Green tea and matcha powder

Not only it is a host in all our cups during all our meals and in the traditionnal tea ceremonies, but Japanese green tea is also turning in green many Japanese pasteries. Let’s discover this product that you should not miss while travelling in Japan.

Green tea everywhere…

In either school restaurants, small shops which serve some traditionnal plain meals in some industrial quantities, or on the contrary, in fancier restaurants the fashionable soft drink is green tea. The only thing which differs is the quality of it. And therefore is taste. For instance, in Waseda University’s school restaurant in Tokyo, dispensers offer green tea, hot water and fresh water… but green tea is not really tasty as there must be too much water in it. In many restaurants then, you will have to ask for fresh water if you want some, because they are going to serve you hot green tea*. And in others, you will find some taps delivering hot water and green tea powder you will have to shake to create your own drink. There again, you will have to ask for fresh water if you do not like green tea.

Fancy Green Tea

Reading the latest sentences, it is easy to deduce that green tea is a low cost product in Japan. Which is definitely wrong. Let’s examine wine, in France : there actually exist some low cost wine, which cost less than some euros, but it is also possible to find some « Grands Crus » which are very expensive… This is the same with green tea in Japan. The most expensive, the King of Green Masa super premium, cost more than 2500 dollars for one bottle of 750mL !

A special green tea : matcha

Matcha is a very special green tea as it is not from leaves that you are going to put into water to create you beverage. It is a powder that you have to blend into hot water to create a really think and bitter tea. It is also used while tea ceremonies where it is drank with some sweet pasteries made from azuki (red beans paste) to limitate its bitterness. Many international people and even Japanese people do not like this drink very much for the first time… a recurring joke in Japanese dramas being the grimaces people make when trying green tea for the first time.

Matcha is everywhere…

This matcha powder allows the use of the characteristic flavour of green tea in many products : in beverages but also in some pasteries. For instance, one of the favourite drinks in Japanese coffee shops, as Starbucks (or Veloce Café, Tully’s coffee…), is matcha latte : it is a drink close to a coffee latte, with milk and cream, but with green tea flavour. On reverse to the strong and bitter match tasted during tea ceremonies, it makes very soft and sweet drinks… as for the bubble teas with matcha flavour**. Added to these drinks, it is also possible to find Japanese pasteries with this flavour…which have all the same characteristic. All of them are green ! There are green cookies, donuts, cakes, cheese-cakes or even green kitkats ! And if you want to try to make this kind of pasteries, it is possible to make them everywhere in the world as you can buy matcha powder in many tea shops and find some recipes on internet.

A good way to try this peculiar flavour at home before going to Japan where you will have to taste it ! But remermber that even if you do not appreciate it, you should be able to survive… but it is true that if you like it, it will be easier for daily life and to meet Japanese people ;)

Marièke Poulat

*****

* To those who do not like green tea the magical sentence is « Sumimasen, O-mizu ga arimasu ka ? » « Sorry but do you have any water ? ».

** See the article on Bubble tea if you have not read it already and above all if you do not know this surprising beverage ^^

Gyudon or the dark side of Japanese cuisine

Far from the famous delicateness of sushis, Japanese cuisine counts plainer dishes... and stodgier, as for our ham and cheese sandwich or our cheese omelett. A perfect demonstration of that assertion is Gyudon, or its improved version : oyakodon. These are dishes made with rice served in a bowl for only some hundred yens and therefore are ideal to feed salarymen when they leave their work.

A unique heavy dish

Made from slices of cheap (fat) porc, gyudon and his even heaviest version oyakodon, is a heavy dish. Therefore, it is a good way to feed salarymen after work or tired tourists who have walked all day long. With more than 800 calories for one bowl (even for the S/small ration), it is a bowlof rice topped with slices of porc cooked with onions... the all topped by a boiled egg if you ask an oyakodon. You can also add ginger and soy sauce to it. This cocktail is then quite stodgy but really appreciated by Japanese and international people, particularly during the winter when it is served with a hot green tea.

Oyakodon

 

Available in many places...

If this dish is really traditionnal, places which serve it are also quite surprising. In Japan, three chains of restaurants are weel known to offer gyudon: Matsuya, Sukiya and Yoshinoya. It is possible to taste it in more traditionnal shops, but the main advantage of these chains is that they are cheap (it is less than 300 yens or 3€ for one small bowl... with which you should be already pretty full) and omnipresent everywhere: in Tokyo, it is difficult to make more than 100 meters without finding at least one of these stores. Moreover, as they do not make many dish they make gyudon pretty well at least.

However, their serving is quite different. Yoshinoya is the biggest and offer a wider choice of sets and dishes. Moreover, its restaurants are more occidental, with a waitress to who you have to command and some tables, added to the traditionnal counter where Japanese people like to eat when they eat alone very fast. Two aspects which appear to be normal but which are in fact not so logical in Japan. Indead, both other chains have a different way of serving which should be able to interest the occidental that you are ;)

… with a 100% Japanese organisation

The first thing you will notice while entering Sukiya or Matsuya is the disposition of the room. If you enter a small restaurant at the center of the city, there will be only a counter around the stove where the cook is working. You will also remarke a ticket machine at one side. It presents all the dishes that the restaurant is selling and it is really easy to use: you only need to press the button with the picture of the meal you want, to pay the amount of money indicated and to take the ticket the machine delivers. You give it to the cook once you are sitted and some seconds later, a steaming bowl will be served to you. It's ready ! Now, you only have to eat it with the chopsticks made of plastic you should find in the plastic boxes you have close to you. You are also allowed to add some spicies in it, as ginger or red pepper... Do not add soy sauce in the rice at the end: it is really not polite in Japan ! So, you see, to eat gyudon is as easy as that: you do not even have to say a single word in japanese... an easy solution for those who are affraid to speak... and to those who want to discover a different way of life. 

