If there's no English menu and you're game you can ask for the server's recommendation 'O-susume wa nan desu ka? Often a bill is placed discreetly on your table after your food has been delivered. If not, catch your server's eye with a 'sumimasen' excuse me and ask for the check by saying, 'o-kaikei kudasai'. Payment, even at high-end places, is often settled at a counter near the entrance, rather than at the table. If you're generally an adventurous or curious eater, don't let the absence of an English menu put you off.
Instead, tell the staff or ideally the chef , 'omakase de onegaishimasu' I'll leave it up to you. This works especially well when you're sitting at the counter of a smaller restaurant or izakaya Japanese pub eatery , where a rapport naturally develops between the diners and the cooks. It's best said with enthusiasm and a disarming smile, to reassure everyone that you really are game.
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This isn't just a tourist hack: Japanese diners do this all the time. Menus might not reflect seasonal dishes and odds are the chef is working on something new that he or she is keen to test out on the willing. These offer quick and easy meals and usually enough variety to please everyone including children.
They often have plastic food models displayed in their window; in a pinch, if there's no English menu, beckon the wait staff outside and point to what you want. Visiting one is a great way to dig into Japanese culture.
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While the vibe is lively and social, it's perfectly acceptable to go by yourself and sit at the counter. If you don't want alcohol, it's fine to order a soft drink instead but it would be strange to not order at least one drink. There are orthodox, family run izakaya , often with rustic interiors, that serve sashimi and grilled fish to go with sake; large, cheap chains, popular with students, that often have a healthy er, unhealthy dose of Western pub-style dishes like chips ; and there are also stylish chef-driven ones with creative menus.
Chains often have deals where you can pay a set price for a certain amount of dishes and free drinks. In exchange, you'll be served a small dish of food to snack on until the kitchen can prepare your order. But no, you can't pass it up even if you don't want to eat it. Putting away skewers of yakitori charcoal-grilled chicken, but vegetables are served, too , along with beer, is a popular after-work ritual. Most yakitori -ya yakitori restaurants are convivial counter joints where the food is grilled over hot coals in front of you. It's typical to order a few skewers at a time.
The chef will ask if you want your skewers seasoned with shio salt or tare sauce. Yakitori-ya are often located near train stations and are best identified by a red lantern outside and the smell of grilled chicken. Today sushi is widely associated with fresh fish, but the dish originated as a way to make fish last longer — the vinegar in the rice was a preserving agent. Older styles of sushi were designed to last for days, and have that heavy tang of fermentation. These include hako-zushi or oshi-zushi 'box' or 'pressed' sushi , made by pressing fish onto a bed of heavily vinegared rice in a wooden mould with a weighted top; sushi in this style is still eaten frequently in western Japan.
Sushi evolved dramatically in 19th and early 20th century Tokyo. Tokyo Bay provided a steady stream of fresh seafood, making preservation less crucial; more importantly, sanitation improved. Sushi became a sort of fast food: deft-handed chefs quickly formed bite-sized blocks of rice and pressed slivers of fish atop for the new class of hungry urbanites.
This style — now the most common style and what most people think of when they think of sushi — is called nigiri-zushi , which means hand-formed sushi. Common nigiri-zushi toppings called neta include ama-ebi sweet shrimp , hamachi yellow tail , ika squid , katsuo bonito , maguro tuna and toro fatty tuna belly meat.
In truth not all neta are raw fish: you many encounter anago conger eel that has been grilled and lacquered in a sweet soy-sauce glaze; tako octopus that has been boiled; or hotate scallops that have been seared — among others. The same shops that specialise in nigiri-zushi will also serve maki-zushi with the rice and neta rolled together in laver — edible seaweed.
Nigiri-sushi is usually made with wasabi, so if you'd prefer it without, order wasabi-nuki. Sushi is one of the few foods in Japan that is perfectly acceptable to eat with your hands even at high-end places!
Slices of gari pickled ginger are served to refresh the palate. But the most economical way to eat sushi is to order a set, usually of around 10 to 12 pieces, which may be served all at once or piece by piece. The price difference is determined more by the value of the ingredients than by volume.
