10.02.07

A $5 Culinary Trip Through Tokyo (Part 1 of 3)

Posted in Food and Drink, Japan, Travel Log at 1:46 pm by Benjamin Ross

This past August, on my way from China back to the US, I spent 3 days in Tokyo. Japan has a long and colorful culinary history, and with just under 72 hours to work with, I wanted to consume as much of it as possible. Seeing as it would be impossible to sample every facet of Tokyo cuisine in 3 days, and that I was traveling in Japan on a Chinese budget, I focused my scope on Japanese food to that of small dive restaurants, most of which cost only around the equivalent of 5 or 6 US dollars per meal.

Before I had arrived in Japan, I was a little concerned as to how I would order food once I got there. Whenever I travel abroad, I generally try to avoid restaurants with English menus, because they are usually the places which are most adapted to foreigners and thus not as authentic as the small holes in the wall where locals dine. When I went to Mongolia last year I brought along a phrasebook which proved invaluable. Want to eat mutton? Look up “mutton” in the phrasebook, point to the Mongolian letters, and show them to the waitress. Want to eat potatoes? Look up “potatoes” in the phrasebook, point to the Mongolian letters, and show them to the waitress. This method worked like a charm, and allowed me to eat in restaurants where I otherwise would have had no way to order.

For my three days in Japan, I did not have the luxury of a phrasebook. A good portion of the Japanese language is made up of kanji characters, a large percentage of which are the same as traditional Chinese. I only speak a few words of Japanese, but have on several previous occasions glanced at Japanese magazines, and noticed I was able to understand quite a few words. So I was curious as to how far Chinese reading would get me in reading Japanese menus.

Ordering food in Tokyo is made easy, with life-sized food models, on display in the windows of most restaurants.

I didn’t get to test this out much at first, however, because virtually every restaurant in downtown Tokyo has realistic-looking models of each dish on the menu placed in a window in front of the restaurant. In order to pick a restaurant, you can walk down the street, and without even going inside, glance over all the dishes offered. Once you find a place where the food looks good, you walk in, and signal to the waitress to come outside, and then point to what you want to eat. No menu required.

Most of the small restaurants in Tokyo are set up as bars, with the cooks in the middle, and for my first meal in Tokyo I found a small sushi bar in Shinjuku (Tokyo’s busiest central district).

A Tokyo sushi bar employs the conveyor belt system to dispense sushi and sashimi to hungy patrons.

Tokyo sushi bars further simplify the ordering process by employing what I refer to as the “sushi conveyor belt.” As you sit around the bar, pieces of sushi and sashimi revolve around a conveyor belt which makes its way around the bar. Each item is placed on a different colored plate. Each plate has a price in yen. As the food revolves, you take what you want. At the end of your meal, the waitress counts up the price of your plates and gives you the bill. It is by far the most efficient way of ordering food I have ever encountered..

As for the food itself, the sushi and sashimi I ate my first night was surprisingly not too different from any other sushi I had eaten in Fuzhou or the US…which still means delicious The only variant being the degree of freshness which was definitely fresher than Kansas City, but about the same as Fuzhou.

My first authentic Japanese meal

Granted, I am not a connoisseur of Japanese food, (and I did not go to any expensive places) but I did find that at least in regards to sushi and sashimi, the Japanese cuisine found in other parts of the world is not nearly as altered as is the case for Chinese food. Plates were priced from 110 (approx. $1 USD) yen to 440 yen (approx. $4 USD), with the cheaper plates consisting of sushi rolls, containing permutations of veggies, imitation crab, and tuna, and the more expensive ones containing mostly sashimi with shrimp, eel, and raw fish. Soy sauce, wasabi, and tea came on the side.

Price of meal: 720 yen (approx $6.50 USD) Final Verdict: 7

I began my second day in Tokyo with a stop at 7-11 on the way to the Yakasuni Shrine. There is much to be learned about a particular culture based on what products are available at its convenience stores and kiosks, and 7-11 is no exception. Racks of pre-prepared sushi and curry meals in neat little treys were stacked up inside the refrigerators, and divided container by the register contained greasy treats on sticks which resembled street food.

