Tonkatsu is a simple deep fried pork dish. But the quality of pork is really tender and juicy when you eat it at Tonkatsu restaurants ( I don’t recommend you eat at ones with variety of menu, you should choose Tonkatsu only restaurats ).

There are some type of the pork, which you choose in ordering. Rouse ( or Louse is closer to the pronunciation )　is tender pork loin part, and Hire ( or Hile) is the fillet part.  If you don’t like fat part,  hire katsu ( fillet cutlet) is the best choice for you.

Tonkatsu us served with cabbage salad as you see in the photo, and some like the sauce so much. It’s not a special sauce in Japan because we all have the same one at home, but it’s certainly original sauce made in Japan.  The matching of Tonkatsu and the sauce gives is really delicious experience.

If you come to Japan, I really think it’s a nice choice for one of your meals.

Some months ago, a new unique film reached my attention. That was a film making story about a famous Japanese Sushi Chef, called JIRO.

He runs a small sushi restaurant in Ginza, Tokyo, the name of it is Sukiyabashi Jiro.  But the Sushi restaurant is always full of sushi lovers who made reservations for dinner some months before the tasting day.

Jiro is renowned not only in Japan but also worldwide.  Michelin gave Jiro 3 stars, which means this restaurant is ranked as the top level in the world.  In Tokyo there are more than 1000 or maybe much more sushi restaurants, and it’s said Tokyo has 160,000 restaurants approximately.  Among them, only 11 restaurants got 3 stars in Tokyo. Jiro is the one out of 11.

He was sometimes  picked up as focus of TV program before in Japan.  With all he is over 86 years old,  his sense of talk was incredibly sharp and he had absolutely strong philosophy in the work of sushi chef.  He says he has not yet seen the top of the sushi cooking,  what’s more,  he says he doesn’t know when he would be able to see the satisfactory taste as the final top level.

In a sense, he might be said to be stubborn.  However, that’s really a nature of Japanese chef’s nature.

When the director of the film first came to Jiro,  it’s said that Jiro refused it because filming often disturbs his work, and he has no more interest in promoting himself through media.  As the time runs, Jiro noticed director’s passionate attitude to get to know the secrets of sushi.  After that, gradually Jiro changed his mind and started becoming friends with the director.  And with the friendship,  the filming finally started.

The film of sushi chef Jiro is finally completed.  I’m also a sushi lover.  I want to see it somehow.

**a little note:  His restaurant is crowded and needs reservation. Also it’s expensive.  There are not many menu.  Usually when we take our seat, chef starts making sushi after some confirmation for favorites. Then we just eat when he makes for us.   This is not usual style in Japan, but this style certainly exists especially when the chef has pride in his cooking.

You can easily find Hamburger shops in Japan. No worry if you are from Western country.  Also if you go to Western style restaurant,  you will find a Japanese style Hamburger dish,  Hamburg Steak with Rice.

It looks like Locomoco  of Hawaii when it’s served with a pan fried egg as you see in the photo.

It’s a kind of national food of Japan already because all of us like Hamburg steak dish.

If you request bread instead of rice, many of the restaurants would change it to bread at your choice.  But be careful, in Japan,  amount of bread is not as large as one of the USA or European countries.  Only a few pieces of  bread come out when bread is ordered.  Also, in Japan bread is called PAN ( not the cooking tool, but the same pronunciation ).

There are popular restaurants like Denny’s or others in Japan too, and those restaurants absolutely have this menu.

Taste is almost the same as the Hamburgers but to be honest, I prefer Hamburg steak with rice than Hamburgers.

Price is around 500 yen to 1500 yen,  it’s up to the class of restaurants or the stuff of it, too.  But as the national foods often are,  higher priced restaurants don’t always give us the best taste.  Casual ones with cheaper price sometimes are really popular with local history and repeaters…although those places are often not so clean.

Some say MOS Burger’s taste a little changed even worse ( still good though ) compared to some years ago.

If you come to Japan and if you try burgers, please check this burger shop at least a time or two.

