While hungry in Japan, I immediately went into a happy dance when seeing a sign like this! 💃
Eating in Japan was difficult for me for a couple of reasons:
- I know very little Japanese (and even less when I first arrived)
- I'm a Pescetarian (no meat, yes fish/eggs)
- Our Google Translate app could not translate the Kanji Japanese alphabet
Japan uses three different alphabets and the Kanji was adopted from China. It is essentially made up of the classic pictorial representations that most westerners associate with Asian languages. Because these pictures can mean many different things, it's very difficult for apps like Google Translate to convert to English. This was hard on us since it seemed that most of the menus and restaurant signs are written with these characters.
Thankfully I had some amazing guides that helped me still experience a wide variety of local food!
Sushi-ro
While visiting my friends Lara and John in Sasebo, we went to a great sushi place called Sushi-ro. This place has a conveyor belt stocked with lots of different types of sashimi and some sushi. Each table can even order their own rolls from a tablet full of options. The tablet allowed us to see options in English which made this place the perfect chow down spot!
I couldn't get over the cheese and basil shrimp sashimi! It was good but seemed out of place next to traditional sashimi. Perhaps it was intended to appeal to westerns? I did not see sashimi like this anywhere else.
RingerHut
Another restaurant we visited was called RigerHut, it had a variety of noodle dishes. Thanks to John, I was able to get the seafood noodles with extra veggies. This place did not have an English menu but it sure was delicious!
Bayleaf
After visiting the Hirado Castle (click here to read my blog about the visit) Will, John and I stumbled upon a local establishment called Bayleaf. Here I tried seafood curry which, according to John, has recently become more popular across Japan.
Hitoyasumi
Something that we noticed throughout Japan, especially in mall areas, restaurants tend to have plastic replicas of all of their food. For visitors it makes things easy, just take a picture of what you want and you'll usually get exactly that.
Here, I took a picture of a traditional Japanese egg dish, where the omelette-like egg is full of yummy spicy rice. Mine came with some shrimp and seafood sauce as well.
Plastic version:
What I got -> Pretty close right? 👍
Ootya
We found this place at local mall in Sasebo, Japan.
I ordered the spicy tofu and vegetables. I love how most dishes in Japan are paired with multiple sides. In this case I got salad, brown rice, pickled cabbage/radish, and miso soup! I left full. 😋
Traditional Japanese Restaurant
At the start of our official tour of Japan, our guide from EF College Break set up a meet and greet meal. I did not get the name of the restaurant unfortunately, but it had some neat artwork out front.
This meal consisted of sushi, sashimi, tempura shrimp/veggies, and a small hot pot of more vegetables to be eaten with soup. It was huge and delicious!
Food at a Buddhist Monastery
While staying at a Buddhist Monastery outside of Osaka, Japan (blog on its way!) we got to experience traditional meals for the monks who lived there. Traditionally Buddhist Monks eat vegan meals, at this monastery meals were small and made up of mostly soup and tofu. Overall I enjoyed experiencing the Buddhist traditions but I would not have ordered these meals own. I enjoy my tofu a bit less raw. 😜
Dinner
Breakfast
Mumokuteki
During my tour I had the pleasure of meeting 
I had the Tofu Hamburger Steak with Japanese style sauce, it was great! A welcome change from the monastery tofu for sure.
Sunmi Hotel
While staying at the Sunmi Hotel, our tour guide arranged a traditional Japanese feast for us. This meal was very traditional and frankly a bit hard for me to eat. Crazy as it sounds, I usually stay away from fish heads! 😳
It included (from left to right):
- Two hot pots of raw fish and veggies,
- Thinly sliced duck in a fish sauce (I gave mine to Will)
- A large cooked fish in garlic sauce
- A large side shrimp and sashimi
- Pickled radishes
- Cooked seaweed
Hot pot #1
Hot pot #2
Garlic fish with eyeballs included! Can you guess who tried them? (hint hint @SlickWilly)
Side of shrimp and sashimi
Street Food
I also had fun trying out some street food! This was cool because I got to see how the food was prepared and didn't need to worry about any miscellaneous chicken or beef being mixed in. Below is a picture of @SlickWilly and I with some bacon, fried cheese and a tofu steak topped with fish flakes.
This stand was selling little cakes with custard and sweet red beans inside.
I chickened out and got the custard, but Will had the red beans which I ended up liking it more.
Sweet Red Bean Ice Cream
Remembering Will's cake I had to try this!
YUMMM!
Crepes
Look at all these crepes! It was so hard to choose!
Will and I ended up with chocolate and vanilla ice cream and bananas, it was very good!
MISC Meals
As you can image, it was hard to keep track of all of my meals. Below are a few miscellaneous shots of the more interesting things I tried.
@SlickWilly and I with huge bowls of spicy noodles.
Mine came with eggplant and a medley of different seafood.
I got this meal at the Fukuoka airport and yes that is a raw egg up in the top left! The disk that I took a bite out of is fired burdock root which I really enjoyed.
Will and I at a local restaurant in Sasebo, I'm not sure exactly, but I believe I got another fish dish here.
Man I ate a lot! Thanks for reading, did I make you hungry? 😉