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Time to Eat!

For more information about dining information in Japan, be sure to check out the Gourmet Navigator website.

Famous as a real paradise for the connoisseur, Japan offers a range of wonderful places and food to eat. You can eat Western food and pretend you never left home or enjoy the wonderful tastes and textures of Japanese cuisine.

Visitors are encouraged to try the local delicacies while visiting. There are many different types of Japanese restaurants and most of them specialize in different types of food. For example, there are restaurants that specialize in serving only the finest sushi to their customers, those that specialize in ramen and other noodle dishes, and some that serve only tonkatsu dishes. Whatever your palette, there is a restaurant in Japan to suit you.

However, if the Japanese specialty restaurants don't appeal to you, then visitors will be happy to know that there are places that have a broader menu. Izakaya restaurants focus on the beverage menu and serve small dishes as appetizers. Family restaurants are great  and serve an assortment of dishes, including Chinese, Western, and Japanese.

For those that want to try something simpler, then perhaps the different foreign cuisine restaurants will be satisfactory. Walking around and shopping can be tiresome, so stop by one of these places for a quick bite. There are even those that specialize in a particular cuisine, such as Chinese, Italian, Southeast Asian, and Western food.

But what would a person eager to try the local cuisine want to order? Here is a sample of some of the common food items:

• Domburi. As a general term, domburi means bowl. However, it is the name of a dish that features rice with other food placed on top. There is a wide range of domburi dishes, ranging from chicken to egg to eel.
• Kaiseki. A kaiseki meal is a formal cuisine served at traditional restaurants. A kaiseki meal is a series of small courses. The food is seasonal and consists of one soup and an odd number of dishes, in addition to sake or beer.
• Nabemono. These one-pot stews are cooked at the table in a communal pot over a gas flame. When ordering in a restaurant, the ingredients will be displayed before they are placed in the pot. Usually, the waitress will start the process, but it is then transformed into self-service.
• Okonomiyaki. Think of this as a pancake that is a mixture of shopped meat or seafood, various vegetables, and batter. It is cooked on a grill. In some restaurants, the customer will be provided the spatula to cook his own food.
• Ramen. A noodle dish imported from China, ramen is now identified as a Japanese cuisine. Ramen noodles are very thin and served with a wide variety of sauces and ingredients. Favorites are ramen with barbecue pork, vegetables and wonton (small Chinese dumplings).
• Sushi. Perhaps the most famous food outside of Japan, sushi is a dish containing rice and prepared with vinegar. Different varieties include: Nigiri (small rice balls with fish), Gunkan (small cups of rice and dried seaweed with seafood), Temaki (cones of nori seaweed with sushi rice, seafood, and vegetables), among others.
• Wasabi, Japanese horseradish,it is grown as a root vegetable, but is ground into a paste, and available in powder form. When tasted, it has a strong and spicy flavor that clears within a few moments and leaves no aftertaste.
• Tempura. Next in popularity outside of Japan is tempura, which is almost an art form in Japan. Morsels of food, covered in a special batter, are fried in a vat of oil. There are restaurants in Japan that feature tempura masters.
• Udon. These thick Japanese noodles are very popular. Often served in a broth, once prepared, the taste is exquisite and can be combined with different ingredients.
• Yakitori. Grilled chicken on a stick, yakitori uses different parts of the chicken, including the thigh, skin, liver, etc.

Now that you know what you want to eat, there are many great restaurants to choose. Seek out any information office in the city to ask where you want to go, as they will be more than happy to accommodate you.