Ticket machine at Matsuya

Because it is obvious that this is not the kind of restaurant you should chose if you want to try good Japanese cuisine. Besides, Japanese people do not go to these restaurants in that aim. These restaurants are some improved fast-food without burgers, a food factory where people keep entering and leaving after some minutes (I actually mean some minutes). This is a good way of experimenting one of the Japanese way of life... and a good solution if you are hungry at 3 a.m.: one of the caracteristics of these chains is to be opened 24 hours on 24 !

To be tested. Definitively.

Marièke Poulat

Bubble Tea and Sweet pearls

In the streets of Tokyo, you will certainly run into girls carying a big closed glass in plastic surmounted by a straw. Inside of it, a colorfull and think drink and brown little bubbles at the bottom. And then, a question cross your mind. What it is ? Is it good ? And above all... Where can you get one ?!? Only one question you said ? Well, in the right order: this is a Bubble Tea or Boba Tea, a beverage made with milk and which comes from Taiwan with some Tapioca bublles inside; yes, it is good, and no, you do not need to cross all Tokyo to find it as many shops sell it.

The translucent glass lets us realize that this surprising drink can be of many impressive colors... From pink to orange, going through green, white or brown. In your mounth, it seems to be strawberry, mango, matcha (or green tea), coconut, chocolate or even coffee... while this beverage can be made from milk, tea or mixed fruits. About the little brown bubbles, at the bottom of the glass, which give to this drink all its originalitu, they are tapioca bubbles. Their texture is smooth and their taste soft but quite bitter, which can be a little weird as the beverage is really sweet.

Sweet Pearls'Bubble Tea

Bubble Tea is available in many little bars or stands, and most of them are located in the districts where young people stay, as Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya... or Takadanobaba, where I tasted it in a little shop which is between the eponymous station and Waseda University: Sweet Pearls. This little shop, whose colorfull sign reminds us that it is more adapted for girls and couples, lets us buy Bubble Tea not only to drink them in it but also to take them away. There are also some meals (mostly colorfull ramens) but I have not tried them yet, as the prices seemed a little big compare to the size of the meals (between 650 et 750¥ for one bowl).

Haunted by the idea of tasting this beverage that many people had tried to introduce to me before, I entered into this shop at the end of the afternoon, a sunday, with a friend of mine. The room was pretty empty. We both ordered a Bubble Tea (with some difficulties, as the menu is only available in katakanas (japanese)) but our two drinks did not look like each other at all: My friend's one was cold cocoa with Tapioca bubble and mine's was hot matcha with tapioca bubbles too. Indead, it is possible to choose, not only the flavour of your drink but also the heat of it and the presence of tapioca bubbles... but, without these bubbles, it is not bubble tea anymore, isn't it ? Both drinks cost 300¥ and were made with flavoured milk. I do not think that the shop had drinks made with fruits or only tea, but I cannot assure so.

Sweet Pearls'menu 

Once we paid our drinks, we settled ourselves at the very collorful back of the shop, to wait our glasses. There are two little round tables made from iron, as on a beach, and others little places against the wall. Even if it can be weird at the beginning, you will quickly find out that it is really considered as normal to go alone to restaurants in Japan. The capacity must be around 10 people but I have never seen it full while I live very close to it and see it almost everyday.

Our drinks arrived very quickly and we began our tasting. First sip, first surprise. To drink milk flavoured Bubble tea is almost like drinking sweet hot milk. My matcha drink was really sweet while the cacao's one was a little more bitter. The liquid was green, tasty. And these little bubbles were... Mmm... The straw is wide enough to suck one up: so you put your straw at the bottom of your glass and, cautiously... you take a glup, this time. Second surprise. It is soft, kind of sweet but bitter than the beverage. It is difficult to explain exactly the consistance of it. If you know Japanese habits, it looks like bubble of mochi. If you do not, then... I would say it seems to be a piece of bread after being plundged during a long period of time into a soup.

Well. The description est a little difficult to make and the beverage is better than it seems when you read this comment, I assure you. It is really sweet. Maybe to much, by the way... It can become a little nauseating at this end and do not think of the amount of calories that it contains. I must be as high as the one of Coffee Shops like Starbucks. But as the number of sodas is really reduced in Japan and as tea is the only beverage you will drink during all your stay appart from water, you can try the surprising drink ! V(^_^)V

Marièke Poulat

Takoyaki, the most “insignificant” significant Japanese local delicacy ( Ding Yiyin)

Takoyaki (たこ焼き) is a popular ball-shaped, pan-fried dumpling made of batter. Among all the Japanese local snacks Takoyaki is probably the most well-renowned. Despite its usual pingpang- ball size, it was one of the most popular local foods that has been introduce abroad and enjoyed its prominence in Japan as well.
The invention of Takoyaki was inspired by Akashiyaki through a street vendor named Tomekichi Endo in Osaka, 1935. First enjoyed its populace in Kantai and then introduced to Kanto and other areas. Nowadays Takoyaki can be purchased in many street food stalls and in takoyaki specialty restaurants and eateries.

The batter for making Takoyaki are mixed with diced or whole baby octopus, tempura scraps (tenkasu), pickled ginger, and green onion. There are various types of Takoyaki, mostly different on toppings.

It became common to brushed Takoyaki balls with soy sauce and mayonnaise, and topped with green laver (aonori) and katsuobushi (shavings of dried bonito). There are many variations to the takoyaki recipe. For example, ponzu i.e. soy sauce with dashi and citrus vinegar, goma-dare i.e. sesame-and-vinegar sauce or vinegar dashi. Most Takoyaki balls are grilled a bit crispy on the outside and are hot and soft inside. The fresh baby octopus slices inside the ball just add the icing on the cake.

For people who found small Takoyaki balls boring. I would suggest them to try a Takoyaki store in Ikebukoro where you could get “giant” Takoyaki balls. In an ordinary stores you may need a dozen of Takoyaki balls to be full. Here only one would do the work. Of course there are many flavors to be chosen from and I will let you to discover that yourself!!!

Mister Donut or American source of sugar in Japan (Marièke POULAT)

Green tea. Azuki. Dango. You adore them. And then, it happens to you that you are fed up with these Japanese sweets without sugar... that you only want something else, different, with some fat and sugar, the kind of thing really bad for your health but so good... the whole lot brought with a good coffee for a little sweet break in the morning or, after, as a snack around 5 p.m. 

