Japanese restaurantsHere you can find information about the different types of Japanese restaurant and other eating places, with a brief description of the type of food available and some useful tips. You will find this particularly useful if you are visiting Japan, but it will also help if you decide to try a Japanese meal in your local area. Japanese restaurants can be divided into different types, as you would expect, although some of these are not commonly found outside Japan. In your area the choice may be limited to a formal restaurant or a sushi bar, and although both of these are becoming more popular they still tend to be relatively expensive and are usually located only in major cities and areas with Japanese connections such as banks or car factories. In Japan the general restaurant as we may know it, serving a wide variety of different meals, is less common and tends to be used for special occasions as it is rather expensive! - see ryoriya below. For a less formal meal, people often go to a specialised eating place serving mainly one particular type of food such as noodles, sushi, oden, sukiyaki, tempura .... or foreign food such as pizza. Although the menu will in most cases be in Japanese only (except in some tourist locations), it is common to display realistic-looking wax models of the meals in the window so you can see what you are likely to get - or similar - and can take the waiter outside and point to it if you are desperate! Restaurant (restoran) Strictly speaking, this is a place that serves foreign (i.e. non-Japanese) meals, and you will find restaurants of many nationalities in Japan, especially in major cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto. The most popular include Chinese, French and Italian. Large department stores often have ‘family restaurants’ which serve a mixture of Japanese and foreign food, for example a tray containing rice, spaghetti, salad, small burger or fried king prawns and pickled vegetables. Ryoriya (or ryoriten) These specialise in Japanese meals. Sometimes they offer you the choice of a private room, especially if you are with a group of people (for example for a family celebration or business meeting). The rooms tend to be in the traditional Japanese style, with tatami floors and often low tables and no chairs! (Or sometimes low chairs without legs). Of course it is normal to eat with chopsticks. You may also get the chance to try kaiseki-ryori, which is typical Japanese food consisting of many small dishes, served on an individual tray, plus miso soup and boiled rice. If you order saké, the rice and soup are sometimes brought later. One word of warning - this type of restaurant can be very expensive, even by Japanese standards, so check first. Nomiya This is a bar specialising in saké (rice wine), but Japanese people rarely drink without eating too, so bars also serve a variety of snacks, some of them quite substantial - as they do in the ‘tapas’ bars in Spain. On the subject of drinks, saké can be drunk cold or warm (body temperature). The warm option tastes more alcoholic, like spirits, whereas cold saké is more like wine so it is easier to drink too much! The alcohol content is of course the same in both cases, but this also varies depending on the make and type of saké; a particularly strong variety is called shochu. The other thing to note is that it can be sweet (amakuchi) or dry (karakuchi). However, saké is not the only popular alcoholic beverage - the Japanese also drink large quantities of beer (biiru), and popular brands include Kirin and Asahi. They are usually similar to the continental European lager or Pilsner beers drunk in Germany, Belgium etc. Kissaten A coffee shop or tea-room (both drinks are usually sold). Again, various snacks are available, often including sandwiches, fried rice, omelettes, cakes, ice-cream etc. A good place to try for lunch or a quick snack if you are not so confident about Japanese food (or you just want a break from it!) Snack bar (sunakku-ba) Not quite what you might expect - in Japan it is usually more like a bar, serving alcohol - including spirits and cocktails - and light snacks. Also note that a bar or ‘snack bar’ will often have hostesses to look after their customers, which means they will be expensive! Robotayaki - more like a (normal) snack bar or grill, serving light meals and snacks, especially of the grilled variety such as yakitori (Japanese style chicken kebabs on a skewer, although traditionally it could consist of any type of bird!) These are cooked behind the bar / counter, so it is easy to see what is on offer and point out what you would like. There are also many Yakitori-ya, snack bars specialising in this dish (and serving beer and saké). Teppanyaki - some places specialise in this type of meal, where there is a grill on, or built into, each table. The food is then cooked on the table in front of you (or you can do it yourself). Again this is normally based on grilled meat, but a similar arrangement exists for cooking other dishes such as sukiyaki. Okonomiyaki - this is a quick Japanese snack, rather like a large, thick omelette or pancake but containing seafood (octopus, squid, prawns ...) and topped with a sort of barbecue sauce and powdered dried seaweed. It is often cooked at or behind the bar / counter on a large hotplate. A ‘cheap and cheerful’ lunch or snack, although they can be quite filling! The best are supposed to be found in Hiroshima, and they are also popular in Osaka. Many people, especially non-Japanese, like tempura - this consists of deep-fried pieces of all kinds of vegetable, and sometimes fish, in light, crispy batter. Very easy to eat (but oily), and of course usually accompanied by boiled rice. If you are uncertain about Japanese food, I would recommend you start with this. Strictly speaking, it is ‘foreign’ as Portuguese visitors introduced it - but that was a few hundred years ago. Sometimes you can find mobile snack stalls serving saké and snacks, especially in the evening in city centres or near major railway stations - usually quite good quality and cheap. Red lanterns (with black writing) are the traditional sign for a Japanese eating place, especially oden or ramen shops and nomiya. It has no connection with Western ‘red light’ areas! Incidentally, you will also find a red light outside police stations :-) You can search for Japanese restaurants in your area using the Google search box below
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