Japanese Food Guide: What to Eat, Where to Eat It and What It Costs

A few orders worth knowing. At a sushi counter, the chef’s choice (omakase) is the norm and the price should be stated; nigiri is eaten in one bite, fish-side down in the soy, and the ginger is a palate cleanser, not a topping. At a ramen shop, “kaedama” buys a second helping of noodles for 100 to 200 yen. Tempura is best within the first 30 seconds; eat it as it arrives. Wagyu grades run A1 to A5 by marbling; Kobe, Matsusaka and Omi beef are regional brands within wagyu, and a 100g steak of A5 Kobe costs 8,000 to 15,000 yen, so most people try it as a lunch set for 4,000 to 6,000 yen.

Many ramen, udon, curry and gyudon shops use a ticket machine (shokkenki) by the door: put in cash (newer machines take IC cards or QR codes), press the picture or the top-left button for the signature dish, take the ticket and hand it to the staff when you sit. If you cannot read the buttons, the first option is the standard. Elsewhere, windows display shockingly realistic plastic food (sampuru) with prices; you can point at it. Counter seats facing the kitchen are the normal and often best seats for solo diners, and almost no casual place takes reservations, so expect a queue at anything famous. Queue etiquette is to stand in line in order, not to hold places, and to let staff seat you.

Once seated you get a hot towel (oshibori, for hands only), water or tea for free, and a menu that is increasingly on a tablet with English. Call staff with “sumimasen” (excuse me), which is never rude. Say “itadakimasu” before eating if you like; say “gochisosama deshita” (thank you for the meal) on the way out and you will be treated like a regular. You pay at the register near the door, not at the table, and tipping does not exist; leave money on the table and someone will chase you down the street to return it. Lunch sets run from about 11:30am to 2pm and are the cheapest way into expensive restaurants, dinner starts around 6pm, and many kitchens take last orders at 9 or 9:30pm. Tabelog is Japan’s restaurant-rating site: its scores are deflated compared with Google, so 3.5 is very good and anything above 3.8 means a reservation and a queue.

Department-store basements (depachika) at Isetan in Shinjuku, Mitsukoshi in Nihonbashi, Hankyu in Umeda and Daimaru in Kyoto sell bento, sushi, tonkatsu sandwiches, wagashi and salads from 100-plus counters, discounted 20 to 50% from about 7pm; eat in the store’s rooftop garden or back at your hotel. Izakaya are where to try a dozen things in one sitting, and convenience stores (konbini) supply onigiri, egg sandwiches, oden stew in winter and surprisingly good fried chicken (FamilyMart’s Famichiki, 220 yen) 24 hours a day. Station food halls and the ekiben (station bento, 1,000 to 1,800 yen) shops at Tokyo, Shin-Osaka and Kyoto Stations are the way to eat on a shinkansen, where eating at your seat is expected.

For markets, Tsukiji Outer Market in Tokyo still has its 400 shops and stalls selling sushi breakfasts, grilled scallops, tamagoyaki and knives from 5am to about 2pm, even though the wholesale auction moved to Toyosu in 2018; Toyosu has an observation deck for the 5:30am tuna auction (apply online) and a cluster of famous sushi counters, but Tsukiji is the better eating. Nishiki Market in Kyoto is for pickles, yuba tofu skin, grilled eel skewers, mochi and matcha sweets, mostly eaten standing at the stall (walking and eating is banned in the market). Kuromon Ichiba near Namba in Osaka grills scallops, wagyu skewers and uni to order at tourist prices, and Dotonbori a few streets north is the open-air takoyaki, kushikatsu and okonomiyaki strip. Kanazawa’s Omicho Market is the best for crab and kaisendon rice bowls (2,000 to 4,000 yen), and Sapporo’s Nijo Market and Hakodate’s Morning Market serve the uni-and-crab breakfasts Hokkaido is known for.

Fukuoka is Japan’s ramen capital: Hakata tonkotsu at Ichiran, Ippudo, Shin-Shin or any yatai stall, with firm thin noodles and kaedama refills, plus motsunabe offal hot-pot and mentaiko on everything. Hiroshima’s okonomiyaki is a different dish from Osaka’s, layered rather than mixed; Okonomimura’s 25 counters and the shops around Hatchobori do it from 1,000 yen, and the city’s oysters are in season from October to March. Nagoya has its own stubborn cuisine: hitsumabushi (chopped grilled eel over rice eaten plain, then with condiments, then with dashi poured over, about 4,000 to 5,500 yen at Atsuta Horaiken), miso katsu, tebasaki chicken wings and the morning-coffee-with-free-toast tradition. Osaka calls itself the nation’s kitchen and prices its street food accordingly: takoyaki, kushikatsu in Shinsekai, okonomiyaki and the “kuidaore” (eat until you drop) ethos.

