Food is central to life in Japan. Yes, food is essential to life for any human but the Japanese experience is different. Japanese food ranges from the utilitarian restaurants at busy train stations to the exquisitely honed culinary talents at work in a $ 400 per meal Wagyu beef specialty restaurant. It ranges from a simple ramen to a sixteen course breakfast served by Buddhist monks. An entire building in Hiroshima dedicated to a single dish (okonomiyaki – 広島風お好み焼き) to a handful of restaurants in the entire country serving regional cuisines. Not many other cultures that I am familiar with have quite this breadth of food types, preparation styles and regional interpretations. It is quite the experience and I’m glad I was able to partake of some.

I began right after arriving in Tokyo – soba noodles was my first point of discovery. Of late, I developed a mild allergy of sorts – I eat certain foods and face a bout of explosive diarrhoea, once. Once and done. Which foods trigger it, I am not certain, however I suspect it might be certain preservatives or additives. Soup powders trigger it, as do certain ready-to-eat meals. Sometimes, it is mushrooms and I suspected MSG but can’t prove it. Anyhow, I knew that Japanese cuisine uses a lot of soy, MSG and other ingredients, some of which may upset my intestines. I did not want to tempt the fates so I decided to play it safe and eat right before returning to the hotel. Nervously, I approached a noodle restaurant close to the hotel, in Asakusa. Chūka sobabiriken (中華ソバビリケン) was the place and you can locate them with your favourite map. “Homemade noodles Billiken” is the name in English. I expected it to be good because there were seven stools at the counter, no tables, a brief menu and a Japanese-style ordering machine that ingested currency notes and spat out coins and food tokens. Oh and, all the menus and signs were in Japanese. Evidently, the weary gaijin was not their target audience.

I arrived at 17:45, fifteen minutes after the evening service commenced. Soba noodles are made of buckwheat and are more firm compared to wheat noodles. I cannot recall trying them before this point and even in the restaurant, I did not realise I ordered soba. Now, I am not big on social media photography and so did not take a picture of my food (a lie, see image below) but I do remember that I enjoyed it immensely. The flavours were simple, clean and bold. This is a stark contrast to the Indian foods I ate as a child – foods where the flavours are a cacophony, much like the country of India itself. My bowl of ramen was also cheap – around ten Canadian dollary-doos, and this too pleased me. My chopstick game is not the best so I struggled a bit eating my noodles, egg and meat but I powered through. I noticed that around two Japanese customers ordered after me and finished before I did. Evidently, they are more adept at consuming noodles than I was but our restauranteurs were unfazed and willing to help. They even helped us with the ticket machines!

Besides not having a photo (same lie, repeated), I also forgot what specific dish I ate. In any case, it was a clear soup with pieces of pork, chopped onions, an egg and enoki mushrooms on the side (another lie). The ingredients were top notch and their quality was very obvious. A full day after leaving home, I was glad to find this restaurant and to eat like the locals. I was glad to be full but not bursting. This is yet another aspect I like about Japanese food – the manageable portion sizes. North America is indeed the land of plenty however it is also the land of too much. Too much food, too much wastage. Back in Bombay, I witnessed the poor eating rotting food from dustbins and those mental images are difficult to erase, as is the stench. This may be why I have an aversion to wasting food. The portion sizes in North America are so large that they are one component in the obesity epidemic but also lead to lots of wasted food. In Tokyo, I was all to happy to return an empty bowl to our restaurant staff.

I will mention two other aspects of Japanese food that I loved – the omnipresent vending machines and the convenience store nibbles. Vending machines are absolutely everywhere and sell everything from sugary drinks to packaged hot coffee, ramen noodles to socks. Those things are a marvel and a lifesaver on a hot day. Convenience stores like 7-Eleven, Lawson and Family Mart aren’t as numerous as vending machines but are almost everywhere and offer many options for pre-cooked food ranging from varieties of onigiri to filled pastries and matcha cakes. If only Canada had more of them. Alas.

I ate a lot more food through my stay in Japan and I will get to that in subsequent posts.