(tonsoku). And where to start with Kyoto? You can find restaurants serving refined kaiseki cuisine all over the country, but the multi-course collection of artistically presented seasonal delicacies is never better than in Kyoto.
In fact, play a word association game with a Japanese friend, and you’ll likely get a lot of foodie responses. Osaka? Okonomiyaki (a kind of savory pancake) and takoyaki (battered chunks of octopus). Niigata? The koshihikari rice variety. Kyushu? Hakata ramen. Shikoku? Udon noodles and oranges. The list could go on and on, but the takeaway is simple: very little is more important than food in Japan.
Street food stalls selling takoyaki—battered chunks of octopus that get lathered in a gooey soy-based sauce and mayo, and then topped with fish flakes.
Kaiseki ryori, the ultimate in Japanese cuisine. You can drop several hundred dollars per person at the best kaiseki restaurants, but good versions can be found much cheaper as part of a stay in a traditional Japanese ryokan.
Pickles on display at Kyoto’s Nishiki Market, a must-stop on any foodie’s trip to Kyoto.
Tofu comes in many different textures and is served in a variety of ways. Try it as part of a shojin ryori vegetarian meal and you’ll very possibly shed any notion of it being the dull health food it’s too often considered in the West.
Okonomiyaki, the savory pancake-like dish that’s found all over but is a specialty in Osaka and Hiroshima. A mix of diced cabbage, batter, eggs and anything else you might want to add (pork and kimchi is a great option!), diners cook it themselves on hotplates built into the table.
A teppanyaki restaurant, where the chefs display expert knife skills and flair in cooking the meat, seafood and vegetables in front of you.
Check out the lanterns outside an izakaya and they often tell you what kind of food is inside to go with the beer and sake. This one advertises kushikatsu (deep-fried skewered meat) and yakisoba (fried noodles) among other things.
Sushi is the most famous of Japanese foods. You could easily drop $300 at a top sushi restaurant in somewhere like Ginza or you could binge on a budget at a revolving train sushi bar (kaitenzushi). Even the cheapest options tend to be good, even if it’s a ¥500 supermarket sushi bento.
Thanks to some stellar marketing Kobe beef gets all the plaudits overseas, but in Japan it’s just one of dozens of highly rated wagyu beef brands. Aficionados tend to rate Kobe-gyu, Matsuzaka-gyu (Mie Prefecture) and Ohmi-gyu (Shiga Prefecture) as the top three, but also look out for Yonezawa-gyu, Hitachi-gyu, and Kyoto-gyu amongst others.
Ramen is cheap, ubiquitous and much loved. There are numerous regional variations, too, from the miso-based Sapporo ramen to the pork bone broth-based Hakata ramen. Regardless of variety, a quick way to tell if a place is good or not—the length of the queue.
Yakitori (grilled chicken on skewers) is one of those Japanese foods that can be pricey or cheap, served in plush surrounds or chargrilled in backstreet stalls. Either way, it’s a must-try.
Even the cheapest of soba noodle stands are worth a try. For as little as ¥300, you can get a hot bowl of noodles topped with a veggie tempura—perfect for a quick bite on the go, which is why you’ll often find them in and around stations, sometimes standing only.
JAPAN’S COLORFUL MATSURI
A Panoply of Extraordinary Festivals and Celebrations
Japan’s myriad festivals mark the changing of seasons and rites of passage, they light up summer skies and add moments of warmth to harsh winters, bring communities together and keep traditions alive. They are so deeply interwoven into Japanese society that whatever time of year you might visit Japan and whichever part of the country you find yourself in, there’s a strong chance that a festival (or matsuri to use the Japanese word) of some kind or other will be taking place nearby.
Come to Japan in spring and the most obvious events will be the cherry-blossom parties (called hanami; literally, “flower viewing”) that follow the annual wave of sakura (cherry blossom) northward across the country, with the whole of Japan seemingly welcoming spring with picnics and parties under the delicate pink blossoms. With blossoms soon turning brown on the ground and spring starting to give way to summer, the number of festivals increases. To pluck out a few of the annual highlights, there’s the Sanja Matsuri in May in Tokyo’s Asakusa, where amid huge crowds frenzied groups of bearers carry highly decorative portable shrines through streets in honor of the seventh-century founders of Sensoji Temple. Or for a couple more with deep historical roots, there’s the Gion Matsuri in Kyoto in July with its processions of floats and people in period dress, and in the sweltering heat of mid-August Tokushima’s Awa Odori, which sees dance troupes clad in colorful traditional costumes prance and shout day and night to a pulsating accompaniment of shamisen, flute, bells and drums, attracting in excess of a million visitors to the city over three days.
More than anything, however, across Japan high summer is fireworks season, with events like Tokyo’s Sumida River Fireworks Festival illuminating the sky and bringing the streets to life with a mixture of colorful street stalls selling festival staples like yakisoba (fried noodles), yakitori (chicken skewers) and kakigori (shaved ice), not to mention the brightly patterned cotton yukata summer kimono worn by many of the onlookers.
In autumn, some of the best festivals are connected to major shrines, with traditional parades and displays of horseback archery taking place in Kamakura and Nikko as part of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine’s and Toshogu Shrine’s seasonal celebrations. Then comes winter, when almost the entire nation welcomes in the new year with shrine visits and the northern regions come in to their own with snow and ice festivals, the most famous of which sees Sapporo in Hokkaido (page 132) transformed into an outdoor gallery of giant ice sculptures at the Snow Festival in February. And with that we’ve only just touched tip of the matsuri iceberg.
The Jidai Matsuri in October sees Kyoto turn the clock back with processions in period costumes.
The Aoi Matsuri in Kyoto sees decorated furyugasa umbrellas being paraded.