Most coffee shops are offering you their help to fulfill this little temporary crisis: Doutor, Starbucks Coffee, Caffe Veloce, or also Café de Crié, and other chains of stores which pretends to sell French pastries... but there is also Mister Donut, an American chain, which exists in many countries and notably in Japan, and which is loved by Japanese people. I am not be able to judge if these donuts are really American donuts or not: I have never tasted an authentic American donut... The only thing I know is that I appreciate this chain, even if it does not serve traditionnal Japanese food and it is not recognized by everybody.

Mister Donut is a chain of stores from the USA at the beginning, founded in 1956, nowadays very known in the USA and in many other countries, as in Japan, where it has arrived since 1983 and where it is really popular. In 2006, there were more than 1400 coffee shops of this label all around Japan... An other way to say that you should not have too much difficulties to lay your hands on one of these stores whose name is written in English « Mister Donut », most often in red on a black background.As a proof that this is not particularly distinguished food, most of these shops are located close to train stations and in areas highly frequented by young people... even if they are not their unique customers.

The first time you pass the door of one of these places, the name of this chain, Mister Donut, becomes obvious to you... Indead, you are propulsed in front of a showcase full of donuts of all shapes, all flavours and all colors. Sugar, chocolate, green tea, in the shape of a cat, with a whole or without... all the different alternatives exists and you are the one supposed to decide which one you want¹. A paradise for those who like to eat sweets ^^... even though some people are quite critical against the quality of the donuts. However, it is not my point of view: I really appreciated the donuts I tasted and I can give a special mention to the grean tea flavoured and chocolate coated one, even if its green colour can be a little weird at the first sight ;)

After waiting, more or less depending on the hour you enter the shop, it is time to make your choice... An advice: use the waiting time to think of the donut you are going to take because there are a lot of them ^^ and also because all the name are written in Japanese (in Katakana, actually: with only some Japanese basics you should be able to find out what their content is). Don't panic, however, if you do not speak or understand a single word of Japanese: it is possible to show the number of the donut you are interested in and an English version of the menu can be presented to you if you also want a drink. Besides, there exists a breakfast set until 11 a.m. including a drink and a donut, and some of the shops of the chain offer lunch sets with pastas and other dishes but I have never tried... Why I would come to Mister Donut to eat something else than a donut ?

Once your command is done and your purse a little lighter of some yens (it will cost you around 110 and 150 yens for a donut and between 180 and 230 yens for a drink, while the cost of breakfast set is 322 yens for whatever drink you want and a donut under 136 yens), you can chose between taking away your command or staying in the shop. As all Japanese shops, it is quite small and organised in order to offer most places reserved to isolated consumers, as it is common to go to a coffee shop or to a restaurant alone here. The space is also sometimes parted in two parts: smoker and non-smoker. It depends on the hour, but there can be more or less people, and if many places are left, you will be allowed to stay during a long period of time... the only limit being the absence of the Wifi, at least in the places I went in until now.

Then, even if this chain is a little expensive, you should be able to enjoy a pleasant time with your friends or alone. No need to search for healthy or excellent food here: this is not what this kind of chain is expected to sell and this is not what it pretends to sell. However, if you are in a need of some sweet with actual sugar and fat, Mister Donut should be easily able to support you. Well... Almost easily, I should say instead... as it is really complicated to chose which donut is tempting you the most ^^

POULAT Marièke

*****

1)  For those who are on a diet or watching, most of the donuts contain from 200 to 300 calories, according to the website  of the brend (only available in Japanese however... but you only have to click on the pictures you want).

     http://www.misterdonut.jp/m_menu/donut/index.html

Nomihodai, Nomi-what ? (Marièke POULAT)

All those who have been students or who have lived in a small appartement in their life are aware of this fact... This is complicated to invite some friends to party in an appartement of 10m². A dilemna that Japanese people, students but also older people, also know as the average size of flats in Tokyo is really narrow. So, what can you do ? Be associal, invite only one people at once... Or, find a larger place with a table, some chairs, some food and, even better, something to drink... as to drink is here an institution and beer and sake (rice alcohol) are on the favorite alcohols. As an example, one of the first sentence that you learn in Japanese classes is « Sake o nomimasu » that you can translate by « I drink Sake » or « I drink alcohol » (as sake, in Japanese, means both sake, as rice alcohol, and alcohol). 

Japanese restaurants have well understood their interest and a large offer of places where you can eat and drink with your friends have been created, with different concepts. There are three major formulas: the Tabehodai (All you can eat), the Nomikai (All you can drink) and the Nomihodai, which combines both formulas, as it is a Nomikai and a lot of different dishes to absorb the quantity of alcohol swallowed... In fonction of the chain of restaurants, of the price, of the day of the week, or even of the district (Ginza, the fancy district of Tokyo, is for instance not offering the same services as Takadanobaba, the student district...), the offers are different... There exist, for instance, the innocent Sweet Paradise, where you can eat as cookies and ice creams as you want during one hour and a half for about 1500 ¥, but also some trash nomihodai where beer is flowing and where you can eat all the food you want as it is a self-service (about 2000¥ for two hours). 

If students are fond of this kind of meeting and go there with their friends, their clubs or even sometimes with their families, older people are not left aside. Many Japanese people go there with their colleagues and even with their superiors. However, the reasons to go to a nomihodai are different: the students like to go to nomihodai to have fun and to drink (as having fun and drinking are surprisingly often linked), while the nomihodai can be a working meeting between colleagues... According to a French expatriate, many decisions in the entreprises are taken in that kind of meeting. Of course, older people are also going to nomihodai between friend to have fun and drink, particularly at the end of the year or to celebrate the important events. 

