Last year I made sure I finished my schedule and everything that’s on my “sightseeing list”, so now it was time to shift focus to the good noms!
When I went to Japan in 2007, I didn’t have a clue where and what I was eating. Basically what we did was just walk around, select one by our noses and then having no clue what so ever if the restaurant had some type of specialty or something. It will remain a challenge for me to actually know what I’m ordering (a) if the menu’s do not contain pictures, (b) are not available in English and (c) if the staff looks at me sheepishly when it comes to using English. Thanks god I’m not a picky eater. So, to prevent this and to get the maximum out of the experience of eating in Japan, a little research is required. I’ll end up with a list of about 30 restaurants, somewhat scheduled to my day plans where I actually know what I’m going to be eating!! Sometimes however, it is better not to know. LOL. It’s good to know that you’ll be going into a restaurant that serves Okinawan specialties, or Hokkaido specialties or whatever. You seriously can’t tell if you can’t read and/or know little about what dishes come from where.
I downloaded an enormous heap of VVV6 to kind of assist me on that, in a fun way. Any restaurant that has been on that show for the past year has a small chance I’m dropping by to have the same dishes as V6. I got all the restaurants I could decipher and find on maps in a separate document, and this I’m now starting to map to my “Guide to good noms in Japan“, I mean, The Tokyo Restaurant Guide for dummies gaijin! Thanks to that show I know a hell of a lot more about Japanese food.
XD! YamaGoldfish just wrote about nabe! I actually put one in the guide specifically. I know it’s more of a winter dish, but they’ll just have to serve me that one in spring.
I also seem to have found a crab restaurant. I believe they call it “ka~ni”. In dutch that sounds more like (kannie, or “can’t do”). I love crab <3.
In any case, that’ll be the last step in “what to see, do and eat”. A lot of hours went in there, hope they were worth it.