Food Questions

Hello!
I have a few food related questions.

The first is about suppon. I found this on the forum:
http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+85345
And a link to this resturant:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/suppon/index.html

Do you have to book a table to eat at this place? Is there a minimum of people that have to eat to be able to book a table? Have anyone of you been there? What is your experience? Do you know other places that serve suppon in Tokyo or Osaka(that cost around 10,000yen)?

The next question is about fugu.
I'm thinking of eating fugu in Osaka.
What is the price for a full fugu meal? Can you recommend some places in Osaka?


How is it to order food on resturants? Do they have menus in english? Could you tell me about your experience?

Do you know what the price is to eat whale? And where can you eat it?

Where can you eat japanese street food? Is it in places like Omoide Yokocho and the back alleys of Dotonbori? I have seen a few food programs on youtube about japanese (street)food, and I was wondering where you can eat things that the koreans "brought" to Japan?
I will visit Hiroshima, Osaka, Kobe, Nara, Kyoto, Mount Fuji, Yokohama, Kamakura, Tokyo and Nikko. Can you recommend some places in these cities where I can eat japanese street food?

When I am in Japan I would also like to buy one or two cookbooks. No fancy stuff, just "normal" japanese food. I have read on the forum that "The japanese kitchen", "Let's cook japanese food" and the books of Haromi Kurihara should be good. Could you recommend some books from Haromi Kurihara? Where can you buy english books in Japan?


Thank you!

Street food is often sold at festivals, such as the New Years's festival, the summer festival in Tohoku and also at Hanami (cherry blossom viewing) festivals in the coming week.

1. Regarding the suppon restaurant, it's always a good idea to make reservations at restaurants at that price level - sometimes to prepare a full-course meal they need the right amount of certain ingredients.

2. Here's a well-regarded whale restaurant in Osaka: http://bento.com/kansai/rev/8272.html . Dinner is around Y8000 (not including drinks).

3. Some restaurants have English menus, and some don't. If a restaurant has a prix-fixe menu option that might be the easiest way to order (if there's no English menu).

4. "Street food" isn't really a big thing in Japan. You'll run across it occasionally, but it's not all that interesting compared to the variety of foods you'll find in a typical izakaya.

5. Rather than carrying heavy books back in your luggage, you might want to just order books internationally from Amazon.com. Japan isn't really the best place to find English-language books anyway.

Thank you for the answer!
My biggest concern is not to be able to order food in small resturants. Is it usual that the resturants have pictures of their food? I would like to know what kind of food I will be eating.
Do you have any tips when it comes to izakaya?

Well, some menus have pictures, some have English, and some don't have either. If an izakaya doesn't have either, but it has a prix-fixe menu (called a 'kosu menu' in Japanese) then that's a convenient way to go.

Unfortunately (for ordering purposes) there's a big variation in izakaya menus, so it's hard to guess what they'll serve. If you can read the menu though, I'd recommend dishes like assorted sashimi, grilled chicken, and grilled fish.

That said though, there are lots of nice izakaya with English menus - you just have to hunt around a bit. For example, En in Marunouchi (and their branch in Shiodome) are some of my favorite places to take visitors, and they have good English menus: http://bento.com/rev/2322.html