Sushi restaurants often also serve chirashi-zushi , bite-sized pieces of seafood scattered on a bowl of vinegar-seasoned rice; this too tends to be offered at different grades using the same terms. Here there's no need to order: just grab whatever looks good. In either case, a healthy mix of veggies and tofu are added to the pot a little bit at a time followed by noodles at the end. One party shares the pot and the minimum order is usually two though some places do lunch deals for solo diners.
The waitstaff will set everything up for you and show you what to do. Tempura is seafood fish, eel or prawns and vegetables like pumpkin, green pepper, sweet potato or onion lightly battered and deep-fried in sesame oil. Season by dipping each piece lightly in salt or a bowl of ten-tsuyu broth for tempura mixed with grated daikon Japanese radish.
Tempura can also often be ordered as a side dish at izakaya and noodle restaurants. Ramen originated in China, but its popularity in Japan is epic. If a town has only one restaurant, odds are it's a ramen shop.
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The broth can be made from pork or chicken bones or dried seafood; usually it's a top-secret combination of some or all of the above, falling somewhere on the spectrum between kotteri thick and fatty — a signature of pork bone ramen or assari thin and light. Most shops will specialise in one or two broths and offer a variety of seasonings and toppings. Another popular style is tsukemen , noodles that come with a dipping sauce like a really condensed broth on the side. Costs are minimised by fast-food-style service: often you order from a vending machine you'll get a paper ticket, which you hand to the chef ; water is self-serve.
Soba are thin brown buckwheat noodles which may or may not be cut with wheat while udon are thick white wheat noodles. Some restaurants may specialise in one or the other; other places will serve both. In general, eastern Japan tends to favour soba while western Japan leans towards udon. There are also many regional variations. At better shops, the noodles will be handmade from premium flours and mountain spring water and will cost twice as much. But even at they're most refined, noodles are a reasonably affordable meal. Both soba and udon may be served in a hot broth that is flavoured with bonito, kelp, soy sauce and mirin sweet sake.
They may also be served cooled with dipping sauce a more condensed broth on the side, to which you can add aromatics like spring onions or wasabi. The weather may be a deciding factor but so is personal preference: if a place is famous for its noodles many customers would order them chilled, to better appreciate the flavour. Also cooled noodles won't go mushy like those in hot broth so can be savoured rather than scoffed. When you order cooled noodles, the restaurant will often bring you a small kettle of hot water the slightly starchy water used to boil the noodles.
Pour it in the cup with the remaining dipping sauce and enjoy it like a hot broth. Tonkatsu is a pork cutlet breaded in panko and deep-fried, almost always served as a set meal that includes rice, miso soup and a heaping mound of shredded cabbage. Season with tonkatsu sauce, a curious and highly addictive ketchup-y condiment, or karashi hot spicy yellow mustard. The best tonkatsu is said to be made from kurobuta Black Berkshire pork , from Kagoshima. Okonomiyaki is a dish that flies in the face of the prevailing image of Japanese food being subtle.
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It's a thick, savoury pancake stuffed with pork, squid, cabbage, cheese, mochi pounded rice cake — anything really okonomi means 'as you like'; yaki means 'fry'. Restaurants specialising in okonomiyaki have hotplates built into the tables or counter. Some places do the cooking for you; others give you a bowl of batter and fillings and leave you to it. Don't panic: the staff will mime instructions and probably keep an eye on you to make sure no real disasters occur.
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Okonomiyaki is heavily associated with Osaka. Hiroshima has its own variety called hiroshima-yaki , where the pancake is thin like a crepe and the ingredients are layered rather than mixed. In Tokyo, okonomiyaki restaurants also serve monja-yaki , which has a very thin, runny batter. Kaiseki is Japan's formal haute cuisine, where ingredients, preparation, setting and presentation come together to create a highly ritualised, aesthetically sophisticated dining experience.
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Key to kaiseki is peak seasonal freshness; as the ingredients should be at the height of their flavour, only subtle seasoning is used to enhance them. The table settings and garnishes too are chosen to complement the ingredients and evoke seasonality. The meal is served in several small courses, which usually include sashimi raw fish , something steamed, something grilled, soup and finishes with rice and then a simple dessert though there may be many, many more courses.