Ten days in Japan = approximately twenty sushi and ramen meals: I was working out the math when I chanced upon Matt Goulding’s Rice, Noodle, Fish – Deep Travels Through Japan’s Food Culture. The book opened up a world of Japanese food to me, even before I stepped into the country. Suddenly, there was so much to squeeze into just 10 days. The plans and lists went out of the window and I decided to go with the flow.
On my first night in Tokyo, I walked into an Izakaya, the informal Japanese gastro pubs that form an integral part of Tokyo’s drinking and dining culture. Usually visited by a stream of salary men and college kids for cheap tipple and grub, the food served here is tapas style, with typically small plates. Managed by all of two people, the tiny place in Shinjuku’s Golden Gai street had seating space for not more than eight people. Grilled prawns, stir-fried shitake and pork yakisoba with multiple servings of Japanese pickles and rounds of sake made for my first meal in the country. I spent the next two days eating wasabi octopus, pork katsu with sticky rice, grilled octopus and agedashi tofu (soft tofu coated with potato starch and deep-fried) at Akihabara’s maid café and various Izakayas.
A warm welcome
While people in Tokyo mostly steered clear from making eye contact unless asked for help, the air in Osaka was heavier with a different sort of energy. In a small sake bar in Osaka Namba, where I walked in as a hesitant tourist, I was soon clinking glasses with strangers and the staff. The bar cheered with ‘kanpai!’ every time a guest was served a drink. From being offered a dish of lobster and potato by a co-diner, to being escorted to the famous crab place nearby, I walked the entire stretch of Osakan hospitality. My next stop was Dotonbori, Osaka’s famous food street, where the air was thick with aromas of fried meat. A thin stream was lined with restaurants, roadside stalls and food carts on both sides, serving Osaka’s two prominent culinary creations: okonomiyaki (cabbage and egg pancakes with chunks of meat or seafood) and takoyaki (fried gooey fritters with a single chewy nugget of octopus in the centre). With a generous drizzle of barbeque sauce and mayonnaise, and light bonito flakes fluttering on top, takoyaki is a bit of an acquired taste. I walked into a restaurant that specialises in okonomiyaki, settled with a glass of sapporo (local beer), while the chef served me a pork-studded okonomiyaki.
In Arashiyama, a district on the western suburbs of Kyoto, where temples and hand-pulled rickshaws still paint an old Meiji period charm, the cuisine is far removed from what is popularly known as Japanese food. After a walk in the surreal bamboo grove, I made way to a nearby restaurant and ordered shojin ryori, the traditional vegetarian cuisine of the Buddhist monks. It is one of the three major cuisines of Kyoto; the other two being kaiseki, where every course represents a different cooking technique, and obanzai, the home-style cooking. The cuisine employs the rule of five, which means every meal has five colours and five tastes. There’s no onion and garlic, and the broths are made using dried mushrooms and seaweed instead of fish. Our meal included vegetable tempura, kenchin soup (miso-based soup with seasonal vegetables and tofu), tofu prepared with sesame seeds and wasabi and pickled vegetables.
Homemade magic
For the next day, I had booked a home-dining experience in Kyoto through Traveling Spoon, where I learned a few lessons in home-style cooking, aka obanzai ryori. There were just a handful of ingredients in my host’s modest kitchen, dashi — a powder made with dried bonito fish, the lifeline of pretty much every dish, and the soul of miso soup. Obanzai employs simple cooking techniques and uses plenty of meat and vegetables.
My meal began with tasting four different kinds of tea: matcha, sencha, gyokuro and bancha. Unlike kaiseki, where the food is served course-wise, obanzai is more informal dining, where everyone sits around the table and eats together. Misoshiru (light miso broth with shimeji mushrooms), dashimaki (Japanese egg rolls), shitake tsukune (chicken mince-stuffed pan-fried shitake), and nikujaga (stew of beef, carrots and potatoes) made for my most memorable meal in Kyoto.
On my last night in Kyoto, after spending the entire day walking through the vermilion gates of Fushimi Inari shrine, I walked into the closest Lawson store (the most famous chain of departmental stores in Japan), and picked up a hot dog on a stick to conclude my dinner.
In my 10 days in Japan, I ate just one meal of sushi and ramen, and ended up exploring a lot more than what’s popular. And to think of it, I barely scratched the surface.