Besides American fast foods like McDonald’s, you can find traditional Japanese fast foods all over Japan. Noodle dishes are very popular, like ramen, udon and soba noodles. My favorites are ramen with miso broth with meat and vegetables added and yakisoba, which is a stir-fried soba noodle with vegetables and meat. I’ve never tried the chuka-soba, but it sounds really good. It is boiled soba noodles with meat, vegetables or seafood. Rice dishes like sushi, donburi and curry rice are also very popular. For people who are nervous about trying Japanese food, I recommend a good donburi bowl with tempura (tendon) or beef and onions (gyudon) on top of rice. Other street foods like oden (stew), yakitori (skewered meat or vegetables) and okonomi-yaki (pancakes filled with pork, seafood, cabbage and more) are also popular. I haven’t had the opportunity to try them, but the oden especially sounds tempting.
Some of my favorite Japanese snacks include mochi, which is a pounded, glutinous rice cake. It can be 
prepared in many ways. I like the deep-fried, puffed mochi, or the mochi ice cream balls, which are small round servings of ice cream covered with a layer of mochi. My favorite flavors for the ice cream includes green tea and chocolate. I’m anxious to try onigiri, which is a snack made of shaped rice with a filling. Since I haven’t found them ready-made at my local Asian market, I’ll have to try making them myself. My kids really like Pocky sticks in several flavors. These are skinny hard sticks that sort of resemble tiny bread sticks that have been dipped in chocolate, strawberry and other flavored frostings. They also enjoy the Hello Kitty marshmallow treats. Personally, I find them a bit too sweet, but they love them so much they fight over them. The honey sesame candies are also extremely tasty.
Like most traditional Japanese meals, the traditional Japanese lunch is made of some rice, miso soup, a vegetable and meat dish, another vegetable dish, some pickled vegetables and salad. Some Westerners complain that traditional Japanese meals are like eating dinner for every meal, but that doesn’t bother me. I eat leftovers for breakfast and lunch all the time, so eating the same types of foods at each meal is not a problem and I love Japanese food! These dishes could also be packed into a Bento box for lunch on the go. Families eating in a traditional style will have Mom cook a couple of new dishes every day. At every meal, the new foods are laid out along with leftovers from the previous day or two. Each dish is set out at every meal until it is gone. I may need to try that at home with my family… it would sure use up leftovers!
I was intrigued when I first saw sushi, but I was a little bit afraid to try it. Sushi is raw fish, right? Well, I have since learned that “sashimi” is raw fish, and sushi actually means “vinegar rice.” The first sushi I tried was a California roll, which is a fairly safe choice for newbies. Made with imitation crab, avocado, cucumber, mayonnaise, nori and rice, it is a tasty way to get acquainted with this interesting cuisine.
I’ve since taken the plunge and tried raw fish on my sushi. This variety was a nigiri, which is a small ball of rice covered with a piece of raw fish. The tuna nigiri was tasty, especially when a drop or two of soy sauce was added to the fish. This style is also made with cooked shrimp if you prefer a cooked version.
The last sushi bar I went to, we sat at up front at the bar so we could talk with the sushi chef, or Itamae (pronounced ee-tah-may). He made us a specialty that wasn’t on the menu that featured eel, another of my phobias when it came to sushi. It was so good! I’d looked at the eel sushi before, and it just didn’t look appetizing, but I was completely wrong. The chef told us that for three years, all he did was make sushi rice. After that time, he was allowed to progress to learning the art of making sushi. He had been training for eight years so far, and it would be another twenty-two years before he was considered a full-fledged sushi chef. All I know is if he makes such tasty treats now, I can only imagine how incredible his food will be when he finally finishes his training!
The Japanese breakfast isn’t a whole lot different than their other two meals of the day. I like rice at almost any time of day, so that part suits me fine. I also like miso soup, which is another important part of a traditional Japanese breakfast. I’ve even made this simple breakfast a few times. Mine didn’t include all the features you’d get in Japan, though.
