This Place is Eggtastic!

I love eggs and all types of egg dishes. Omelets, scrambled eggs, tamago kake gohan (which is rice with a raw egg and soy sauce), quiche, and more! Eggs in Japan are great. I usually try to buy eggs from local farmers since their eggs are huge and taste amazing. The best is finding restaurants that are solely dedicated to eggs and egg dishes. The Ibaraki Eats Duo went to one of these restaurants a few weeks back. Only this wasn't a standalone restaurant, it was inside a busy roadside station, and it is a popular place that fills up quickly. Today, I will be talking about Joso City's own Tamagoya.

Joso Michi No Eki

Michi No Eki, is a roadside station in Japanese. Ibaraki has quite a lot of them. Itako, Hitachi, Hitachiota, Kasama, and more places around Ibaraki have roadside stations. Roadside stations are places where people can park, use the restroom, buy some local produce, get something to eat, and sometimes stay overnight in the parking area, depending on the station. Joso's roadside station is quite new and very popular. It opened a year or two ago, and it has a lot to offer. There are a few restaurants inside the station, a huge shopping area where you can buy souvenirs and special Ibaraki products, food trucks outside, and local farmers selling produce. If that wasn't enough, next to the station, there is a new Tsutaya with a hot spring inside and a strawberry farm within walking distance. The station is also very famous for melon bread; people line up for hours just to buy one piece of melon bread. If you get to the station early, you can buy the special melon bread that is the size of a small child. I am not kidding, this thing is huge.
The Ibaraki Eats Duo visited this roadside station a few weeks back. We drove to the station and, after waiting in traffic, finally grabbed a parking spot. We passed the huge melon bread line, which was extremely long, and headed inside. The shopping area is madness. There are so many people that it is hard to navigate through the narrow aisles. The free samples are great though. My wife had a great time looking at all the interesting Ibaraki products like fish stock soup, special potato chips, eggs (lots of eggs), and a sweet potato section with amazing sweet potato chips.
My wife grabbed my hand to lead me through the crowd like she might lose me at any second, and guided me to a restaurant all the way to the left side of the station. She went up to the ticket machine of the restaurant and we were given the number 15. Once our number was called, we headed into the eggiest restaurant in Joso, Tamagoya.

Tamagoya

As I said before, Tamagoya is located in the Joso Roadside Station. When you walk into the station, the restaurant is all the way to the left (your right). When you approach the restaurant you will first encounter the shopping section of Tamagoya. There are quite a lot of eggs on sale from different farmers around Joso. Tamagoya also sells custards, puddings, and a lot of different kids of egg sweets. If you want to dine at Tamagoya, you will have to do what we did and take a number. Once your number is called, the staff will show you to your table.
Tamagoya is a pretty big restaurant. It can seat a good number of customers and there is even an outside seating area. Even though there are a lot of tables and chairs at this restaurant, the restaurant fills up very quickly. My advice is to go in the morning. Please note that the restaurant opens a few hours after the roadside station opens.
My wife and I sat at our table and looked through the menu.

The Menu

Good news and bad news. Bad news is the menu is all in Japanese. The good news is, there are pictures of all the menu items. The menu is all eggs and egg based dishes. There are omelets (a lot of different omelets), scrambled eggs, tamago kake gohan, pancakes, egg desserts, and hamburg steak with an omelet. Another thing I should mention is you need your smartphone to order at this place. You scan the QR code on the menu and then input your order on the restaurant's ordering website, and finally wait for your food.
I was starving at this point so I decided to order one of the big dishes. My wife ordered a Japanese style egg dish and a dessert.

Hitachi Beef Hamburg Steak
Luxurious Omelet Steak

As I stated earlier, I was starving. So when this tower of rice, hamburg steak, and omelet came to my table, I was beyond excited. This amazing looking dish came with fantastic looking demiglace sauce and white little hearts in that sauce. I grabbed a fork and knife and cut into my hamburg steak and omelet. It was so soft and satisfying that I couldn't wait to dig in. I grabbed my spoon and scooped up some rice, omelet, and hamburg. My taste buds were dancing with so many delicious flavors. The meaty and soft hamburg with demiglace sauce was delicious, the fluffy and soft omelet was fantastic, and to accompany all those flavors was the red rice to bring everything together quite nicely. This was a fantastic filling and very delicious hamburg omelet. I do wish that when I cut into the omelet part, it would have folded down into the rice, but it was still and fluffy and delicious omelet. Mrs. Ibaraki Eats gave this egg dish her signature thumbs up and loved how meaty

Tamago Kake Gohan

This was Mrs. Ibaraki Eats' order, Tamago Kake Gohan. Simple but delicious. Tamago Kake Gohan is egg over rice in Japanese. Japanese people usually have this dish for breakfast or when they are in a hurry and need something quick. It is quite easy. Just put rice in a bowl, crack an egg and put the raw egg on top of the rice, add some soy sauce, and then just mix all that together with your chopsticks.
Tamagoya's tamago kake gohan brings rice, an egg, soup, pickles, and a bottle of soy sauce. My wife cracked her egg and followed the usual steps for preparing tamago kake gohan. She then grabbed some mixed egg and rice with her spoon and gave it a try. Her eyes lit up and she urged me to try it. When I tried it, I was surprised. I honestly thought this would taste just like the usual tamago kake gohan I make at home. But that was not the case. This egg was fresh and tasty. The rice was perfect and the soy sauce gave this mixed egg and rice the perfect amount of saltiness that made it perfect. I loved this tamago kake gohan and hope I can have it again in the future.

Tamagoya Pudding Parfait

Dessert time!
If you go to Tamagoya, I implore you, please order this dessert. When this dessert came to our table, I thought it was not going to be good. A raw egg yolk on top of pudding? Yeah, I don't think so. I was wrong. Very wrong. I love this pudding and would love to have it again as soon as possible. The parfait brings a raw egg yolk on top of a large amount of cream and pudding in a parfait glass. The bottom of the parfait glass is surrounded by sponge cake crumbs.
The first thing my wife did was break the yolk on top and watched as the egg yolk slowly dripped down the glass and made its way down to the crumbs. She then got some yolk and creamy pudding in her spoon and gave it a try. She jumped in surprise and hurriedly gave me the spoon for me to try. I did the same thing she did, and had the same reaction. This egg pudding was outstanding. The pudding was extremely creamy and the yolk just added to the cream. It made my mouth feel like I was eating an extremely delicious cloud. I then tried the yolk covered crumbs at the bottom of the plate and that was delicious as well. The crumbs were surgery and fused together by the yolk. so I got a nice sweet flavored yolk surprise that I loved. My wife and I loved this dessert so much that we vowed to have it again soon.
After we finished our eggy feast, we payed at the cashier by the entrance, and headed out before the roadside station became even more chaotic with the lunch rush.

Tamagoya, you have fantastic egg dishes. We hope we can visit you again soon and try the rest of your menu. We will most definitely be getting the egg pudding again.

So if you are an egg lover and are looking for a place that specializes in egg dishes, why not give Tamagoya a chance? Who knows? You might see us there. Enjoying that amazing creamy egg parfait that left such a great impression on us.
Enjoy!

For more information on Tamagoya, check out the Joso Michi No Eki website:
https://www.michinoeki-joso.com/