Tokyo New City Guide. Mayumi Yoshida Barakan

mainly by businessmen with expense accounts. There are also several moderately-priced kaiseki restaurants that attract a more average crowd.

      • Expensive to Medium-Priced

      Tempura, sushi, sukiyaki, shabu-shabu, etc., can be quite expensive or reasonably priced depending on the restaurant, what part of town it's located in, the decor, and the service.

      • Cheap Food

      Katei-ryori—Most restaurants in this category are called shokudoor meshiya (meshi means rice and, by implication, the meal itself). These places serve food just like mom used to make. Students and ordinary working people are the main clientele. Many of the smaller home-cooking restaurants have an actual mother figure, who both cooks for and entertains the often-regular customers.

      Nomiya—Yakitori, robatayaki, and oden restaurants usually fit into this category. These restaurants are usually small places located near train stations so the businessmen who stop off after work don't have to stumble too far to catch a train back to the suburbs. Nomiya literally means "drinking place." Theoretically, what they serve are snacks to go along with the drinks, but the snacks can be a full meal depending on how much you order.

      Noodle Restaurants—Serving soba, udon, and Chinese ramen, another inexpensive type of food. Even the best noodle restaurants are still relatively cheap.

      Yoshokuya—These are restaurants serving Japanese-style Western food. Many of these places started in the Meiji period (1868-1912) when the country was reopened to Western influences. Because English food was the first official import, much of the food is typically British. Other favorites were food from Holland, Portugal, Spain, and France. This kind of food is also popular for home cooking. The food is very basic, but can be quite good. Typical items are hamburger steak and various kinds of croquettes.

      Department Store and Arcade Restaurants—Perhaps the easiest and the cheapest way of eating in Tokyo is to go to one of the big underground arcades or the department store restaurant floors. The restaurants all have plastic food models which make ordering ever so simple. There is usually a wide variety of restaurants to choose from, all in one concentrated location. Although generally not haute cuisine, these places are sometimes worth it for the sheer simplicity.

      Street Food—Yatai are small moving carts equipped with a stove and counter. Serving yaki-imo (roasted sweet potatoes), yakitori, oden, ramen, okonomi-yaki, yakisoba, or tako-yaki, the stalls are always set up at festival sites, and on weekends and holidays at the major parks. At night they're found in busy night club areas like Ginza, Roppongi, Akasaka, and Shin-juku.

      Fast Food—Aside from McDonald's and its various Japanese spinoffs, there are forms of fast food indigenous to Japan. Tachigui-soba and tachigui-udon (stand-up noodle restaurants) are the main ones for people who want to "slurp and go" on a budget. Another favorite is kaiten-zushi, or sushi restaurants where a moving belt carries plates of very cheap sushi along in front of a counter. Take-out sushi shops are also popular.

      Hoka-hoka bento is another recent fast food hit. A home-made meal packed in the shop, it's still warm when you get it home. And the price is a mere ¥300-¥500. A photo display panel will show the variations available. The big customers here are office workers, students, and housewives.

      Another common packaged meal is the eki-ben, a packaged meal available at most train stations. The larger stations, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Ueno, and Shinagawa have their own name-brand eki-ben.

      • International Cuisine

      There are an increasingly wide range of choices for non-Japanese food. Restaurants specializing in Western cuisine such as Italian and French are plentiful, but the best are not cheap. Other restaurants specializing in Asian and non-Asian cuisine are now proliferating and are often surprisingly reasonable in price.

      Districts

      While restaurants can be found in every Tokyo neighborhood, they tend to be concentrated in the major commuter train station areas. These are just a few of the most important areas:

      Roppongi is the most international dining area of Tokyo. Some of the best Japanese and foreign food is found in this area. Restaurants here tend to stay open later than in other parts of town. Just southwest of Roppongi are the Hiro-o and Azabu neighborhoods where more and more restaurants are locating.

      Ginza is one of the traditional places to go for a nice dinner. Many of the oldest and most prestigious restaurants are found here. But since Ginza land price are among the highest in Tokyo, you're helping pay the rent with the considerable extra cost attached to the price of your meal.

      Akasaka is where you'll find the largest concentration of ryotei in the city. Other Japanese-style restaurants cater to the night clubs and nearby Tokyo Broadcasting System television crowd.

      Yurakucho is notable mainly for the rows of tiny yakitori-ya (nomiya serving yakitori) found along the back streets near the train tracks.

      Downtown areas such as Asakusa and Ueno are full of restaurants with a shitamachi (downtown) feeling and atmosphere, good food, and prices that are very reasonable. The distance is intimidating to many foreigners who tend to keep to the south-western fringes of the city. Surprisingly, once you get there, you begin to wonder why it seemed like such a problem in the first place.

      Etiquette

      Strict rules of dining etiquette do exist in Japan, but as in the West they are rarely followed in real life. The saying "ignorance is bliss" is doubly true here where as a foreigner you're forgiven for almost any embarrassing breach of etiquette you might unwittingly commit. The best policy is to watch the people around you, but here are a few generalizations:

      • The Japanese do not usually put sauces (particularly soy sauce) on their rice.

      • Do not rest your chopsticks vertically in your rice. This is associated with death.

      • Do not pass food to each other from chopsticks to chopsticks. Put the food on a plate. At Buddhist funerals, the bones of the cremated deceased person are passed this way.

      • Sauces often come with condiments such as sliced green onions, grated radish, etc., which are meant to be mixed in, not eaten separately.

      • Sauces are generally intended for dipping, not dunking and soaking the food. Doing so risks destroying the flavor of the often delicate Japanese cooking.

      • When drinking beer or saké, one person will usually pour for the others, who will hold up their glasses while the drink is being poured. People take turns, which can sometimes become a bothersome ritual. As the night wears on, and the level of intoxication rises, it's everyone for themselves.

      • When starting your meal say Itadakimasu, which means "I receive." At the end you can say Gochiso-sama deshita, which means "That was a lovely meal, thank you."

      JAPANESE FOOD

      Ordering

      Ordering Japanese food can be a rather intimidating job. English menus are rare, and even when you know the main type of food being served (or can at least order by the "show and tell" method), ordering appetizers and side dishes is always difficult. The simplest solution is to order a set menu, called a kosu (course) or teishoku. Most restaurants will offer some sort of course. Ordering this way also gives you a general idea of how much your meal will cost.

      If you want to order a la carte, the general practice is first to order an appetizer (often sashimi), then a few side dishes, followed by the entree, with soup and rice finishing the meal. We have listed a few common appetizer and side-dish menu items, and explained some general cooking terms. Following is a list of seasonal fish.

      The restaurants have been divided by type of food. We've included entree menus and listed a few side dishes common to that particular type of cooking. Restaurant prices are as of Summer 1993.

      • General Menu

Kosu	A full-course meal, as in Western restaurants.
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