Fish plays a big part in a traditional Japanese breakfast. And it really is a good protein to begin your day with. It sustains you for quite a while. The fish can be eaten separately, mixed with the rice or rolled with rice in a piece of nori like makeshift sushi. How fun… you get to play with your food while you eat it! I think I may be tempted to try it.
The pickled vegetables may give me a little pause. It seems so early in the day to eat them, but then again, it may be really good. While fixing a traditional Japanese breakfast takes longer than pouring a bowl of cereal, it might be worth a try. It must be healthier than eating a stack of pancakes and syrup. We can all stand to eat a little healthier, can’t we?
I first discovered bento boxes when I was reading some of the manga magazines my kids leave around the house. The girls in the stories frequently tried to impress the boys they liked by making cute little lunches for them. 
After that, I looked them up online. Wow! I was amazed at how many different styles of bento boxes there were. They come in metal, wood and plastic with fun anime cartoon characters for the kids.
Bento boxes are divided into individual compartments. Sometimes they have a second or third layer that all stack together for holding a meal. The main ingredient in the lunch is either rice or noodles. Then they add the fun stuff. The side dishes, or okazu, can be made of meat, eggs, fish, tofu, vegetables or fruit. The okazu is cut and prepared in bite sized pieces that work well with chopsticks. In children’s meals, the vegetables may be cut into cute shapes. They even have molds for boiled eggs! When I saw a picture of a boiled egg shaped like a teddy bear, I couldn’t believe it was an egg! They can also mold the rice into shapes. Some of the pictures I’ve seen have been extremely artistic and imaginative. The women who spend time making these bento box lunches are really creative. I’m tempted to buy a few of these lunchboxes at the local Asian store and try my hand at it. It sounds like a lot more fun than making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
I always knew that rice was a big part of Japanese cuisine, but it was still a little surprising to learn just how much it is used. I used to watch Iron Chef and marvel at the many ways they used rice, and it made me more interested in finding out more about Japanese food in general. Now, I’m hooked.
Rice is used at every meal… just plain steamed white rice. I admit I thought brown rice would be more popular than it is in Japan. It is amazing how many ways rice can be used. Rice cakes are used as a dessert, often stuffed with red bean paste or other sweet filling. Mochi is a chewy sweet or savory sheet of rice-y goodness (is that a word?) that can be cooked and eaten on its own or may be found wrapped around other goodies like bites of ice cream. I’ve since managed to try some of these tasty treats from Japan and they really are good.
I want to learn more ways to use rice. Learning about how the Japanese utilize it has inspired me. It is an amazing grain that feeds a large portion of the world’s population. It deserves more attention from those of us in the West.
On Friday the office went out to a Chinese Restaurant for lunch and a going away party for one of our co-workers. I decided to have some thing new off the menu so I went with Moo Goo Gai Pan with vegetables. I did not know what it was so I asked the waiter and he said it was sliced chicken with fresh mushrooms. The dish was so savory with all of those fresh vegetables. It had things like snow peas, cabbage, celery, bell peppers, green beans and corn.
The boneless chicken was so tasty that you could taste all the flavor that the chicken was based in. The Moo Goo Gai Pan was a healthy choice for me to have this lunch hour, because it was a stir-fry dish full of chicken and vegetables.
For lunch on a Friday in April I had Beef Teriyaki. This teriyaki was on a stick with fried rice on the side. The teriyaki was soft and tender to chew and it had such a good taste. Before I knew it I had eaten all the teritaki off my stick.
I placed a order to have some more brought over to my table and when they arrived they taste just as good the ones I had early. When my lunch hour was over I had finished all my Beef Teriyaki and fried rice. There was no room left for anything else to eat not even a fortune cookie.
A coworker of mine, Pamela, had a dinner party recently and the theme was Asian Cuisines (how appropriate). She served many tasty dishes and the one I’ll be discussing first is Miso Soup.
I never tried Miso Soup but always wanted to. How lucky was I to finally get a chance to try it at the party? I have to say that it was really good. I asked for her recipe. Once I get it I will try to make it myself.
I’m ready for a second bowl.