How We Eat in Japan

What's the most of people think how Japanese eat? It is probably "Sushi" but NO we don't eat sushi everyday at home. Sushi is very special treat for me. Sometimes it delivered to home for family gathering, and sometimes we go out. The Sushi delivery service is well known, like pizza delivery service here in the U.S. One exception was one of my good friend's mother used help at Sushi eatery, so while we stayed in Japan, they treated us with home made sushi. It was delicious, as the looks so beautiful! As you may notice this picture below, rolled sushi like California rolls are not traditional in Japan. They started appear more often at a few restaurants.

At my parents' house-which I'm pretty sure "a standard family"-they have several different dishes on table all at once. Those dishes are usually grilled or fried meat or fish, star-fry or simply cooked or pickled vegetable dish, and tofu on the side. Have a small plate for those dishes on serving plates/bowls and a bowl of white rice and miso soup ready.

Children's favorite dishes may be fried chicken, hamburg steak, ramen noodle, and curry and rice.* Sometimes the traditional Japanese dishes were looked down by children. I'm not going to go back the history all the way, but Japanese eating habit was changed after the WW2 was over with.

Japan start imported McDonald in 1972, Denny's, KFC are widely well known. Burger King, Dominos Pizza, Krispy Kreme, Red Lobster, TGIFridays, are also started to become recognizable. Other than that Italian, French, Indian, Mexicans, German, Korean, Chinese, Thailand, Bali **restaurants, many Ramen noodle shops, along with Japanese traditional restaurants are also available.

The restaurants mentioned above have another specific characteristic. They have been modified. These places have been imported from overseas, but do have a Japanese twist to each of them.

I.E. Teriyaki burgers, ginger flavored chicken. Denny's is really different. They have an assortment of Japanese dishes with a twist of the West.

At home, my mother would cook, Chinese and some other country influenced meals. We eat breads daily basis. Japanese bakeries has really good quality breads. So there, we don't just eat sushi all the time. We do have so many variety food to choose from and it is pretty amazing for the little island.

*These have always been well known as children's favorite dishes, many have been changed by now.

** I'm sure there is more different nation cuisines are available.