This is difficult to describe exactly what happens in that kind of meetings... If the conventions are easy between friends, where the only goal is to have fun and to drink, it can be more complicated in presence of older people, the « Senpais », which is the title automatically given to the more experienced people in Japan. This situation can occure in the nomihodais organised by the clubs which also invite former members... The conventions are numerous, as the fact that the yongest must take care of the Senpai during the party, the fact that the Senpai must pay more than the others, or the fact that it is not polite to say « no » when the Senpai proposes to refill your glass for the umpteenth time on a row... Conclusion, if you want to « survive » you should drink slowly, by sips, to not empty your glass too quickly. However, to be « gaijin », the Japanese word for « foreigner », can help you as, if you are gaijin, you don't have to follow all of these conventions... but only some of them, as you can't avoid to do a little presentation of yourself (with a special mention if you can do it in Japanese), or to sing a song... Here, the tip is to not drink too much to be able to stand up when your name comes out and to have a song that you can sing quite well. This time, to be a gaijin is not so helpfull as the questions are numerous... and as it is always difficult to explain in some words (and in Japanese) how France and Japan are different... but it is always funny to discover what people think of you country.

Nomihodai, tabehodai and nomikai are commonplace in Japan and belong to Japanese culture. Most of Japanese people go to nomhodai at least once in a month, men going there more often than women. If the omnipresence of alcohol, particularly during Nomihodai and Nomikai, can incommodate, it is interesting to go there at least once. With Japanese friends. Because you will discover an another facet of the personnality of your friends/colleagues (maybe because they have drunk four glasses of beer before which uninhibitate them... but this is an another subject) and because it is a friendly event and, in a certain manner, a really traditionnal one.

POULAT Marièke

 
 
 

Onigiri (Jee In Chung)

      Have you ever wondered why there is a convenience store on every corner in Tokyo?

The main secret of their success is their inexpensive “bento” lunchboxes and other delicious food‐to‐go. As a student on a budget, I have found that one of the cheapest convenience‐store offerings, the humble onigiri, makes a very satisfying lunch. 

      Wedge‐shaped and wrapped in plastic, onigiri may not look too appetizing at first. The “outside” ingredients – cold boiled rice covered with a sheet of nori (dried seaweed) – don’t exactly make your mouth water either. But when you bite into the wedge, the savory, salty filling ‐‐ salmon, tuna, fish roe, fermented egg, pickled plums, fermented soybeans, or one of a score of similar ingredients – gives your taste buds a blast. And there are so many varieties that it will take you a month to try them all.

      You need to be careful of the plastic wrapper, though. If you don’t remove it properly, the nori will come off with it and you will be left holding a wedge of sticky rice. The trick is to grasp the tape at the top of the triangle and pull it all the way down and up the other side. This will separate the wrapper neatly into two halves, which you can then slide off. The plastic wrapper lets you safely carry the onigiri in a bag or backpack. To complete your meal, most convenience stores can sell you a bowl of a warming soup called oden. Ingredients such as boiled egg, daikon, and fish cake swim in a fishy broth to make oden the perfect winter comfort food. I find that its liquid warmth dilutes the starchiness of onigiri.

      Convenience‐store food is a great social leveler in Japan. Businessmen and students rush

in and out of their corner stores at lunch and dinner time to grab their bento boxes, onigiri and
oden. Line‐ups are rarely longer than two or three minutes and the food is not only cheap but
well‐preserved and easy to carry.

Of course, if you don’t eat seafood, your choices will be very limited, since the Japanese

love seafood and almost everything is based on ingredients from the sea. And unless you read Kanji you might not be able to figure out what’s inside your onigiri. But go ahead and take a chance; it’s certain to be delicious.

Drinking culture in Japan (Jee In Chung)

      I used to think it was strange that the dialogues in my Japanese language textbooks showed businessmen in suits going out for a beer after work. But studying in Japan, I’ve grown accustomed to seeing groups of briefcase-toting men heading off to bars as I rush home from my classes.
       More socially respectable than in the West, beer culture in Japan is mostly about social bonding among colleagues. After a day of hard work and stress, businessmen and white-collar workers unwind by drinking beer and talking about sports, politics, or their private lives. At such gatherings, it is unusual for anyone to get drunk. There is no pressure to down enormous quantities of alcohol. Instead, beer is consumed at a relaxed pace, usually accompanied by substantial quantities of food.
      The most popular places to drink beer are the izakaya (居酒屋), bars where the food far outclasses typical Western bar or pub grub. Platters of yakitori, kushiyaki, sashimi, karaage and edamame are inexpensive, plentiful, and almost always delicious. Japanese drinking culture perhaps explains why it is unusual to see men with beer bellies here. Although Japan leads Asian countries in per-capita beer consumption, the average Japanese drinks less than half as much beer as the average German or Australian. Still, beer accounts for two thirds of all the alcohol consumed in Japan.
      Four major brewers – Kirin, Suntory, Sapporo, and Asahi – dominate the Japanese market. In recent years their brands have become familiar around the world, alongside the iconic European labels. However, over 200 microbreweries have sprung up across Japan in recent years  to give beer-drinkers a wider range of choices. In addition to the informal, small-group beer culture of the izakaya, many Japanese participate in the more formal drinking culture of the company-organized “after-work party.” Because managers are present at such parties, employees are not free to speak or behave as they wish. There is often social pressure to get drunk and entertain others. However, the monthly after-work party does not represent everyday Japanese drinking culture.

      For a student on a budget like myself, Japanese drinking culture been a great discovery. You do not have to be a heavy drinker to follow the suits into the izakaya for a glass of beer and plenty of great inexpensive food.

NOT ONLY SUSHI Chapter 6 (Pietro)

We have been in Japan for a long time and still haven’t had any sushi. It’s true: there are many other good things to eat. It’s true: from many sides comes the warning that the sushi fashion –becoming more and more popular all over the world- is endangering the survival of many marine species. It’s true: the rising pollution of the oceans casts not just a few doubts on whether this food is really healthy. True. But, since we are in Japan, we still might want to eat sushi once in a while.

