"Our 70-image Japanese food photo gallery can be viewed through Buffalo Chow's Facebook fan page - please join our fans on Facebook to access all of the images."
Though our time in Japan has come to an end, and we used the opportunity to explore the wide range of outstanding foods available there, we had many more stories and pictures left to share. So we've created this Leftovers article as an introduction and brief guide to a large, 70-image Japanese food photo gallery we've posted to our Facebook fan page for readers interested in learning more about Japanese dining - everything from desserts to noodle soups, shabu shabu, kushiage, yakitori and izakaya fare, sushi, and even local versions of foreign foods. This article also includes links to our entire series of articles on Japan, and earlier coverage of Western New York's Japanese restaurants.
On Desserts: Japanese adaptations of items such as circular Baumkuchen cakes, custard-filled cream puffs, bon-bons and chocolate gateaus were on ample display during this visit, pushing far past prior conceptions of the country as restrained in its palate for sweets. Many of these products were directly inspired by French, German, and Belgian recipes, and impressive; entire chains (such as St. Marc Cafe/Choco Cru) have developed to produce European-style baked goods for sale across the country. Domestically-developed snacks, such as 140-year-old snack vendor Mamegen's green tea and sweet cracker-coated peanuts, were a real hit and very different from the wasabi-flavored versions that are more commonly found in the United States.
Not everything was great. For instance, we were once again lured in by the chocolate-topped waffles sold by a chain called Manneken, but less than totally impressed by the results, and though we felt obliged to sample some of the numerous, tempting crepes offered at street stands, we found them to be largely filled with whipped cream and less impressive in flavor than their French equivalents. It's also possible to get some really screwy desserts, such as a "Honey Almond Ice Cream" parfait that turned out to consist very substantially of corn flakes. Finding the really good stuff in Japan isn't hard, but it's also not as easy as just going to the first place that offers something that looks interesting.
On Foreign Foods: In the same way that many foreign foods are accidentally botched or deliberately changed by cooks in the United States, otherwise meticulous Japanese chefs continue to offer versions of Western and Chinese dishes that barely resemble the originals. Italian food is particularly subject to reinterpretation; pizzas with corn, mayonnaise, weak sauce, bad cheese, eggs, and other disappointments are common, and pasta renditions are equally odd. Similarly, Chinese food has been dumbed down for supposedly "Japanese tastes," the local explanation for the same phenomenon that saw Asian cuisines blended together in Polynesian restaurants in the U.S. years ago. Gourmet restaurants with high price tags, including ones that have made it into Michelin's highly favorable restaurant guides to Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, are exceptions to these rules; chefs at such establishments tend to err on the side of authenticity.
But Spanish cuisine and certain other Western and Eastern cuisines that have more recently become popular in Japan are handled quite well even in unpretentious restaurants. Chains from outside the country, such as the famed Taiwanese soup dumpling house Din Tai Fung, have branches in Japan that sell more or less the same products as their locations elsewhere in Asia; Indian food we sampled was also very good, including one of the largest pieces of naan bread we've ever seen.
The Japanese have also come up with some positive enhancements to foreign foods - including an excellent, crustless improvement on the common loaf of bread that is baked square and can come in a sweetened "Milk Bread" version that's out of sight. Foreign chains such as McDonald's and Starbucks have self-adapted their menus, adding the "McPork" sausage sandwich, Jelly Frappuccinos, and other items that wouldn't go over too well in the United States. Coca-Cola offers a zero-calorie version of its flagship drink with fiber mixed in for laxative effects. And though English-language signage occasionally has its funny moments of "Engrish," it's generally improved a lot from where it was just a few years ago.
On Other Japanese Foods: You may or may not have heard of Shabu-Shabu, a style of Japanese meal that starts with a boiling pot of water and stacks of uncooked vegetables and meats. Diners cook the pieces at their own pace at their tables, then dip them in soy or sesame sauces, sometimes more depending on the restaurant. As one might guess from the description, the shabu-shabu experience can range from lousy to pretty darned good, with variations in pricing, quality, and quantity of ingredients accounting for the differences. Like a sister chain called Mo-Mo Paradise, which we've previously enjoyed, a restaurant called Nabezo won points instantly by offering a sub-$20 all-you-can-eat version with 90 minutes of unlimited beef, pork, and vegetables that we really enjoyed. Kushiage, the battering and deep-frying of meats (aka "Kushikatsu") and vegetables on sticks for dipping in sauces, was also a lowbrow hit with us, as were grilled meat, seafood, and vegetable sticks of Yakitori.
Arguably the most impressive fare we sampled outside of our kaiseki meal in Kyoto, however, came from izakayas: Japanese pubs specializing in small, creative dishes that are the country's domestic equivalent of tapas. There is no simple way to sum up izakaya cuisine - it could be trivialized as bar food, and in some cases chain bar food, but so often is something of a considerably higher caliber that it defies such simple description. At some izakayas, we enjoyed raw or nearly raw meat dishes such as beef carpaccio, horse sashimi - yes, horse, especially popular in certain Japanese prefectures - and finely-sliced, orange miso-flavored scallops; at others, seafood or vegetarian fare were brought into interesting balances - a mackerel was seared at our table, scallops were served amidst seaweed, sesame seeds, and sprouts, and a plate of honey and almond-covered cheese tofu proved to be an intoxicating spread for sliced bread.
On Sushi, Part 2: Midori Sushi, a popular restaurant in Shibuya, had lines of 50 to 60 people waiting outside its doors during all of its hours of operation, and a visit showed why: Midori offers a great assortment of sushi at reasonable prices. Though the individual pieces weren't generally as amazing as the ones at Sushi Dai, the literally massive piece of Conger Eel, a stack of octopus suction cups, and real crab sushi - not the artificial stuff sold at most restaurants in the United States - were all memorably awesome, appealing as much to the eye as to the tongue. Less impressive was a piece of Roast Beef sushi, topped with horseradish and mayonnaise; by comparison with the fish, it seems almost like a stunt, offered to be different rather than especially tasty. At least it was inexpensive.
Our full series of 13 articles on authentic Japanese cuisine concludes here. The prior 12 articles are linked here for your convenience, and are highly recommended; they highlight dishes that can and can't be found in Western New York, as well as numerous ways that even familiar dishes can be improved.
Editors' Notes: We're In Japan, And Here's Why You'll Love It
Oshi-zushi, The Sushi You've Never Heard Of, Plus Takoyaki
Osaka Chow: Japanese Chicken Wings + More at Tori No Mai
Kobe Chow: On Great Steak, Making Sake + Lessons Learned
Kyoto Chow: On Kaiseki, Japan's Gentle, Colorful High Cuisine
On Eating Deadly Pufferfish + Sushi From Plastic Fridge Boxes
Nagoya Chow: Yamachan's Chicken Wings + Many Miso Dishes
Number One With A Bullet (Train): To Tokyo Via Shinkansen
Ramen, Or, Noodles In Cups That Come From Superior Stock
On Sushi, Or, Japanese Art In Raw, Diverse, Bite-Sized Fish
Katsu Curry: Big in Japan, New To America, Missing in Buffalo
Japan's Awesome Snack Foods: A Little Ahead Of Our Time
Reviews of Buffalo's Japanese restaurants can be found here, and finally, our 70-image photo gallery can be viewed here - join Buffalo Chow's fans on Facebook to access all of the images. We hope you've enjoyed Buffalo Chow's articles on Japanese food; our regular coverage of the Western New York food scene resumes in earnest now.