My original reason for stopping in at 7-11 was to look for the cartons of fresh chocolate milk which I drink compulsively every time I pass a 7-11 when I am in Hong Kong. Fresh milk, and especially fresh chocolate milk are not easy to come by in China. Unfortunately, there was no fresh chocolate milk at the Tokyo 7-11. I told the attendant, who spoke a bit of English, that I was looking for milk, and every time I pointed to a brown-colored carton, she told me “no, coffee.” By the time I had finished sifting through all of the drinks, I had counted nearly 20 different cold coffee drinks, but still no chocolate milk.

Tokyo 7-11 snacks.

Since I was also getting hungry, I decided to take a venture into the realm of Japanese 7-11 food. After careful consideration, I selected what appeared to be a pre-prepared mini-hoagie sandwich…probably not the most authentically Japanese food available, but why not give Japanese Western fusion food a try? The sandwich came wrapped in cellophane and contained sliced meat and a white creamy substance between the bun (I tried as hard as possible not to make that sound sexual, honest). It didn’t take long to identify the creamy substance as when it finally hit my mouth I wasn’t sure if I was eating a sandwich or chugging a bottle of Hellmann’s mayonnaise.

Price: 120 yen (approx $1) Final Verdict: 2

After my hour of being bombarded by Japanese War Propaganda at the Yakasuni Shrine, I made my way to Harajuku, a trendy area where Japanese teenagers hang out and showcase their latest fashions, many of which resemble Halloween costumes more than everyday clothing. I stopped in an underground shop near the main drag of Harajuku to have my lunch. As I walked down the narrow stairs, I entered a room where 3 or 4 locals, all sitting at different tables, were smoking cigarettes and watching a baseball game on TV. Unfortunately, there were no food models, so the waiter handed me a menu, which was only about 1/3 kanji. Other than a dish which appeared to be 麻婆豆腐 (ma2 po2 dou4 fu, spicy Sichuan tofu) I couldn’t make out any of names of the dishes. So much for my Chinese reading helping me to read Japanese menus! Seeing I was having trouble with the menu, the waiter then brought me a stack of about 20 notebook-paper sized laminated cards, with pictures of each dish on them. I pointed to a noodle soup, and the waiter nodded his head and said “oohh…miso.”

The most multifarious miso soup I have ever experienced.

Previously, the only miso soup I had consumed had consisted of little more than broth and tofu, however, this miso soup was the full magilla, consisting of noodles, sliced bamboo shoots and carrots, seaweed, corn, and a couple slices of pork. The noodles where chewy and filling and coupled with the variety of toppings, made for different tastes with every bite.

Price: 500 yen (approx $4.50) Final Verdict: 6

After a day of exploring Harajuku and Shibuya, I made it over to the Tokyo Dome to see the Yomiuri Giants take on the Chunichi Dragons. As would be expected for a baseball game, there were the usual hot dogs and hamburgers in the concession stands. There also were sushi plates and rice bowls with various toppings. I opted for the curry pork rice bowl.

Take me out to the ballgame. Take me out to the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and…….a curry pork rice bowl, only at the Tokyo Dome.

The bowl or rice was sectioned off into two “regions” with one being chopped up meat covered in curry sauce, the other covered with shredded meat and onions. White rice was on the bottom. Now, there is something inherently strange about sitting through a baseball game while eating concessions with chopsticks, but I am certainly not complaining. In the words of Homer Simpson “mmm…super pork curry rice bowl.”

Price: 540 yen (approx $5) Final Verdict: 8

Twenty four hours and several thousand calories into my Japan trip, I retired to my youth hostel, with blisters on my feet from all the walking, and a full belly of Japanese food.

continued in A $5 Culinary Trip Through Tokyo (Part 2 of 3)

Permalink