Eating in Japan                                                             

Where to Dine

Food, of all types and from every country under the sun, is one of the great pleasures of life in Japan. Not only has Japan developed one of the world's great cuisines, which offers palate-tickling sensations that range from the subtle joys of sashimi to the hearty basics of its noodles, but also some of the best world-class chefs have come to Japan to cook for its discriminating gourmets. Tokyo especially, as befits its status as a global capital of finance and business, is host to a lip-smacking cornucopia of food flavors and textures. To begin scratching the surface of Japan's vast selection of culinary variety, take a walk in the vicinity of any subway or train station. The eating and drinking establishments that congregate here are sure to represent a plethora of domestic cooking, with prices generally quite reasonable. For non-Japanese speakers, many restaurants display plastic and wax replicas of their dishes in their front windows, or provide a menu with color photos. Another good place to find reasonably priced meals is in larger department stores, which will often devote an entire upper or basement floor to a variety of different restaurants. Some modestly priced restaurants ask patrons to purchase tickets for each dish, either from the cashier's counter or a vending machine. Tipping, by the way, is not practiced in Japan.

How to Eat

If you are not familiar with how to use chopsticks then dining at Japanese or other Asian cuisine restaurants may present a challenge at first. But once you have mastered them then eating with this simple instrument is a genuine pleasure. Except in Chinese restaurants that provide plastic chopsticks, you eat with wooden chopsticks that come in a paper wrapper. Take them out, split them in half, and hold the two halves in one hand with your thumb, forefinger and middle finger, as if holding two pencils. Then let the middle finger slip between the two sticks. One stick will rest between the forefinger and middle finger, the other between the middle and ring fingers. Watch how other people manipulate the sticks to figure out how to pick up pieces of food correctly. To deal with soup, pick up the small bowl with one hand and sip from the edge of the bowl. You can dip your chopsticks into the soup to pick up small chunks of bean curd or thin slices of seaweed. Noodles served on a wooden tray are simply picked up in bite-size portions. If served in a hot broth, alternate between picking them up and lifting the bowl to sip the broth. Slurping is a sign of a good appetite and eating with pleasure, and is in this instance, perfectly acceptable.

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