Japanese Restaurants

One of my favorite things about living in Japan is the incredible number of restaurants in the city. Two days ago I accidentally took the long way home and discovered about 50 new restaurants within a 15 minute walk of my home. Amazing. It makes me a little sad to know I will never come close to eating in them all.

There are fancy restaurants where you can sit at tables like bar stools and watch skilled cooks barbecue delicious food. It is quite common to order food in rounds in Japan too. Start with one small meal to split then add another and another and another. Thus the advantage of sitting near the cooks is undeniable. This can, however, be a big problem with group dining if you are not hungry. You could end up with a $40 bill you hadn't planned on. At group dinners it is best to plan to eat massive quantities of food, opt out altogether or state your intentions at the beginning.

The best meals out are special occasions. For our office Christmas party, the English teachers and the Japanese staff went to SanMaru (or some similar named restaurant - that means everything is 300 Yen) We ordered anything that looked good and it was only three hundred yen a piece. We shared things, so you can try a variety of things - this is especially fun when the Japanese order their favorite foods = chicken cartilage, raw tuna salad, etc. You can try a bite of things you might not order for yourself.