This article is also available in Japanese: Read the Japanese version
Plenty of channels introduce Japanese food in English, and among them TabiEats has real staying power.
From convenience store rice balls to food walks at temples to home cooking, its public videos numbered more than 2,000 as of October 30, 2026.
Who are the people in these videos, and how did the channel come about? We traced the story through what they have shared themselves and through interviews from the time.
The figures here are values this site measured with the YouTube API on October 30, 2026.
TabiEats at a Glance
Let's start with the description on the YouTube channel: “Sharing our passion for food and travel with the world is what we love to do.”
It goes on: “Every week, we take you on a foodcentric journey through Japan and sometimes other parts of the world!”
The channel's country setting is Japan. As of October 30, 2026, it had 613,000 subscribers and 2,077 videos.
As of October 30, 2026, total views stood at about 109.2 million. The channel was opened on July 11, 2009, but its oldest public video is from April 2014.
The about text on Patreon says: “Food is a universal language that we all understand, no matter who you are. We created our YouTube Channel TABIEATS to share with you our love for food and travel.”
As of October 30, 2026, Patreon showed 110 paid members. There is also an official store, which seems to carry merch.
Are Their Names and Ages Public?
Shinichi is at the center of the videos. A 2015 interview introduced him as “Shinichi Mine.”
The same name appears in the TikTok account name among the links on the channel, so it's fair to say it is a name he uses himself.
That said, we have not found any source that says outright whether this is his legal name, and we could not find out how it is written in kanji.
The other person who often appears in the videos is Satoshi. He appears by given name only.
Neither person's age or date of birth was in the materials we checked. That may be a bit of a letdown.
On the other hand, there is plenty out in the open about the work itself, so let's turn to that.
It Began with Articles and Recipe Photos
In 2015, JAQUO, an English-language online magazine, interviewed Shinichi in two parts.
According to those interviews, he originally wrote travel and cooking articles on Squidoo, an article writing site.
Once he began adding recipes with photos to those articles, as the interviewer told it, “his followers grew in number.” As for the cooking itself, he said, “I really have no professional cooking background.”
“I used to love watching my mother cook in the kitchen,” he said. At 15, he took over: “I started to cook for her instead and since then, I've always been the one in the kitchen.”
He got into video, he said, when a friend showed him how to make videos with an iPad and the app that came with it.
He had originally planned to write a cookbook, he said, but “book stores are closing up shop all around us,” and “most of my younger friends hardly ever read any more and they were watching YouTube videos all the time.” So he shifted his focus, reasoning, “I'd get my content out to a larger audience through video than with any cookbook.”
Still, he said at the time, he had not given up on publishing a book someday: “It's just one of those dreams that won't die.”
The pace is the real surprise. “I make 6 videos every week,” he said back then, with recipes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and a travel video on Tuesdays.
Thursdays alternated between Ramen Hunt and a food review, and Saturdays were kept for “fun stuff,” he said.
As of the second article, in June 2015, the video count had reportedly just gone over 150.
Count the videos still public, year by year, as of October 30, 2026, and 2015 comes out on top, with 268 for the year.
That same year, the channel posted a thank-you video for 1,000 subscribers in April and another for 5,000 in July.
Both video descriptions also carried a message in Japanese.
In the first JAQUO interview, he said cooking and travel “go hand in hand” for him, and went so far as to say, “I literally travel to eat!”
“Tabi” plus “Eats” makes TabiEats. Presumably the name joins tabi, Japanese for “travel,” with the English “eats.”
His Mother's Spam Musubi in Hawaii
From early on, the episodes that stand out on TabiEats are the ones where Shinichi cooks with his mother.
Nine videos from 2016 to 2019 also have “Cooking with Mom” in the title.
Among the episodes with his mother, one that is especially well watched is My Mother's Spam Musubi, from May 2015. The Japanese half of its title translates as “Spam musubi from my mother in Hawaii!”
Its video description says, “My mother and I show you how to make this Hawaiian-Island favorite.”
As of October 30, 2026, the video had more than 990,000 views.
In May 2018, the channel released a livestream introducing the members of Shinichi's family who live in Hawaii, “edited for easier viewing,” as the description puts it.
In the first JAQUO interview, too, asked about his favorite food travel destination, he called it hard to choose, then named Oahu first: “Hawaii, or should I say the island of Oahu is a top contender.”
As of October 30, 2026, 73 videos had “Hawaii” in the title, so we would guess it is a special place.
What Is Their Most-Watched Video?
Line up every public video by view count, and the top spot goes to Japanese Try American Instant Ramen Noodles from May 2019.
As its description explains, it is a taste test of instant ramen sent from the USA, and it had more than 1.83 million views as of October 30, 2026.
Street Food Japan (Tokyo, Japan) JINDAIJI, from May 2017, also had more than 1 million views as of October 30, 2026. It is embedded in the about text on Patreon as well.
According to the video description, “We try out amazing street foods including dango, manju, kakigori and more in Jindaiji, the second oldest temple in Tokyo, Japan.”
Convenience store food is another subject they have kept filming for a long time.
As of October 30, 2026, 181 videos had words such as “convenience,” “konbini,” “FamilyMart,” “Lawson” or “7-Eleven” in the title, the first of them in March 2016.
Also from March 2016 is a video of a walk with a dog named Justin. According to the video description, Justin is scared of other dogs.
As of October 30, 2026, 278 videos had “Recipe” in the title, but on the main channel the last one came in May 2025.
These days, food walks seem to have become the focus.
The description of a May 2020 video also listed three separate channels for recipes, food reviews and livestreams.
The recipe channel had 31,100 subscribers as of October 30, 2026.
Satoshi, Whose Hometown Is Yamagata
The first video with Satoshi's name in the title was an April 2018 livestream walking through Korean Town.
Since then, more videos with Satoshi's name in the title have appeared, among them a look at his favorite Japanese snacks, a solo livestream and birthday episodes.
In November 2024, the channel released a video tasting Yamagata food in Tokyo.
Its video description introduces Yamagata as “Satoshi's hometown.”
TabiEats in 2026
One recent video that catches the eye is Japan Food Travel Has Changed… from September 2026.
According to the video description, “we spend the day eating our way through Asakusa and Kuramae while talking about the changes we've noticed over the years.”
Those changes include “bigger crowds, viral food trends” and “street food etiquette.”
Perhaps it takes two people who have filmed Japan's food for this long to have that conversation.
In 2026, 83 videos had been published through October 27. The year isn't over, so we can't say what the final count will be.
In 2025, the number was 204.
The 12 videos from September 19 to October 27, 2026, all went up at 6:00 a.m. JST on a Tuesday or a Saturday. It seems they set a day and a time.
As of October 30, 2026, the latest upload was the October 27, 2026, episode on sesame crepes at a shopping arcade in Kyoto. The four videos from October 17 to 27 all had Osaka or Kyoto in the title.
By the way, a 2014 video description pointed readers to a TabiEats blog. When we opened the same address on October 30, 2026, the articles from that time could not be read.
So these days, it's fair to say the videos are home base.
