Yokohama's Tasty Aoba-Honkan

Aoba is a casual and friendly restaurant situated on a convenient side street in Yokohama Chinatown. The food they serve is really delicious and healthy. There are many gorgeous restaurants along Chukagai-Ohdori Street, and your eyes might get used to those brilliant buildings and decorations. In contrast to most of them, the appearance of Aoba is quite simple, and the inside is cozy. You can completely relax and enjoy the meal itself!

Food and Medicine

In Taiwan people believe that medicine and your daily diet work equally to keep the body healthy. If you take your food properly (eat the proper kinds and amount), you can prevent sickness. In addition, if you do happen to become sick it's easy to recover due to the power of natural healing. They also think it important to eat seasonal foods. Foods in season are not only delicious but also have more nutritional and medicinal value than food out of season. For example, Taiwanese baby clams are best eaten in winter. The clams retain energy in cold water, and its meat grows thick and tasty in the winter.

Here’s another example: When hungover from last night’s party, you can treat yourself by coming here to Aoba. The best combination in this case is rice porridge mixed with green beans and Chinese Lycium berry (緑豆とクコの実入りお粥1500 yen). Then Senso gelatin (仙草ゼリー380 yen). The rice porridge is a highly nutritious energizer, mainly working on your liver and kidneys. The Senso helps break down the heat your body can’t release, and supports urination. These two together help remove unwanted metabolic properties.

The Menu

Aoba’s menu is a photo-menu, so you can easily order by pointing to what you want to eat. When my husband and I were at Aoba last time, a man who has been a regular customer there for over 40 years told us: “They serve more than 100 dishes and everything is good.” This means you don’t need to be worried that you'll make a mistake!

But anyway, I’d like to recommend my three favorites Aoba dishes.

1. The best dish is ‘sweet and tender simmered pork on rice’ (台湾風豚の角煮飯700 yen). The pork is REALLY soft. It melts on your tongue just after you put it in your mouth!

2. The second is ‘steamed dumplings’ (水餃子５個480 yen). I usually prefer pan-fried dumplings, but I would definitely order the steamed ones here. The skin of the dumplings is nice and thick and the juicy gravy comes out when you bite into it. It is sooooo wonderful!

3. The third one is a dessert. ‘Ohgyo-chi’ (愛玉冰380 yen) is a fruit gelatin with lemon syrup. This mysterious fruit is rich in pectin and coagulates by itself. When you chew it, you feel an interesting sensation; a bit elastic but not so hard. Once you experience this tasty dessert, you will not be able to forget it.