Sushi can be rarely found in normal restaurants. It is also difficult to find in izakayas. We will have to go to restaurants specialized in sushi – the sushi-ya. And here we face two options. We can opt for the normal sushi-ya, probably a rather refined place with an upper-middle class to business clientele. A simple but elegant place with a relaxed atmosphere. Opening the menu might make your heart beat faster in these times of strong yen, as you will see that every single piece of sushi can cost 1 to 3 euro and sometimes even more, like the rare high quality fatty tuna ootoro. If your budget is adequate you can have fun trying the infinite variety of sushi that the place offers. You will hardly find predefined sets of sushi like it is normal to find abroad: Japanese customers know perfectly well the different species of fish and decide on their own which kind and how many pieces they want to order. If you are given an English menu that will not be very helpful to you. It is never easy to understand the differences between the various species of tuna, eel or swordfish and you will have to try them to understand.

If you do not want to spend a fortune but still do not want to renounce to the pleasure of sushi the kaitenzushi is the way for you to go –and it can also be a lot of fun. Kaitenzushi can be barbarically translated as sushi on the conveyer belt. In a kaitenzushi you will find an oval counter. On the inner side of the oval a couple of cooks making sushi, on the outer side the customers sitting. Between the two there is a conveyer belt, slowly moving and exposing many plates carrying two pieces of sushi each. When you enter you will be warmly welcomed by the staff, who will assign you a seat. You will find a small plate that you are supposed to fill with soy sauce. You can also add wasabi –the funnily green sauce made of horseradish that must be used very carefully as it might make you cry for days. You will also find chopsticks –or hashi in Japanese- and a glass that you can fill with water or tea using one of the many taps that go around the counter. If this is one of your first times just look at the plates marching in front of you and take those that inspire you the most. Unlike in normal sushi-yas, here you can see what you can eat and you will not find yourself in the difficult situation of having to know the Japanese names of what you want to order. Nor you will find yourself ordering something because it has an intriguing name, only to find some weird sea creature in your plate. If you are a kaitenzushi experts you can audaciously talk directly to the cook to order what you want to eat or just asking for suggestions.

Kaitenzushi is relatively cheap: the bill is calculated  by counting the small plates that remain on your table. Normally each plate costs around one euro and contains at least two pieces of sushi. It is also a very relaxed place with a varied clientele. A very Japanese experience that will delight those Westerners who come to Japan looking for Japanese crazy stuff.

NOT ONLY SUSHI Chapter 5 (Pietro)

Just like all other big cities, Tokyo has an infinite variety of bars and restaurants offering an International cuisine. Chinese and Korean cuisine are particularly well-known, but Indian and South-East Asian restaurants are also very easy to find. Of course you can also easily find European, American and African cuisine. In the West many people say that Japanese like to copy. It is partially true: in fact, not only do they copy foreign cuisine, technology, fashion, music and so on, but they also rethink them and make something new out of them

The first example that comes to my mind is the burger. In Japan, as all over the world, the main fast food chains can be found in almost every street and they offer burgers, hot dogs and similar food (the Americans in Japan, though, can find particularly shocking to see “small” and “mini” portions in Japan’s McDonald’s). But there is also another kind of shops that sell burgers and cheeseburgers in Japan: fast food restaurants with a Disneyan furnishing and flowers on the tables. They belong to the “kawaii”, cute, ideal –so dominant in Japan. In this kind of places you can find customers that you would not expect to find in a place that sells three layer burgers: middle-aged women, couples, grandfathers and grandchildren. Places like these, but also their counterparts for coffee, donuts and so on, are always crowded of a very broad clientele, looking for a break: in a city where living spaces are small, flats are narrow and streets overcrowded it is not surprising that having a burger actually means taking a break from your day and finding some time to relax by reading, studying, sleeping (a universally tolerated activity in Japan), listening to music, chatting.

Europe –and Italy in particular- is very much loved by Japanese people and the European cuisine means elegance e refined taste to Japanese people. Japanese do things with care: bread is no traditional food in Japan and it is still seen as somewhat exotic. But bakeries are a lot on the streets of Japan, for the clientele who likes this food from overseas. In many bakeries you can find the baker’s diploma earned in Paris hanging on the wall. I have been to many bakeries in Japan and what I found was always of high quality. Excellent bread and sweets in a surprising variety: if you are looking for a pain-au-chocolat or a laugenbrezel you will definitely find some good ones.

The same cannot be said for many European restaurants. Pizza is a continuous disappointment. Very high prices for a ridiculously small (and sometimes deep-frozen!) pizza. There are a few places that make an exception and can actually make a rather good pizza, but more like the American way than the Italian one –which means bizarre ingredients like ananas, corn, mayonese, marshmallow. If you are looking for something more refined than pizza you might also be disappointed and the bill might make you feel dizzy. I worked in an Italian restaurant and saw chefs who learned how to cook in Italy make extremely overcooked spaghetti with a meat sauce that looked more like a ramen soup. I saw them garnishing a carbonara with dried seaweeds or accompanying a bollito with a cappuccino. Just like almost every Japanese restaurant abroad knows that it cannot serve real Japanese food to their foreign customers who would not have the time to get used and appreciate the very different tastes, Italian restaurants in Japan tend to adapt their dishes to the local taste, with some rather odd results for us –sometimes bordering madness.

Better go for Japanese cuisine: you will need some time to get to know it but, once you get used to it, you will find out how good and healthy it can be.

NOT ONLY SUSHI Chapter 4 (Pietro0

Tabehoudai and nomihoudai are two words that might be useful and you will surely learn if you go out with friends in Japan.

In Japan there is, of course, a huge variety of bars. But one of the most popular places to go is the izakaya, a very Japanese compromise between a bar and a restaurant. When you enter an izakaya you will be assigned a room just for you and your friends, the bigger your group the bigger the room will be. Every room is separated by the others, soetimes by just paper walls and often you can see parts of other rooms from yours. The idea, though, is that in an izakaya every group of friends finds a place to talk, laugh, joke and have fun while eating and drinking. At the entrance of many izakayas you will be asked to take off your shoes as rooms often do not have chairs but low tables and cushions where you can sit. You will also find special slippers to wear in case you want to go to the bathroom.

