Finding food alone

I will be traveling alone to Japan soon for 10 days and staying mostly in the populated areas (Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto). It is my first time going and I'm a little concerned about what I should be expecting as far as finding places to eat. My Japanese is minimal, I know how to ask the basic things, but don't think I'd be comfortable ordering off a menu. What and where can I expect to be eating for breakfast/lunch/dinner? Are there many menus available in English? Thanks.

Hi, I felt the same way you did when I went to Japan. I was very surprised how easily it was to get the food you wanted. Many restaurants have the photos in their menus or they have plastic food in front of the restaurant. You can point to one of these to show your waiter what you want. Also, there are many people in the restaurant business who understand English. Plus, if you get really desperate you can always go to McDonald's.

There are so many wonderful restaurants that your big problem will be selecting what type of food you would like to eat. Enjoy!

All the areas you have mentioned will be used to seeing foreigners. Of course some wait staff may be a little uncomfortable, but just speak slowly, and if you have trouble, you can always go to inexpensive restaurants that have plastic displaysof the food in the windows, gesture for the wait person to go outside with you, and point to what you want.

You didn't say what your budget is, but Japan has food to meet high, low, or anything in between. I figure you may be eating many set menus for lunch or dinner, for example, soba noodles, tempura, maybe with a small salad miso soup. There are many pasta restaurants also that have plastic displays right by the entrance, curry rice. Breakfast could be bought at convenience stores which, if you haven't been to Japan before, are EVERYWHERE. You could also eat at fami resu (family restaurants), like Casa, Royal Host, Jonathan's, Denny's. Some of these chains may have english menus, but if they don't, they have large menus with pictures of the food on them, and you could point to the picture to what you want. Family Restaurants are usually near major and semi major train stations.

Kaiten sushi is another possibility- the sushi places where the sushi is put on plates on a conveyer belt and you take what you want. At the end, they count your plates which are color coordinated depending on what kind of sushi you chose, and there is little conversation even among Japanese at these places.

I would suggest buying fruit to eat in your hotel room since you may be eating more rice than you are used to. I will be happy to answer any other question you may have

I found late afternoon visits to the basements of department stores yielded a culinary treasure trove to take back to the ryokan I was staying in. Larger train stations offer everything from sit down restaurants to noodle bars. Convenience stores like Lawson have cold cases stocked with fresh salads, sushi, snacks, etc that you can pick and take to the register. Aside from these suggestions I concur with the above poster that even if you speak no Japanese at all you will not go hungry. On my first trip my first dinner was yakitori grilled by an elderly man out of his garage near my ryokan (the smell was divine and drew me right to it) and then a bowl of udon from a shop about a block away (I pointed at the picture of the type I wanted).

The easy thing for you is many restaurants, especially around train stations and shopping centres/department stores, have either the plastic display food or pictures in menus OUTSIDE the restaurant, together with prices - you can take your time and analyse the food and prices before you even step in to the restaurant. Much less intimidating this way (I wish the rest of the world would follow suit).

The easy thing for you is many restaurants, especially around train stations and shopping centres/department stores, have either the plastic display food or pictures in menus OUTSIDE the restaurant, together with prices
Absolutely..you will find thew problem being which one to choose each meal..also, its NOT expensive...

Assuming you'll carry a travel guide with you, which is just common sense, you could just consult the guide for recommendations and explanations of what kind of food is served where. There should also be an explanation of typical Japanese foods in the guide.
Lonely Planets is probably a good guide for you.

Thanks for the helpful replies everyone! I'm more reassured now knowing where to go and what I can expect. My days are fairly jam-packed, so I'll probably want something quick and fast most of the time, and these have been good suggestions.

If you do go to a restaurant to sit down and eat, it is pretty common for only one person to come in and eat by themselves, so don't feel weird. All of the department stores; e.g., Ginza, Shinjuku have decent restaurants on the top floors. And the menu items are all on display outside. On the bottom floors, like was said, you'll definitely find something to eat.

Convenience stores all have good choices if you are on the run, and they'll even heat up the meals for you. Also, most grocery stores sell the bento boxes. If you just like to grab some fruit, like for breakfast, look for 'store 99', they are all over the place.

Finally, there's places that have ticket machines, usually near train stations. There's usually a picture of each item, and you just put your money in and take the tickets; hand them to the cook/server and you're all set.

In the hot summertime, I'd recommend you find somewhere to eat cold soba noodles.

Finding food in Tokyo- couldn't be easier. This is not a city that you have any chance of starving in- you won't be able to turn around without seeing somewhere to eat.

Many of the places we went to in Tokyo and Kyoto automatically pulled out English menus for us when we walked in. With this, and the plastic food displays and pictures, ordering food was quite easy. Restaurants in larger cities are used to having foreign customers. You should have no problem!

Not to hijack this thread, but are these plastic food displays any good? I'm imagining something where you can't really tell the difference between some nice tonkatsu and some I don't know, a raw octopus :P. I love chicken but can't abide tuna and I'm thinking both would look kinda similar once molded into plastic and stuck to a plate?

It's an art, and a huge market in Japan. The displays are so true to life - you'll have no problem. Even the beer glasses have "foam" and "moisture" running down the side of the glass. :)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2052/2325982843_a5e6cb15...


I think you'll be able to identify what the food is quite well.

In any case, all Japanese people understand the English words chicken and tuna, so just ask if you are not sure.

That depends whether you pronounce that chuuna or toona I guess. :)

Actually its Tsuna, which usually refers to the cooked form of the fish.

You've missed my point! I was referring to American pronounciation vs British/Australian and implied that Japanese may not understand you depending which way you say it. I was NOT trying to write/pronounce it in Japanese - in which case, yes 'tsuna' would be correct.

I guess I did miss your point, as I'm sure many others did as well. A common mistake when no context is provided ;)

Anyway, either way you pronounce it, it would not be difficult for a Japanese person to understand.

In Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, go to this website first. All of the restaurants on www.engmenu.com have good English menus.

Good eating.