On Food

Well, another day of waking up hours and hours before everyone else, so I figured we’d talk a little about food. We’ve been trying to take pictures of everything we eat because that’s one of those things that you spend a ton of time doing, but never really document. So, let’s talk about food.

First off, we have yet to have a bad meal. In the interest of full disclosure, Sommer was not thrilled with her meal at Ninja Akasaka, and the sauce that my scallops were in aboard the S.S. Columbia was a little strange. Not bad, just strange. That having been said, the food has been both delicious and remarkably affordable.

Yesterday

Eggs, sausage, croissant and macaroni salad (!?): $8.50 for two

Sushi roll with Korean beef and vegetables: $3.30

Nautilus Galley: gyoza, gyoza sausage bun, shrimp/seaweed soup, beer and a tea: $20

Sakura: vegetable salad: $4

Sakura: meat and vegetable skewers: $17

Sakura: teriyaki chicken: $14

Monday

S.S. Columbia: vegetable salad: $4.18

S.S. Columbia: shrimp and scallops in strange sauce: $19

S.S. Columbia: glazed chicken, potatoes and vegetables: $15

 Sunday

Ninja Akasaka: Salad (ninja-style): $6

Ninja Akasaka: Pork dish: $16

Ninja Akasaka: grilled lobster: $26

Meiji Jingu Shrine: chicken and omelette thingy: $10

Meiji Jingu Shrine: tempura: $12

Saturday

Yoshinoya: some kind of fish thingy: $4

Yoshinoya: beef bowl: $3.50

Tiny Asakusa Restaurant: udon set lunch: $6

Whew! We ate more, but I didn’t realize how long this post would get if I covered everything. A few notes worth mentioning:

1) Plastic food! Soooo many restaurants have their front windows filled with plastic versions of all their offerings, which is extremely helpful for folks like us. More than a few times we have ordered based on the plastic food, without exactly knowing what it was but having a good sense of what it looks like.

2) Set menus! It seems like just about everywhere we go has a set menu, where you get an appetizer, meal, dessert and drink. Amazingly, even if you don’t order from the set menu, you still typically get soup, rice and pickles with your meal.

3) Hurry up and eat! For the most part we have been amazed at how fast people eat, especially at the Yoshinoya near our hotel. A dude came in after us, got his food within 2 minutes, and was out within another 2. And I thought I ate fast!

4) Hurry up and wait! Sit down restaurants have been a very interesting experience, a combination of being rushed and waiting a really long time. On several occasions the waitress has come to the table seconds after we have sat down and well before we’ve had a chance to even attempt to decipher the menu. In other cases, however, we’ve waited 30 minutes just to get our bill once we were finished! Fortunately we’ve learned how to say “Okanjou o onegaishimasu,” or “check, please!”