Most popular burger at this shop is Classic Cheese Burger ( as photo) and secondly Classic burger or Avogadro burger follows ( see video at the bottom ).

Price is a little higher and McDonald’s or some other fast food shops but I think it worth trying.  The size is larger than the fast food shop’s,  maybe 1 burger could fill your stomach if you are just a standard volume eater.

Shops are mainly located around Tokyo, Yokohama, or other Tokyo suburb area, but large cities like Osaka or Nagoya also have some in the streets.

They cook the burgers after you order.  Then it takes 5 to 10 minutes to come up.

In Japan you can find McDonald’s,  Burger King, Wendy’s, MOS burger, and some more. It’s a little selfish judgement but I like them as the next order.

Freshness burger –  MOS burger – Burger King – Wendy’s- McDonald’s

As you know, McDonald’s has variety of menu.  I like some of their menu better than other shop’s standard choice.

Anyway, please check it out in Japan !

Kusatsu Onsen hot springs, where I now stay in, is also a top level hot springs in Japan both on popularity and on history.

Beside the tour spot name value, I’m enjoying SOBA here in Kusatsu.  Soba is a noodle type food of Japan, which has a very long history. Soba and Udon are very popular in Japan as well as Ramen noodle.  For more information of Soba, please refer to:  http://www.japanpress.info/archives/687

In Kusatsu, I happened to encounter many good Soba restaurants.  At the first trial, I didn’t expect the taste to be splendid, but !  the kind of prejudice of mine to Kusatsu Soba quickly faded away as I kept trying more and more Soba restaurants here.

Here in Kusatsu Onsen,  it’s sure that there are many good Soba restaurants and this place should be one of the best Soba providing areas in Japan.  This Soba I enjoy here is good enough for me to reccomend its taste.

Also, here they are likely to have Maitake Mushroom Tempura with Soba, which is such a nice taste ! Maitake is a unique mushroom of Japan.  I hope you would try it if you come here.  

To be honest, I can’t find any other fine food here in Kusatsu than Soba.  Probably I will be able to catch more information If I can stay here longer.

But maybe you don’t have to come here just for Soba.  You can have good Soba in Tokyo !

Because I’m accustomed to the taste, it’s hard for me to change mayonnaise brands.

Japanese NO.1 popular mayo is QP brand one.  Today’s news said that this Mayo is the most popular mail order item among mayonnaise in the USA through AMAZON.  Certainly I understand how they like it because I also like it.

If you never used the QP myonnaise, I can reccommend this to anybody.

They are really popular among standard Japanese people especially for men.

The reason for this popular food is, first of all, the price is increadibly low.  It’s about 300 yen in average, so only 3 dollars and something.  It comes with free tea and some places offer free miso soup too.  In this economy situation, people tend to use Beef Bowl restaurants for their regular lunch to save their cost of living.

Now there is a firce competition among Beef Bowl restaurants in Japan to get customers.  There are 3 main beef bowl chain restaurant brand, which are Yoshinoya, Matsuya, and Sukiya.  Yoshinoya has the longest history and has the highest reputation, Matsuya is the second largest and known well next to Yoshinoya.  Matsuya offers free miso soup for a beef bowl and has various menu other than beef bowl. Sukiya started the business later than 2 other brands.  But their strategy is well targetted to the customers, and the menue is always renewed. So there are increasingly many customers for Sukiya, too.

Yoshinoya has the best reputation but the price is is the highest among them.  Under this economy situation, people are choosing cheaper places. Consequently Matsuya and Sukiya are getting more customers than Yoshinoya recently.  This tendency made Yoshinoya feel uncomfortable, and Yoshinoya decided to make 270 yen campaign from 7th of April for 10 days or so. Yoshinoya price is usually 380 yen, so it’s a big discount for Yoshinoya.  BUT ! interestingly, for the same priod of time with Yoshinoya campaign,  Sukiya later announced to have a campaign at 250 yen ! and Matsuya followed Sukiya at the same price, 250 yen.

