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Japanese Food
What is it?
Bento (Bento Box, Bento Lunch)
A bento is a boxed lunch that consists of small portions of a lot of different foods, sometimes including rice balls, mystery meat, fish, vegetables, and pickled things. You can buy them at conbinis and train stations for an easy meal, and you will probably receive them any time you are fed as part of a group, like at your school’s festival, graduation day, any group tour, etc.
Betsu-betsu
This is what you say to separate your bills. Most restaurants will be able to do this for you when you are ready to pay up. Just remember what you ordered then let them know! The other alternative would be issho-ni meaning together. There are other ways to say this but you should be able to get by from these words.
Curry Rice
Curry rice is very popular because it’s cheap and delicious—almost everyone loves it. You’ll find curry in restaurants (both lunch-counter grade and more gourmet styles), in school cafeterias as one of their daily offerings, and you can buy curry blocks of various spiciness in the grocery store to make your own. In a restaurant, it is usually served with a small pile of red pickles on the side. This is a spoon food, not a chopstick food. Japanese curry has a different flavor (and color) from Indian curry, so if you’ve never had it, give it a try! Beware if you’re vegetarian though – even if it doesn’t contain actual chunks of meat, you’ll find that some kind of meat extract has probably been used in the sauce.
Izakaya
An izakaya (居酒屋) is a common kind of Japanese bar, popular in Japan for after-work drinking. The definitive feature of an izakaya is that it serves food as well as drink. When you first sit down, you will be given an oshibori (wet towel) to clean your hands with, next an appetizer will be served. The portions are generally more substantial than Spanish tapas, but are less than a full meal. Everyone usually orders many appetizer-sized dishes and shares them.
When the Japanese go to izakayas they almost always split the bill equally regardless of drinkers or non-drinkers being present.
Seating – Usually you will be sitting on cushions on the floor of tatami mats around Japanese tables. (Yes, the ones that look like coffee tables!) The other style is the “horigotatsu” style where it looks like you are sitting on the floor, however there is a pit under the table for your legs to hang down.
Okonomiyaki
Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) is a type of Japanese pan-fried batter cake with various ingredients. Okonomi means "what you like", or "what you want" and yaki means "grilled" or "cook" (like yakitori and yakisoba) in Japanese, so this dish's name means "cook what you like." The batter is based on flour, grated yam, water or dashi, egg and shredded cabbage, and usually contains other ingredients such as green onion, meat, squid, shrimp, vegetables, kimchi, mochi and cheese. Okonomiyaki is often compared to an omelette, pizza or pancake because of the variety of ingredients it can contain. Hence it is sometimes called "Japanese pizza”
Okonomiyaki is prepared like a pancake. The batter and other ingredients are spread and fried on both sides, using either a hot plate (teppan) or a pan. The finished product is then served with further toppings such as okonomiyaki sauce (similar to worcestershire sauce but thicker and sweeter), nori, fish flakes, mayo (optional), and ginger. Again, if you’re vegetarian beware. Some places may offer a fish/seafood option or just cheese/veggies, but they spread the hotplate with lard/animal fat to cook it. As the food is being cooked in front of you, you can expect to smell like it after you leave the restaurant – something to take into consideration before you make your restaurant choice!
Ramen
Ramen, for those unlucky of you who haven't had the chance to enjoy its salty and fatty goodness, is a soup comprised of broth and long noodles. Raw Chinese egg noodles (Chuka-men) are used to make ramen. Even though Chinese noodles are used in ramen dishes, ramen is a typical Japanese food. There are so many ramen shops in Japan, and ramen is a kind of Japanese fast food!
The taste of ramen mainly depends on the soup, and it requires skills boy to make delicious soup. Ramen chefs usually train for a long time to learn to make ramen soup. Each ramen shop has its own way to make soup, and there are so many different ways. Chicken, pork, dried sardines (niboshi), and/or kombu seaweed are used to make soup stock for ramen.
Vegetables, such as ginger, negi (leek), garlic, or/and mushrooms are also added. Categorized by the flavor, there are mainly four kinds of ramen: shio ramen (salt soup), shoyu ramen (soy sauce soup), tonkotsu ramen (pork bone soup), miso ramen (miso soy bean paste soup) Tonkotsu ramen soup is creamy white, and miso ramen soup is brown. Common ramen toppings are negi (leek), shinachiku (seasoned bamboo shoots), nori (dried seaweed), yakibuta (pork ham), boiled egg, etc. For more info on ramen see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramen
Note: Ramen differs from shop to shop so it’s more of a trial tasting for your preference.
