| As you might have
picked up, my Japanese language ability is minimal to the point of non-existence.
So how did I manage to navigate my way through the unfamiliar world of
Japanese restaurant fare? If you think it's because the Japanese
speak English, think again - as I've mentioned elsewhere, there was far
less English spoken in Japan than I expected. Fortunately,
though, there was no problem, because most Japanese restaurants display
realistic plastic representations of their food in the outside window!
You can check to see if the restaurant has something which looks good,
and you can bring the waiter outside and point to what you want (I think
they're used to this, because I saw other people doing it, too).
If you'd like an unusual gift for the folks back home, there's even a street
in Tokyo called Kappabashi-dori jammed full of stores where you can buy
plastic food and other essentials of the Japanese culinary experience. |
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| As you can see,
the plastic food looks very realistic and can prevent you from ordering
something you really didn't want, like this "omlet of burned noodle".
It does seem surprising
that hundreds of restaurants all over Japan are serving exactly the same
omlets of burned noodle, and yet these plates are mass produced, so I guess
they must be. At least you know what you're going to get. |
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Or do you?
I can't help feeling
that
this particular dish might be a slight exaggeration!
Nevertheless, it's
another endearing example of the
Japanese sense of humor. |
| If the last sign
wasn't totally up front, then this one is more honest than most people
would expect!
I'm not sure if they're
referring to bowel cancer from eating the food, or lung cancer from the
diners' cigarette smoke. The Japanese, like many other Asians,
do smoke a lot, and there isn't too much effort by the government to curb
it, though thankfully smoking is banned on board trains and in some other
public areas, so it was never an issue for me. |
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| If for some reason
you do want to die in a Japanese restaurant, then a fugu restaurant like
this one is just the place for you. Fugu is the local name
for pufferfish, which is a special delicacy in Japan - which is why whole
restaurants are devoted to it. Why is fugu such a delicacy?
Because it's poisonous and every year a handful of people die after eating
it! Most of the poison is concentrated in a few parts of the
fish, but some toxin can be found throughout the flesh, so eating even
properly prepared fugu apparently results in a tingling sensation in the
lips and mouth. Fugu chefs are specially licensed and trained
to remove the most dangerous parts of the fish, but even so this is one
meal which can kill you. Now it is true that more fugu are
killed by people than vice-versa, but that's little consolation if you're
lying fully conscious but paralyzed on the restaurant floor, unable to
move or speak and slowly dying of asphyxiation. |
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| Like everything
else in Japan, fresh is the name of the game with fugu, and they don't
get much fresher than this.
Why are these fugu
so much skinnier than the plastic ones outside the restaurant?
It's because pufferfish puff themselves up with water when they feel threatened,
to make it more difficult for predators to swallow them.
If these guys knew
what was in store for them, they'd probably be puffed up right now, not
that it would do them much good! |
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Here's the Japanese
answer to MacDonalds, a pretty ordinary, tasty looking burger, but with
a slight twist - those dark green strips above the beef patty are strips
of seaweed! If you're interested, you can check out some photos
of different types of seaweed
in a Japanese supermarket. I have a vague memory of having
some seaweed garnish with something I ate in Japan, but if it did happen
then I don't recall that it had a strong flavor. |
| If a burger with
seaweed is too tame for you, then you might prefer this indigeneous fast
food - octopus balls. I ate something similar from a stall
in a Tokyo park, except that the octopus was diced up and mixed in with
the dumpling or batter. It was very enjoyable.
You'll notice also
how happy the octopus is that you are eating it. In fact it
loves you for eating it! This theme of animals being gratefully
and happily tortured or killed is quite common. I guess it's
not so different from a lot of the advertising that is done in the western
world. |
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For the ultimate
in convenience, you can even get fast food octopus delivered by slow bicycle!
I saw quite a few
bicycles while I was in Japan, which isn't surprising, because owning a
car is difficult because of the expense and the lack of space for parking.
Surprisingly, the whole two weeks I was in Japan, I only saw 3 or 4 bicycles
with ten-speed gears. Instead they're all single speed, which
the Japanese call "mama chari" or "granny bikes". Japan has
an awful lot of steep hills, so I thought they would have more modern bicycles. |
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