Our trip started with 7-11 food – yes, you heard that right! The 7-11 convenience stores in Japan are nothing like the greasy junk food served in Canada/USA. They have everything ranging from onigiri, salad, udon bowls, curry rice bowls, steamed dumplings, ice cream…. and more!

The go-to was the onigiri, which was approximately $1-2 CAD each depending on flavour. These are great to store in your bag for the day, and I bought a couple to snack on before going to Tokyo Disneysea as well.

Sukiya: Sukiya is a major quick meal chain in Tokyo. I saw a Sukiya every few blocks or so in Shinjuku! They specialize in beef rice bowls, aka gyudon. I came in here not knowing what to expect, but I actually really enjoyed it.

It is a very filling rice bowl, with lots of sweet, seasoned beef, and mayo. They also added some small pieces of sour, preserved veggies to balance it out.

The total cost was about $7 CAD for a delicious and super big meal. It is very popular during the lunch rush, where you can see lots of salarymen enjoying a quick lunch before going back to work.

A Happy Pancake: I have more of a savoury tooth than a sweet tooth, but A Happy Pancake was definitely on our radar! We went to the Harujuku location and waited for about 20 minutes around 2pm. They are known for their incredibly fluffy and thick Japanese pancakes!

Each pancake is freshly made and there is a window where you can see them making it. The pancakes definitely did not disappoint. I have yet to see something like this in Vancouver, so you should definitely give them a try while in Tokyo.:

Matsunoya: Matsunoya is another chain restaurant, although I did not see it around as much as Sukiya. We passed by one of the Matsunoya locations every day on the way to the subway, and decided to finally try it. They serve gyudon as well, but seem to specialize in katsu aka fried meat.

We ordered both the pork and chicken katsu to compare, and they were both delicious! Very crispy and the curry sauce was delicious as well. Matsunoya was also pretty cheap!

Kaisen Misakiko: We visited this sushi conveyor belt restaurant in Tokyo Dome City for lunch! It was reasonably priced and our favourite nigiri were the different types of tuna.

There are two layers of conveyor belts. The bottom belt offers the standard nigiri. The top belt has the nigiri that you specially order on the iPad and comes delivered on a shinkansen style plate, how cute! The colour of the plate corresponds to the price – usually, there are about 5 different plate colours at a restaurant.

Well, there’s part 1! Stay tuned for part 2!