There are many kinds of izakaya. Some are very simple, other extremely refined. But if many bars aim only at a certain type of customers –young students or businessmen- izakayas, with their private rooms, can aim at a much broader clientele.

In places like Shibuya or Ikebukuro you will find very special izakayas, sometimes more similar to theme parks. For example, you can dine in a prison/war scene style izakaya, where the waitress who welcomes you will have you handcuffed and will scan your friends looking for nuclear radiations on their clothes. Or where some other waiters are dressed like zombies and go around the place trying to scare people for the delight of the customers who take pictures while screaming excited.

But let’s go back to tabehoudai and nomihoudai. When Japanese people go to an izakaya –and generally to restaurants- they will probably order many dishes that are placed at the centre of the table with everybody free to take from them. As it is very likely that you will drink a lot in an izakaya –and Japanese people in particolar- you probably do not want to keep looking at the menu and keep count of the prices. If you choose tabehoudai and nomihoudai (which can be translated “All you can eat” and “All you can drink”) you will be able to pay for the time you stay in the izakaya, instead of for what you eat and drink. Thus, you will be free to just order food and drinks without thinking at your bill becoming huge as in the end you will pay the fixed price, which for a couple of hours in a normal izakaya is around 30-35 euro –but the price can vary quite a lot with the quality of the place and the food. The only problem is that the “free food” bonanza that will result from this will make you eat and drink way beyond your limit!

NOT ONLY SUSHI Chapter 3 (Pietro)

In Japan there is a kind of restaurant that is half-way between fast food and a normal restaurant. Normally rather small, these restaurants are often specialised in just one dish: tempura,udon, soba, ramen, curry or much more.

They are characterized by a long counter where customers who are alone and want to be served quickly –maybe before taking the train home- normally sit. Some of these restaurants are popular because of their particularly fast service –and to make things faster you might have to make your order at an automatic machine at the entrance of the shop instead of to the waiter. This can be hell for the average Westerner who has no knowledge of Japanese. Other restaurants offer a more relaxed environment with also table service for those customers who are in groups or want to be more comfortable. 

In Japan it is very common to wear the uniform of your workplace. Restaurants are no different, with all waiters wearing the restaurant’s uniform. As soon as you enter you they will all welcome you by shouting “Irasshaimase”, in choir and sometimes even the cooks join in. It’s the Japanese way to greet the customer, who is treated almost like a living god in Japan. Don’t let the ritual between waiter and customer frighten you: the customer is always right and can simply remain silent while the waiter cares for everything and makes everything go the right way. The majority of restaurants in Japan have a menu in English and often you will not even need asking for it: your Western face speaks loudly enough. The English menu, though, might not help you out that much, as it rarely can really give you an idea of what you’ll find in the plate you are going to order. So, if you are no experts of Japanese cuisine, luck plays a rather important role. It is not necessarily a bad thing: trying out many restaurants and dishes is the best way to get acquainted with the cuisine of this country. Once you find something you like, write it down and talk about it with the Japanese people you know. They will be pleasantly impressed by your interest for local food. Japanese people love talking about food –both Japanese and foreign-, food is by all means a big part of Japanese culture.

More than from the English menu, you will find some help by looking at the entrance of many restaurants. In many cases you will find some plastic models of the dishes that are offered, something very surreal but also very useful.

A part from the quick service, another nice thing of these small specialized restaurants is the price. Drinks like water and tea are free (water, actually, is considered a free service almost everywhere in Japan) and with 300-800 yen (that is 2,50-7,50 euro) you can eat a big portion of your favourite dish, tempura, udon, soba and much more. If you like beer you will find some of high quality in Japan, but be ready to pay much more. Japanese love drinking beer, wine and other alcoholic drinks, but prices are rather high: accompanying your meal with a couple of beers can easily double your check.

Once your meal is over you can pay the check and let the waiters submerge you once again with their “arigato gozaimasu”.

NOT ONLY SUSHI Chapter 2 (Pietro)

In Japan there is a kind of restaurant that is half-way between a fast food and a regular restaurant. Often rather small, these restaurants are normally specialized in just one dish, that can be tempura, udon, soba, ramen, curry rice and much more.

Let’s see what these dishes are:

tempura is made of deep fried vegetables or seafood. Forget the way we fry things in Europe: although deep fried, tempura, is rather light and will not make you feel that full. It is often accompanied by white rice and miso soup, which has a very delicate and typically Japanese taste. In order to make the taste stronger you can add the omnipresent soy sauce, the solution for all foods that don’t really meet your taste: if someone offers you something you don’t like in Japan and you cannot refuse just add soy sauce. With its strong taste it will magically cover every other taste. It appears that the name tempura came from the latin tempora, by which the Portuguese missionaries who arrived in Japan in the  16th Century defined periods of penitence during which they abstained from meat –thus only eating vegetables and seafood, which they often fried. One among the most typical of Japanese dishes would thus be the result of a Japanese reinterpretation of a Western receipt.

Udon and soba are, roughly speaking, big spaghetti made of wheat flour –the former- and of buckwheat flour –the latter. They can be served in an infinite variety of versions and the way they are cooked also varies with the regions. They are often served in a soup in which other ingredients like eggs or tofu, the light cheese derived from soy, can be added. They can also be eaten cold (the family that hosted me for some time during a very hot Summer in the Japanese Southern island of Kyushu liked to put ice cubes on them). In that case, instead of in a bowl, they are put on the zaru, a grid made of bamboo. Soba can also be stir-fried and in this case it is called yakisoba. Yakisoba can be put into a sandwich –a carbohydrate bomb- which is very much loved by highschool students as a quick lunch or can be taken to pic-nics.