So Yoshinoya’s BIG campaign seems to become just a fan service time without getting more customers back from 2 other beef bawl restaurant brands.

This is said that 2 beeef bowl brands try to beat Yoshinoya dwon completely and they want to change the beef bowl market share now.

The battle around 250 yen ( 2.5 dollars ) is really hot now in Japan.

When I first traveled in the USA, I tried to find Mr. Donut shop in LA or San Francisco, but I couldn’t even though I paid my attention to the street signboards everyday.  What I saw frequently was Dun-kin Donuts Shops.

There is no doubt that Dunkin Donuts is a very good donut shop and the taste is also good.

For me, still Mr. Donut is the best place for enjoy the lovely taste of Donuts. After I came back to Japan from America, I asked some of my friends why there is no Mr. Donut in America.  I notice that I was the only person who believed it to be American original.  I finally found out it was born in Japan.

Now Mr. Donut is found in all of the major cities of Japan.  If you ever come to Japan, I will really recommend you try it.  Taste is delicate and item variation is really wide. You can fully enjoy them while you stay in Japan.

Recently Mr. Donut seems to have some shops in Asian countries too. If they give the same items as Japanese shops have, some of those countries people might have already known the name or its taste.

Japanese arrangement ability sometimes works very well just like Japan made up Japanese noodle by arranging from Chinese noodle, Japanese curry from Indian curry,and Japanese pasta variation from Italian pasta.

Certainly donuts are imported from the USA, and th taste is really like American.  But, if you are a donut fan, you will see how the taste of Japanese ones are subtly different from American ones. 

Please enjoy !

If I needed to tell about all the difference of Japanese ramen noodles in their types, maybe it takes much time and very hard to tell correctly.  Try them first, this is the best way to know.

In my memory, Ramen noodle was a very standard food when we eat out. When I was a child, that was not top popular food.  I have no experience that I waited in a cue in front of Ramen restaurant for a long time.  But recently waitingoutside  until we take the table is not a special experience.  Ten to one, ramen lovers have a lot of waiting experience now.

As a note, maybe it’s one of the choices to visit such a popular ramen restaurant in Japan if you can’t choose one. But of course you will need to wait long.  But from my experience, even some restaurants without long waiting lines have good taste often.

Such media as magazines, TVs, and internet are covering a lot of them these days, and curious ramen lovers never fail to visit many of them. After the media show, those restaurants often have long lines.

Without such promotion activity, some of the real popular ramen restaurants always have people waiting outside.

Not only in Tokyo, Osaka, or such big cities, but many small cities have some popular ramen restaurants, which means local ramen shops have their own taste in each area.

In Japan, there are many RAMEN TRAVELERS.  They are just tripping from city to city to taste ramen.

For me, it’s a little ridiculous because they spend much transfer charge to taste 500 yen ( about 5 dollar ) ramen in a city. But they answer ” eating ramen is a real reason for the travel, and sightseeing in cities are enjoyable. If there were no ramen there,  we would never visit that city. So ramen is a reasonable trigger to start trip !”

Indeed, they love ramen !

I don’t know well about the other countries’ McDonald’s, but as far as I experienced, Japanese McDonald’s shops are very clean and hamburgers themselves all taste good.

Especially recent deluxe hamburgerscalled Texas Burger or New York Burger are very popluar and taste delicious.  These new menu are targeting a little richer range, so the price is around 450 JPY or about 5 US dollars. Thinking of many other Japanese McDonalds humburgers with price range of 1 US dollar to 3 US dollars at most, these new lines are very expensive.

But it’s true that these burgers are often sold out soon. McDonalds Japan expressed that they need to stop selling these ” AMERICAN BRAND BURGERS” because they are soon sold out and can’t keep the standard selling condition for customers.

Japan is still in serious recession, so it’s strange for us that this expensive burgers are popular.   Some say that many of the steak eaters at relaxing restaurants transferred their food from deluxe steak to rich taste McDonalds, which still save much money for them.

I’ve not yet tried the deluxe humbergers, but sooner or later I will eat it when I also find little money in my wallet for steak dinner.