Tips on dinning in Japan

Greetings! I shall be going to Japan soon from USA. Do Japan have
American style fast food restaurants? Where does the average Japanese
eat themselves cheaply? With thanks.

"zxcvar" wrote in message
ups.com...
Greetings! I shall be going to Japan soon from USA. Do Japan have
American style fast food restaurants? Where does the average Japanese
eat themselves cheaply? With thanks.

There are certainly many American-style fast-food
places (McDonald's, Wendy's) in the major cities,
plus some home-grown versions of well. But if all
you're going to do is eat American-style fast food, you're
missing out on some of the best things about a visit
to Japan - the local cuisine!

The average Japanese, for an inexpensive meal, will
often choose one of the following:

- Noodles of various types (ramen, udon, soba); often
sold on the street, from temporary stalls or carts that
are set up at lunchtime or late in the day to catch the
on-the-way-home-from-work crowd. But the local
noodle shop is generally a great place to go to get a
very tasty, filling meal for not much money.

- Sushi. While there are certainly "high end" sushi
places in Japan, the notion of sushi as haute cuisine is
really a Western invention; sushi was the original
Japanese fast food, and there are a nearly infinite
number of little local/cheap sushi places (often in
and around train stations, for one common place).
Also be on the lookout for "kai-ten sushi" restaurants;
these are the ones which have the sushi chefs in the
middle of the place, and a sort of oval-shaped
conveyor belt or track carrying the sushi on plates
around them. Customers sit at a counter on the
outside of the conveyor loop, and pick whatever
looks good as it passes by. The total bill is added
up when you're done, by counting the color-coded
plates you've stacked in front of you. (You can also
order whatever you like at these places, but simply
picking items from the conveyor is a great way to go
for the language-challenged.)

Bob M.

zxcvar;1340130 Wrote:
Greetings! I shall be going to Japan soon from USA. Do Japan have
American style fast food restaurants? Where does the average Japanese
eat themselves cheaply? With thanks.

Yes, you'll find hundreds of McDonald's, etc. around Japan. They also
have Japanese clones of American burger joints but they just don't cut
it. If you wish to eat truly Japanese fast food that is truly fast, try
one of the many noodle shops without chairs that you'll find around
train stations (known as tachi-kui-soba shops). You eat standing and
then run. Nothing is much faster than that. A meal will run you from
about $3 or a bit more.

Also there are 7-11 Quick Shops where you can pick up ready-made
sandwiches and other Japanese fast foods on the cheap just as you might
in the US. All over the place you can find ready packaged "bento" meals
including chopsticks so that you can take them to a park, etc. and eat
at your leisure.

Enjoy your stay! -- Rik


--
Rik Brown
Message Origin: TRAVEL.com

The top floors and basements of most department stores [even on the
otherwise pricey Ginza] offer a wide range of reasonably priced local foods.
If you can't describe the dish, bring the waitress out front and point.
Small, local coffee shops offer set menus - $5 breakfast of coffee, egg,
salad, toast. They won't speak English but you'll make yourself understood.
Large hotel restaurants will be pricey and give you little Japanese
experinece.

--
Remove -NOSPAM- to contact me.

On 2007-08-28 15:47:01 -0700, zxcvar said:

Greetings! I shall be going to Japan soon from USA. Do Japan have
American style fast food restaurants?

Sure, and they are almost as bad as in the states. They also have good
food and very good food and exceptional food.

Where does the average Japanese eat themselves cheaply? With thanks.

Small noodle places that sell udon, ramen, and rice bowls. They are
everywhere. Don't worry, there will be a lot of cheap simple food.
Just look for a display of plastic food, point at what you want and
you'll be in business.
--
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You know, this is a really helpful crowd.
--
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"zxcvar" wrote in message
ups.com...
Greetings! I shall be going to Japan soon from USA. Do Japan have
American style fast food restaurants? Where does the average Japanese
eat themselves cheaply? With thanks.

Yes. Particularly McDonalds and KFC, but why would you ever eat there?
Japanese food is 100X better than American fast food.

--
Donald R. Newcomb
DRNewcomb (at) attglobal (dot) net

On Aug 28, 3:47 pm, zxcvar wrote:
Greetings! I shall be going to Japan soon from USA. Do Japan have
American style fast food restaurants? Where does the average Japanese
eat themselves cheaply? With thanks.

I found that the major rail stations (such as Shinjuku, Kyoto, Osaka,
Nagoya, Kaneyama, etc.) have built-in shopping malls full of fast food
restaurants, both Japanese-style and Western-style. In addition,
there seem to be lots of low-cost restaurants near almost every
staton. Three of my favorite low-cost Japanese meals, widely
available, are a bowl of chasu-men, tempura donburi (ten-don), and
okonomiyaki, which should cost about JP¥1000 or less. Taco(octopus)
balls are a popular snack that is often available from street vendors.

If you wake up your first morning in Tokyo at 4 am from jet lag (as we
did), jump on the subway and go visit the fish market, where the
action is all in the early morning. The streets going there are lined
with noodle, tempura and sushi stalls and you will get the freshest
sushi anywhere.

Forget hotel food and hotel food prices. People who tell you that
Japan is incredibly expensive have only failed to follow this simple
rule.

The plastic food models in the windows of the restaurants are very
helpful. If they fascinate you, take the boat up the river to Asakusa
(the only old area in Tokyo), and about a mile west of the river is
the street with the restaurant supply stores. You can buy plastic
food to take home as a souvenir.

zxcvar wrote:

Greetings! I shall be going to Japan soon from USA. Do Japan have
American style fast food restaurants? Where does the average Japanese
eat themselves cheaply? With thanks.

On Aug 31, 10:50 am, Walt Bilofsky wrote:
The plastic food models in the windows of the restaurants are very
helpful. If they fascinate you, take the boat up the river to Asakusa
(the only old area in Tokyo), and about a mile west of the river is
the street with the restaurant supply stores. You can buy plastic
food to take home as a souvenir.
The street is called Kappbashi Dori. It is highlighted in many guide
books, and also in the free "Welcome to Tokyo" booklet that you can
pick up at Narita or any of the tourist information offices.
According to one web site, it is "5 minites walk from Tawaramachi
Station , Ginza Subway Line, or 15 minites walk from Asakusa Station,
Ginza Subway Line".