Ramen, just like agriculture, Buddhism, the writing system and many other things, was born in China and then migrated to Japan, where the most famous ramen is the one made in Fukuoka (among the Japanese cities the nearest to China). Every Japanese region elaborated its own very way to cook ramen. We are talking about very thin noodles served in a pork meat based broth, accompanied by boiled meat, fish, corn, onion or many other ingredients

Curry rice is a relatively young dish in Japan, it being introduced to the country only at the end of the 19th Century following the opening of Japan to trade with Great Britain. The Japanese changed it quite a bit, creating a different kind of curry rice, very far from the Indian one. It is served on a big plate: on one side white rice, on the other a dark curry sauce with meat, potatoes and onion. People eat it with a spoon and not with chopsticks. In restaurants you will be asked to specify the spiciness level you prefer and do not exaggerate: quite a few Westerners can be seen crying on their plate of curry rice.

NOT ONLY SUSHI Chapter I (Pietro)

Japan is expensive. Lately, in particular, the change has become so awful –with the yen becoming so strong against both the euro and the dollar- that every time you put your hand on your wallet you feel like crying. Eating out in Japan, though, is one of the few things that are relatively cheaper in than in Europe. So let us find some comfort by going out to eat and let us discover the many specialities that the Japanese cuisine offers and the many restaurants of all kinds that are the main sight in so many Japanese streets. Eating out in Japan is quite more common than in Europe: people who want to have a quick meal before taking the train back home, families, friends, students looking for cheap places, couples, restaurants specialised in one kind of meal only, fast-food restaurants, traditional restaurants where you’ll sit on the wooden floor, Italian, Indian, Swedish restaurants: let’s make some sense in this myriad of options that we have if you find ourselves hungry in Japan.

Those who are used to eating Japanese cuisine abroad and then come to Japan might be surprised: they are very likely to find rather different food. On the one hand, just like many Italian restaurants in Japan try to make their dishes closer to Japanese taste –maybe garnishing a carbonara with some dried seaweeds- Japanese restaurants abroad tend to avoid flavours that might be too far from the country’s taste and that occasional customers might not appreciate or understand. On the other hand, the importance of some dishes is emphasized, while other dishes –although extremely popular in Japan- are scrapped from the menu all together.

One example is sushi: every foreigner will associate Japanese cuisine with sushi. Yet, the first time I went to Japan and spent two months with a Japanese family I never found sushi in my plate. Instead, I was greeted with a plate full of funny looking pseudo-spaghetti and my breakfast for the whole first week was a soup made of potatoes, seaweeds, onions and other mysterious ingredients. Every meal was accompanied by a bowl of way-too-cooked rice which, to my Italian taste, was lacking salt and had no taste whatsoever. This does not mean that Japanese cuisine is not good: although my first encounter with it was so difficult, I discovered that Japanese cuisine can be extremely tasty. What I want to say is that you will need time to discover, get used to and –in the end- appreciate flavours that are so far from those many Westerners know.

In the majority of restaurants in Japan you will not find any sushi. If you feel like sushi you will have to go to restaurants that specialise in sushi as this is no daily food for almost every Japanese.

In these pages I would like to concentrate on those Japanese dishes that international Japanese cuisine tends to forget, on the Western cuisine as you can find it in Japan, on the different kinds of restaurants the streets of Japan offer and, finally, -as you might want to grab some sushi while you’re in Japan!- we will have a look at the funny and strange world of thekaitenzushi.  

Japanese Ramen (Yo Yo)

Whoever a Chinese hear the pronunciation ramen will probably think about Chinese Lanzhou noodle. However, if the word appears in Japan, it has a different meaning. People who study Japanese know there are hiragana and katagana in Japanese language system. Katagana is used for foreigner words, especially western coming words. For most Chinese,  a lot the Japanese pronunciations sound similar with Chinese, and those similar words are either  modified by hiragana or kanji. The kanji of ramen (a kind of Chinese noodle) appeared in my mind when I first time heart the word ラーメン(ramen) in Japanese. You can hardly see any kanji written of ramen in any ramen restaurant of Japan even there are uncountable ramen restaurants. They are all written by katagana (used for western coming words mostly). I did not understand it until I got a chance to visit ramen museum in Yokohama. The reason ramen doesn't write in kanji is that ramen in Japan and ramen (kanji) in China is essential different. If Japanese restaurants use kanji of ramen, a lot of Chinese will miss the chance to taste this Japanese delicious noodle.

Japanese ramen has its own history, categories and recipes even ramen was originally came from China. Ramen has become one of the most typical food in Japan after more than hundred years.  Different from Chinese ramen which is hand-pulled, Japanese ramen is by cutting. You may think about Chinese sliced-noodle, but ramen is totally different with sliced noodle by looking and tasting. Not like Chinese ramen use light beef soup, Japanese noodle are mostly served with thick pork soup with soy sauce and miso (Japanese seasoning). Ramen is really an important food in Japan; along with beef sauced-rice is the top two lunch choice for office workers in Japan. In addition, ramen is also variety in Japan in different areas. East Japan, West Japan, Hokkaido and Kyushu all have their famous ramen. Some place intent to use more vegetables; some place more likely use seafood. There are also some shared-ingredients in all Japanese ramen, such as bamboo shoot and seaweed. Ramen can be also considered as fast-food in Japan, because Comparing to other traditional Japanese food, ramen is mostly cheap and fast. It is easy to find a ramen restaurant in most streets and all department stores. And it does not matter if the shop looks glorious or it, the ramen are all tasted. Even school cafeteria’s simple miso ramen is so delicious. Most ramen restaurants also serve some other ingredient for customers’’ choice, such as mashed garlic, red ginger and chilli oil.

The price of ramen is also variety. But in general, it’s about 500 to 1000 Japanese Yen. It is one of the most common meal choices in Japan. However, due to the complicated making process, usually Japanese families do not make ramen at home. This allows ramen business to have a really big market. There are two tips for eating ramen in Japan. First of all, the tradition way to eat ramen is to suck ramen without cutting by teeth along with noise. Even younger generations are not always doing it; do not ever be surprised by this special way when you have ramen in Japan. Second, do drink the soup of ramen even it looks really oily sometimes, it is one of the best part of ramen.

You have to try ramen in Japan. With good seafood you can make delicious sushi anywhere. But ramen in Japan is not the food itself, it is also about culture.

