Hello, Lena and Jioh again! We’re out exploring again, and this time it’s a new area in Tokyo Dome City called Hi! Every Valley!
It’s a weird name but don’t worry, we’re here to explain the origin of it. “Hi!” comes from the greetings people give each other as they come and go into the food and community space. “Every” is the area where visitors are able to spend time thinking in. This space has greenery, murals and art pieces, kids area, etc. along with unique restaurants and food trucks. “Valley” is for the green space surrounded by the yellow building and Tokyo Dome Hotel.
Koishikawa-Kōrakuen garden
However, we stopped by the Koishikawa-Kōrakuen garden on the way to Tokyo Dome. We highly recommend you to check out this area if you have the time as well. If you’re looking for a chill day away from the hustle and bustle of city life, this is the place for you! The garden is filled with greenery and flowers- but just imagine how beautiful it would be during the fall with all the changing colors. We happened to come across a field of purple flowers, and it was breathtaking to see. Several people were sketching and doing oil paintings in this serene and tranquil garden, and ducks roamed around the ground as if they owned the place. The entrance fee was only 300 yen, perfect for the budget conscious traveler. The garden was only a 7 minute walk away from Hi! Every Valley!, which was where we headed next.
Hi! Every Valley!
This small space beside Tokyo Dome City is quite new, just built fresh during March of this year (2019). It’s located on the 1st and 2nd floors of the Yellow Building of Tokyo Dome City and is quite a photogenic area, perfect for Instagram photos. Hi! Every Valley! has 6 restaurants- four of them are food container stores and 2 are food trucks. We decided to try 2 food container stores and 2 desert food trucks.
Food Container Stores
The first place we tried was Schmatz, a small German-style pub selling German hotdogs/sausages along with a refreshing glass of beer. We had the Currywurst for ¥900. This dish is perfect for sharing with your friends. Currywurst is a fast food entree in Germany and consists of pork sausage cut into bite-sized chunks. Curry ketchup is then poured over the sausage. The dish came with fries, perfect for dipping and smothering into the ketchup sauce.
Of course, that wasn’t enough for the two of us, so we decided to opt for Thai Food Lab, selling authentic Thai food made by a Thai chef. Even the interior of the restaurant seemed authentic, also containing a tuk-tuk, known for the heart of Bangkok experience. We had pad thai for ¥1080 and it came with spring rolls and soup.
Dessert food trucks
After our two course meal, we just had to try out the desert. We went to MeetFresh 鮮芋仙, a Taiwanese dessert cafe. Reminiscing our meal from Thai Food Lab, we drank the Thai Iced Bubble tea for ¥616.
I don’t know about you, but I need more substance in my dessert rather than a drink. So the only right way to end our meal was to try out crepes at Marion Crepes. Crepes are particularly popular in Tokyo. Just walking down Takeshita-Dori, you’ll encounter at least 5 different crepe shops. Marion Crepes has over 80 different types of crepes, so it was hard to choose one, but we eventually settled for the strawberry cheesecake crepes.
All of the stuff we tried was delicious, but we couldn’t stomach any more food. There was also a Yamamoto Hamburger Beer and Wine area that specializes in handmade burgers as well as meatball and wine. Over on the second floor is also a coffee place named Bryant Coffee selling Kyoto Arabica coffee beans.
Photo and kids area
Hi! Every Valley! doesn’t have just food- there are many small photo areas to take your pictures. Right next to the Schmatz is a staircase with the letters “Tokyo” painted vertically down (you can see our adventure in the video linked on top of the blog). If you are facing the Tokyo stairs from the bottom, turn right and walk a few steps and you’ll see a great big pink 3D ‘Hi!’ sign that you can take pictures with. Surrounding the sculpture are small murals on each side of the walls. All the murals have different variations of the word ‘hello’. To the side, there is a little area for kids to play in. There were no kids playing in it when we went, but it was still a nice scene to see.
Overall, although the area was really pretty and perfect for taking pictures, it can be quite pricey. You should certainly check out the Hi! Every Valley! if you have time! It’s the perfect place for winding down, especially on a nice sunny day.
This blog post was written by Jioh and Lena, Seibo Japan/Mobal Japan’s interns from South Korea and Texas.
To see what else they’ve been up to, click on these links: Jioh and Lena