Kyoto is the place for kaiseki, tofu cuisine (yudofu at the temples of Arashiyama and Nanzen-ji, 3,000 to 5,000 yen), shojin ryori Buddhist vegetarian meals, obanzai home-style small plates and matcha everything from nearby Uji. Hokkaido’s Sapporo does miso ramen, soup curry, jingisukan grilled lamb and Sapporo beer; crab is cheapest in winter. Okinawa eats like nowhere else in Japan, with goya champuru, rafute, Okinawa soba (wheat noodles in pork broth), taco rice and sata andagi doughnuts at Makishi Public Market on Naha’s Kokusai-dori, where you buy fish downstairs and have it cooked upstairs for 500 yen a person. Sendai has gyutan (grilled beef tongue), Takamatsu is the sanuki udon pilgrimage, Nagasaki has champon and castella cake, and Kobe is the beef.

Sake (nihonshu) is graded by how far the rice is polished: junmai (pure rice), honjozo (a little added alcohol), ginjo (polished to 60%) and daiginjo (50% or less), with junmai daiginjo the top tier. Ask for it cold (reishu) for premium bottles and warm (atsukan) for cheaper ones; a 180ml glass is 500 to 1,200 yen in an izakaya and a 720ml bottle 1,500 to 5,000 yen in a shop. Brewery towns to visit are Fushimi in Kyoto (Gekkeikan and a dozen others around Fushimi Inari), Nada in Kobe, Niigata, Takayama and Saijo near Hiroshima, most with free or 500-yen tastings. Japanese whisky (Suntory’s Yamazaki and Hakushu, Nikka’s Yoichi in Hokkaido and Miyagikyo near Sendai) is drunk as a highball with soda; distillery tours need booking months ahead and age-statement bottles are rationed. Shochu (sweet-potato in Kagoshima, barley in Oita) and Okinawa’s awamori are the spirits of the south, served on the rocks or with hot water for 450 to 700 yen.

Beer is Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory on draft at 500 to 700 yen, with a strong craft scene (Hitachino Nest, Yo-Ho Brewing, Baird) in Tokyo’s taprooms. Tea is free with every meal; the sencha, hojicha (roasted) and genmaicha (with roasted rice) you are poured are green teas, and matcha is whisked ceremonially in tea houses for 800 to 1,500 yen with a sweet. Coffee is excellent and cheap at konbini (120 to 200 yen for fresh-ground) and in kissaten, the old-fashioned cafes with hand-dripped coffee and thick toast. Japan’s 4 million vending machines sell hot and cold drinks for 130 to 180 yen, from canned coffee and Pocari Sweat to corn soup in winter; the red label means hot.

A konbini meal (onigiri, salad, drink) is 500 to 700 yen, a chain lunch 800 to 1,200 yen, kaiten sushi 1,500 to 2,500 yen for a full meal, and a Michelin-starred sushi omakase in Ginza 25,000 to 40,000 yen before drinks. Lunch at the same high-end restaurant is often a third of the dinner price. Service charges exist only in hotels and some kaiseki houses (10%), and a 300 to 500 yen seating charge (otoshi) is standard in izakaya.

Chopstick rules matter more than anything else: never stand them upright in rice or pass food chopstick to chopstick (both are funeral rites), do not point or spear with them, and rest them on the holder or the paper sleeve, not across the bowl. Slurping noodles is correct and cools them; lifting the soup bowl to drink is correct too. Eating while walking is considered messy and is banned outright in Nishiki Market and parts of Kyoto’s Higashiyama, so eat at the stall or outside the konbini (most have a bin). Blowing your nose at the table is worse than any chopstick error. Shoes come off at tatami-floored restaurants and many izakaya with raised floors; wear socks you are happy to be seen in.

Vegetarians and vegans need to work at it: dashi (bonito fish stock) is in miso soup, most noodle broths, simmered vegetables, tamagoyaki and many sauces, and “no meat” is often taken to mean “fish is fine”. Reliable options are shojin ryori at temples in Kyoto and Koyasan, dedicated vegan restaurants in Tokyo and Kyoto (the HappyCow app is accurate), Indian restaurants, and the vegetable tempura, edamame, tofu and rice at izakaya. Halal is thin outside big cities but growing: Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto have halal ramen and wagyu, and the Japan Halal Gourmet guide lists them; most izakaya cook with mirin and soy that contain alcohol. Japan requires labels for eight allergens (shrimp, crab, wheat, buckwheat, egg, milk, peanut, walnut) and chains print allergen charts, but soba shops boil udon in buckwheat water and peanut-free is hard to guarantee; carry an allergy card in Japanese. Gluten-free is difficult because soy sauce contains wheat; tamari and rice-based dishes help.

Food safety is as good as it gets: tap water is drinkable everywhere, raw fish, raw egg over rice and rare chicken (torisashi) are served to millions daily, and hygiene inspections are strict. Fugu (pufferfish) can only be prepared by licensed chefs and restaurant deaths are essentially unheard of; a fugu course in Shimonoseki or Osaka is 5,000 to 15,000 yen. The genuine risks are raw horse and wild boar in rural izakaya for those with weak stomachs, and norovirus from raw oysters in winter.

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