The Japanese Dining Experience (Gillian)

In my article on Japanese food I wrote about some of what I deem to be the coolest foods in Japan. Confessing to being a great lover of obentoo, karaage and yakisoba will probably be enough to make you look like a rock star in the eyes of the Japanese, who are so obsessed with food that their ability to remain as thin as they do is nothing short of miraculous. But enjoying food is not always just about the food. Think about the times that you’ve gone to a Chinese restaurant, or a steakhouse, or McDonalds, with family and/or friends. The food in these places is normally pretty tasty (not to mention cool, at least in the case of McDonalds), but is it always just the food that you remember? Or do you also remember the ambiance of the restaurant, or the quality of the service, or the way the food is presented to you? These aspects play a role in making food enjoyable, and there is no doubt that Japan has some of the coolest dining experiences that you will ever, for lack of a more imaginative word, experience. I am going to attempt to introduce you to a few of the Japanese dining experiences that have stood out for me in particular.


Ramen Stores


Ramen as a Japanese delicacy has an interesting history. It is a dish of Chinese origin that the Japanese took and made their own. If the popularity of the ramen museum (yes, you read that correctly) in Yokohama is anything to go by, the Japanese are endlessly fascinated by the dish, which consists of noodles in a flavoured broth served with pork, seaweed, bamboo shoots, green onions and a myriad of other possible toppings. Ramen stores are everywhere in Japan, and going to one of these stores is a delicacy in itself.


How it generally works is, you enter the store and are either led to the table, accompanied by the cheerful cries of “Irashaimase!” (“Welcome!”) from the shop’s staff, or you approach the shop’s special order-placing vending machine, accompanied by the cheerful cries of “Irashaimase!” (which still means “Welcome!”). After taking a moment to peruse the menu/the buttons of the vending machine, you either tell the waiter your order, or present the ticket that you bought at the vending machine to the staff. You wait for five minutes, sipping the refreshingly cold water provided at every ramen store by unwritten Japanese restaurant law, and the ramen then arrives. You look into the enormous bowl that has been laid before you and wonder how on God’s Green Earth all of this delicious noodle-y goodness could have only cost you 500 yen. If you finish your food, you deserve a medal. Or maybe not, because ramen is another of those Japanese dishes that is so simple, but so delicious, that you will have no trouble eating it until you are full, and then some. Most of these stores offer other dishes as well, like gyouza (Chinese-style dumplings), various soba dishes, varieties of donburi (meat, vegetables and other proteins like egg, served over a bed of rice) and my beloved karaage (praised in detail in my Japanese food article). All of these other dishes are well worth trying, but if you only have the time to visit one of these stores once, go with ramen. It is an experience that you will not soon forget.

On top is the inside of a typical ramen store. On the bottom is a bowl of basic ramen.

Some vending machines at ramen stores.

Okonomiyaki Restaurants


In my Japanese food article I mentioned sukiyaki, but did not mention that suki literally means “to like”, so sukiyaki means “cooking (what you) like”. Funnily enough, okonomiyaki means the same thing, as okonomi means the same thing as suki. Okonomiyaki is a completely different dish, however. Often known as a “Japanese pancake”, okonomiyaki is a mixture of a batter made from flour, grated yam, water or dashi (fish stock), egg and cabbage, and other ingredients like meat (pretty much any sort of meat), green onions, kimchi (a spicy korean cabbage-based dish), mochi (pounded rice cakes) and cheese. This mixture is poured onto a hot pan and cooked just like a pancake. Okonomiyaki is very tasty, but more importantly in this case, it is very easy to cook. Because of this, in many okonomiyaki restaurants you cook the okonomiyaki yourself. You sit in small groups around a table (this table can be either a standard western-style table, or a low table where you sit or kneel on a cushion on the floor) with a hot plate in the middle. You select your desired okonomiyaki combination, and after some time the waiter brings you the raw ingredients, which you mix together and poor onto the hot plate. Once you’ve cooked the okonomiyaki on both sides, you cut it up, top it off with okonomiyaki sauce and/or mayonnaise and/or bonito fish flakes, and eat it. Sitting and cooking with friends and family makes for an immensely enjoyable experience, well worth checking out while in Japan.

On top is a nice-prepared and presented okonomiyaki. On the bottom, a child slicing up freshly-made okonomiyaki.

Kaiten-zushi

Known in English as a “sushi train” or a “conveyer belt sushi bar”, kaiten-zushi is a unique way of experiencing one of Japan’s most famous delicacies. In these restaurants, customers sit at a large, bar-like table. In the middle of the table are the sushi chefs, who work busily preparing different styles and flavours of sushi. As they make the sushi, they place the little plates on a conveyer belt that travels around the table. As all of the different types of sushi travel slowly in front of the customer, the customer grabs whatever plate looks appetising to them, and enjoys. The final bill is calculated by counting the number of plates the customer has taken from the conveyer belt. Kaiten-zushi is making its way into foreign countries as well, with franchises like Sushi Train in Australia, and Yo! Sushi in Britain, offering the kaiten-zushi experience to its residents. Because sushi is served cold and in small servings of generally only two or three pieces, this is a style of dining that can be used with few other foods. If the coolness of the kaiten-zushi franchises in other countries is anything to go by, kaiten-zushi is definitely a cool dining experience.

Above is a kaiten-zushi restaurant in action. The chefs make the sushi as the sushi already made travels along the conveyer belt. Below is what remains when a customer finishes eating. The different-coloured plates indicate different prices.


These are just a few of the amazing dining experiences Japan has to offer. There is a belief amongst foreigners, from my understanding, that Japanese cuisine is limited and has little to offer the foreign palette. Hopefully you can see from this article and my article on Japanese food, as well as the dozen or so other articles written by the other contributors to this site, that this could not be further from the truth. Nowadays Japanese food is rich and diverse, and offers some of the most interesting dining experiences that I, and my family and friends, have ever experienced. Even if food is not something that you care about or think too much about, I hope that you will at least give some of these foods and restaurants a try. There is no doubt that food and dining are some of the coolest things about Japan.