Sushi vs. sashimi
Even though most of the West refers to raw fish as sushi, you will figure out very quickly in Japan that the two are not synonymous. Sashimi means raw fish; sushi is a method of preparation that involves seaweed wrapped around vinegared rice. You will almost certainly encounter both A) some sushi that has no raw fish inside, and B) raw fish that is not made into sushi. The rest of the world will probably never correct itself, but as a resident of Japan you should know the difference.
Washoku （和食）
This is the name given to Japanese (or Japanese-style) food. If a restaurant has the above kanji outside you can expect a mix of izakaya food, yakitori, sushi and other Japanese-ified dishes.
Yakitori
This is grilled stuff on skewers! Although yakitori (焼き鳥, やきとり), literally means roast chicken, is a Japanese type of chicken kebab. Traditional yakitori consists only of various chicken parts and vegetables, but in modern usage refers to any sort of beef, pork, fish, seafood or vegetable kebab, which get skewered on skewers named kushi (little bamboo things). Yakitori is typically served with salt or tare sauce, which is basically made up of mirin, sweet sake, soy sauce and sugar. The sauce is applied on the skewered meat and is grilled till delicately cooked and is served with the tare sauce as a dip.
Some places have pictures but memorizing a few favourites is a good way to get what you like. Common yakitori dishes:
- yotsumi (四つ身, chicken breast)
- atsuage tofu (厚揚げとうふ, deep-fat fried tofu)
- enoki maki (エノキ巻き, enoki mushrooms wrapped in slices of pork)
- piman (ピーマン, green pepper)
- negi (ねぎ, green onions)
- nankotsu (軟骨, chicken cartilage)
- rebaa (レバー, liver)
I personally like “piman” (green peppers) and “tan” (pronounced more or less like “tung” without stressing the “g”) It’s beef tongue (sometimes it’s pork), but oh so yummy!
Yakiniku
This refers to the Korean style restaurants which the Japanese have adapted here. It means grilled meat and well, it’s basically that! It is cooked on a griddle, often over charcoal or a gas oven, and eaten with vegetables cooked the same way. There are many specialty yakiniku restaurants and most of them follow Korean-style barbecue. You sit around the table in which the grill is placed and barbecue the beef on the grill. You can enjoy two different types of beef. One is "rous", which is thin slices of marinated beef and the other is "karubi", short rib of beef slices. You can also eat "tan" (cows' tongue), "rebaa" (liver), "hatsu" (heart) etc. and these are popular among the Japanese.
After you order, the waiter/waitress will light your grill and bring the ingredients on big plates. Place the meat and vegetables on the grill. When they are done, take a piece of them a dip it into a sauce and eat. When you eat "tan" and "hatsu", just sprinkle a bit of salt and eat.
Types of yakiniku:
- Rouse (thin slices of marinated beef)
- Jou-rouse (Deluxe order of "rouse")
- Toku-jou-rouse (Super deluxe order of "rouse")
- Karubi (Short rib of beef slices)
- Jou-karubi (Deluxe order of "karubi")
- Toku-jou-karubi (Super deluxe order of "karubi")
- Hire (Slices of beef fillet meat)
- Tan (Slices of beef tongue)
- Mino (Slices of beef tripe)
- Rebaa (Slices of beef liver)
- Horumon (Beef giblets)
- Hatsu (Beef hearts)
Yakisoba
Yakisoba (焼きそば), lit. fried noodles, is a very simple dish and is sold very cheaply. Even though soba is part of the word, yakisoba noodles are similar to ramen noodles and made from flour. Yakisoba can be flavored with okonomiyaki sauce or salt and black pepper. The cooking instructions are very simple: heat a frying pan with a little vegetable oil and sautee bite-sized slices of pork or beef and vegetables like cabbage or carrot. Add Yakisoba, pour in a little water to untangle the noodles, and cook until the water is gone. Then add sauce and serve.
Yoshoku (洋食)
The name given to all western-style food and the restaurants that sell them. It may be a pizza covered with squid, corn and mayonaise, but it’s still classed as foreign!
Notes on eating out in Japan
- If you are vegetarian or eating with someone who is, your options will be limited if you want Japanese food. Even though there will be some vegetable options at Yakitori/niku/soba/ okonomiyaki places they will all be cooked together on the same grill which strict veggies can’t eat. Generic washoku restaurants have more options for veggie people but you still have to be aware that many things contain dashi (fish stock) or other fishy products. Many foods that are vegetarian back home (such as salad dressing etc) will have meat extract. Be prepared to be patient, ask lots of questions and make sure that they double check as many Japanese people don’t understand vegetarianism, and will think that something is OK as long as it doesn’t have actual flesh in it. Also be prepared to compromise if you want to eat out in Japan!
- Okonomiyaki and yakisoba/tori/niku restaurants tend to be smelly as the food is cooked right in front of you. Take this into consideration when you think that you’ll want to smell good after a meal!