Japanese Food

Japan and I have always had our disagreements when it comes to food.  It is delicious and healthy, but since its hard to fight thousands of years of tradition (did I say hard, I meant impossible), I have let  my vegetarianism slide a little in Japan for the sake of convenience and my sanity. To give you some idea of what I have to deal with, products still advertise, in bold letters, that they cook with lard.

But once you get passed the fact that meat is in everything, you'll see that it is only in small quantities and Japanese food is very vegetable heavy.  If you order curry or even a steak in Japan, the meat is generally just a small portion of your dinner (an issue many American visitors complain about).  Friendly note; a hanburg steak (ハンバーグステーキ) is not a steak, its a hamburger patty.

Speaking of veggie heavy, the vegetables actually taste like vegetables!  Vegetables in Japan are tasty and satisfying.  The first time I ate a tomato in Japan was a life changing experience.  I think this has to do with Japan using less chemicals to grow food (at least the food they have imported uses less chemicals; Japan only grows about 20% of its own food), but veggies are considerably more expensive as a result.  Japanese cooking is all about bringing out the natural flavor of the food, not covering it in sauce or spices, so it really helps that the ingredients taste like they're supposed to.

Unless I'm doing the dishes, I don't have a problem with home cooked Japanese food.  Since a lot of Japanese food has to do with presentation, a TON of dishes are used, but it looks pretty.  Even when you're not eating at a tapas style restaurant, which is also really popular in Japan, meals still tend to have many plates instead of just one large one.

Now for the gross stuff.  Yakiniku places (korean bbq style restaurants where you cook your own meat) often have Horumon on the menu.  Horumon (ホルモン) are cow and pig entrails and the Japanese word is actually derived from the words 'throw away' and 'thing'.  Other garbage parts of the animals include chicken hearts, which are common at Torikizoku.  For some reason, I'm more okay with these animal parts than with katsuobushi, かつお節.  Katsuobushi is dried bonito fish skin flakes that dance around on your food when your food is hot....and they put this stuff on EVERYTHING... 

However, Japan has Caesar Salad Doritos and Ham and Cheese flavored Pretz, so all aforementioned problems are forgiven. 

Japan's creativity for eating disgusting parts of animals is only exceeded by their creativity in combining foods, that are individually delicious, into works of food art.