NOKA, Roast and Grill, Intercontinental Osaka, Osaka, Japan

If you are kind enough to follow this occasionally-updating blog, my preferred hotel franchises are Hilton/Conrad and Accor/Sofitel, but, as my credit card company decided to terminate benefit with Accor group, this will end by the next year; as Accor group is so kind enough to sustain my preferred level towards the end of next year, despite of termination of benefit agreement with that credit card.  In any cases, it is unlikely to feature IHG hotels so many occasions this year, simply because those are not my choice.

Intercontinental Osaka

is a north-end part of Grand Front Osaka, relatively new complex next to north entrances of JR Osaka station, connected by overbridge, so it may take 5 minutes from north entrance by walk; no umbrella required.

NOKA 

is located in 20th floor, where check-in lobby and bar are also located, to serve all-day dining, from breakfast to lunch and dinner by buffet and grill, which means we can also enjoy omelette at breakfast, as well as grill dishes at lunch and dinner.

At breakfast, subject to your arrangement, once you are guided to your table, then staff should ask for a egg-grill dish to serve you; no need to queue up to grill section!

Chief appears young in the morning session, but his skill is as you saw in the picture:  very typical Japanese chief-made seamless rugby-football shaped one, with juicy egg yolk inside.  Enjoy!

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Executive Sky Lounge, MGallary Hotel Des Arts Saigon, HCM City, Vietnam

Now, I am back to HCM City, Vietnam, as my annual routine trip.  Guess I mentioned last year, now you can find traffic signals here and there.  I.e., until a couple years ago, they do not need it but they can manage by their own paces.  It is very surprised but when walking down the street of very central of HCM City, even pedestrian has many motorcycles so that the capacity of traffic infrastructure might be reaching to limit, or more than capacity of motorcycles run around in the city.  Wow, urbanisation! 

For my fixed point observation (?), since last year my regular hotel staying is moved to MGallary Hotel Des Arts Saigon.  After their soft opening last year, now their operations are very stable, but friendly and more on the clients side.  And big change since last stay in a year ago is having executive lounge at 22nd floor.  Renovated southern side of rooms into a single lounge, very comfortable space is now welcoming you.

And, of course, you should expect their breakfast.  Maybe thanks to strategy by Accord group, even at executive lounge, they give us their menu for our selection.  From American to British, Chinese and local ones, you can feel more customer friendly lounge experiences there.

As for omelet, the theme here, this time I put two shots, one above is my second day: I asked "plain omelet" and this is the outcome, and the lower one is my first morning breakfast, with all their stuff, bacon, mashroom, ham, etc., inside.  The above one might be called "scramble egg", if you are American (or Japanese) so you may feel more relaxed to call it as omelet.  But in either case, egg tastes so fresh and well cooked.  Enjoy!

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HerBage, Hotel Epinard Nasu, Nasu Kogen, Tochigi, Japan

This year seems a year of domestic travel for me.  While I am now waiting for my routine trip to South-east Asia in the coming month of October, I travelled to other sides of Japan for relaxing.

In my younger days, I rather travelled without reservation of hotels but driving car down towards our destinations so we stayed different hotels or Japanese ryokans every night.  But nowadays, I am getting easier to stay at a single hotel, with various facilities, as if that hotel is my one and only destination, but to be honest, it is indeed easy and relaxed!

This time, we stayed in Nasu Kogen, a highland in Tochigi prefecture near Nikko, for summer break but just over weekend.  It has various attraction, including tennis court that I love to play at, swimming pools, etc., so despite of gorgeous set-up, it is welcoming more family visitors, hence your dinner might be so noisy around, if you come just two of you to enjoy some romantic night with your partner.  This is where it is for family, not for lovers.

But, their main dining has one principal, use neighbour farmers productions.  Very fresh,  but no need to say anything else to explain.  Fresh vegis from farms picked in the morning, live stocks too, and our favourite eggs too!

And, chiefs are young but well trained.  So dishes are not as cheap as ones you might underestimate from nightly rates and customers you see around.  They fully utilise potentiality inside stuff so, even buffet style, while you should see some live cook performance here and there, I can predict you should be surprised its quality of cuisine, even at your choice of taste and style from western to Japanese, Chinese etc. (as far as available on your day), so you can also be satisfied with quantity.

And, breakfast omelet is no exception.  Well-shaped, i.e., with seamless rugby football shaped omelet is cooked lively in front of you.  With fresh eggs picked up in that morning, taste is so nice, no wonder.  Sometimes you may be told to have fresher dishes to go there for local production, this is it.  Enjoy!

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Garden Restaurant "PRINTEMPS", ANA Crown Plaza Hotel Okinawa Harbor View, Okinawa, Japan

Nowadays, I could not find any good excuse to travel abroad, so my post to Omelet blog has been slowing down, so sorry about that.

But, I realise even Japanese trip information can be of your help, when you come to Japan, so I pull some omelet shots out of my stock in my online photo album to share.  No worry this was taken in July 2016, not that old story.

Okinawa is one of best destinations for summer vacation for beach resort.  And, as former ANA Hotel chain, and current international franchise, IHG, ANA Crown Plaza Hotel group is well-maintained portfolio of hotels with crown of ANA, a half of national carrier of Japan, so this hotel, despite of name of this hotel as "harbor view" but it only means the location as mid-level of hill close to local capital, Naha-City (note that even Google Map will lead you to wrong direction, say opposite side of hotel with no entrance), gives you relaxed atmosphere of southern islands summer time.

In typical hotels like this franchise, you can enjoy all-day buffet at main dining, and here is no exception.  In fact, I really enjoyed being served a lot (indeed, a lot) of beef stake from grill as only eye contact with a chief in charge of the grill talked me again and again that you can have more :-)

And that grill serves a very hot and fresh omelet as above.  Very simple (as I ordered a plain one as always for comparison purpose), seamless rugby football shaped omelet with juicy egg yolk inside.  But no wonder in Japan.  This is typical one you can have almost everywhere.

Enjoy!

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Satsuma, Kanda, Tokyo, Japan

Omelette and Curry-and-rice at Satsuma, Kanda, Tokyo, Japan

It was, simply fabulous and I did not expect that much brilliant omelette to be served at the lunch of a small bar, located at one of back streets of Kanda crowded with small bars and local cuisine, one station north by Yamanote Line from Tokyo terminal.

And, you, as one of the keenest omelette lovers in the world, might feel strange that omelette is served with curry-and-rice.  Yes, Japanese chiefs made innovation and fusion on every imported dish from overseas; this curry-and-rice was originally introduced from England, not India, after Brits invented curry powder to cook Indian curry at their home country, so Japanese firstly got to know curry as "western cuisine".  And over the centuries, Japanese keep innovated this curry-and-rice into more Japanese style, and in fact this Kanda area is very famous for curry; more than 150 restaurants, from Indian and south-east Asian restaurant to western style ones, and bars and even ramen shops, serves their own receipt of curry every day.

So... who ever combined curry-and-rice and our holy omelette; what a combo!  Next time you come to Tokyo, all you have to visit for omelette is, not a breakfast buffet at Imperial Hotel, though it is of course worth to have, but this Satsuma.  After enjoying Japanese sake, then you should try this :-)

Happy Omelette!

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