Adventures in Eating in Japan, Part One

All of our meals in Japan proved to be an interesting experience.  Some of the food is familiar, like sushi, teppanyaki, or ramen,  but most of it is never exported off the islands.  The problem with Japanese food is that you never know what you are going to get.

Some of it is just so foreign to our American palates that we were fearful each time we ordered that we were getting something totally weird.  If you are lucky, you will get a menu with awkward translations into English.  More often, you had to rely upon photographs of the food on the menus or the plastic replicas in the window, which usually made things look rather unappetizing.

We never ended up ordering anything too out of the ordinary, but did end up with some tasty meals.  Here are our ten most memorable meals from Japan, in two parts:

Not your college ramen

Although my college friends subsisted off a diet solely composed of ramen, I never was that big of a fan.  Perhaps it was because the college ramen was always a weak broth and a couple of wimpy noodles.  Fukuouka, our first stop in Japan, is known for their ramen noodles.  We tried it twice while we were there: once at a yakatori (a street stall) and once at Ramen Stadium, a whole floor on the top of a shopping mall devoted solely to ramen noodle restaurants, each featuring ramen from different regions around Japan.  Ramen is a good value: filling, but cheap by Japan standards.  Our favorite was the kind with red broth, which we think is from Northern Japan, but who can be sure.  We’re just lucky that we actually selected ramen noodles, considering we had to order it from a vending machine that was entirely in Japanese.

Everything but the kitchen sink

Another “cheap” but unique experience was eating okynamiyaki.  We first tried it in Hiroshima, where it was prepared right in front of us on teppan grills.  Since we were in Hiroshima, the okynamiyaki was prepared Hiroshima style, meaning each ingredient is layered on top of the other.  (We later tried it Osaka style in Kyoto, where all of the ingredients are mixed together.  We preferred the Hiroshima approach).  While we watched, the grillmaster cooked the okynamiyaki in stages: batter, egg, pork, sprouts, noodles, brown sweet-soy sauce, corn, and cheese.  They were tasty and uniquely Japanese, but somewhat rich so we only had them a few times.

CoCo Curry regulars

It is safe to say that I enjoyed the food in Japan more than Sean, probably because it is heavily seafood based.  Sean was always on the lookout for something more familiar.  His favorite place to eat was CoCo Curry House, a chain in every city serving Japanese curry.  Japanese curry is much milder than other Asian curries, although we never got more than a 2 spice level since each spice level was an additional cost.  His favorite dish was a crispy breaded chicken curry dish served with rice.  At around $25 USD for two curry meals and salads, CoCo Curry House was a good bargain.  At the Tokyo location near our hotel, two sumo wrestlers were chowing down, so we figured they agreed.

Light and crispy

Trying to find someplace to eat one night in Kyoto, we wandered into a little neighborhood restaurant called Tempura Arima near our hotel.  The prices were on the high side, but it looked good so we decided to stay.  There were only six people in the restaurant: us, a Japanese couple, a husband cooking and a wife serving.  The four customers took up almost all of the stools at the bar.  Their specialty was multi-course tempura meals, so that is what we ordered.  Each course was artfully presented, with delicate tastes.  Despite the limited words we had in common, we managed to have a conversation with the Japanese owners and customers.  They seemed to get a kick out of us maneuvering with our chopsticks and trying new things, and the other customers bought us shots of sake.

Going Raw

Ah, sushi.  High end or low end, the sushi in Japan never disappointed and often was the one thing that was cheaper in Japan than it was at home.  Although I shy away from wasabi at home, I found myself not only eating but enjoying the wasabi in Japan, prepared with fresh locally grown horseradish.  My favorite fish was the tuna.  If it was the good stuff – and most of it was – it was deep crimson in color and tasted so tender it was like it already had been cooked.

Among other places where we tried it, we ate sushi at a conveyor belt restaurant in Tokyo.  The sushi keeps on rolling by.  You pick what strikes your fancy and they tally up your plates at the end.

On our last full day in Japan, we wandered around Tokyo’s famous Tsukji Fish Market where the fish doesn’t get any fresher, then had sushi for breakfast at a nearby restaurant.  Yum. For a good overview of how to eat sushi in Japan, check out Mary in Japan’s post on sushi etiquette.

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