Tokyo in Depth - Tokyo - page 25

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inexpensive, they're popular with office
workers and families. The easiest order is
the teishoku, which usually features either
lean pork filet (hirekatsu) or pork loin with
some fat on it (rosukatsu). In any case,
your tonkatsu is served on a bed of shred-
ded cabbage, and one or two sauces will be
at your table—a Worcestershire sauce and
perhaps a specialty sauce. If you order the
teishoku, it will come with rice, miso
soup, and shredded cabbage.
UNAGI I'll bet that if you eat unagi
without knowing what it is, you'll find it
very tasty—and you'll probably be very
surprised to learn you've just eaten eel.
Popular as a health food because of its high
vitamin A content, eel is supposed to help
fight fatigue during hot summer months
but is eaten year-round. Broiled eel
(kabayaki) is prepared by grilling filet
strips over a charcoal fire; the eel is repeat-
edly dipped in a sweetened barbecue soy
sauce while cooking. A favorite way to eat
broiled eel is on top of rice, in which case
it's called unaju or unagi donburi. Do
yourself a favor and try it.
YAKITORI Yakitori is chunks of chicken
meat or chicken parts basted in a sweet soy
sauce and grilled over a charcoal fire on
thin skewers. Places that specialize in yaki-
tori ( yakitori-ya, often identifiable by a red
paper lantern outside the front door) are
technically not restaurants but drinking
establishments; they usually don't open
until 5 or 6pm. Most yakitori-ya are popu-
lar with workers as inexpensive places to
drink, eat, and be merry.
The cheapest way to dine on yakitori is
to order a set course, which will often
include various parts of the chicken,
including the skin, heart, and liver. If this
is not to your taste, you may wish to order
a la carte, which is more expensive but gets
you exactly what you want. In addition to
chicken, other skewered, charcoaled deli-
cacies are usually offered (called kushi-
yaki ). If you're ordering by the stick, you
might want to try chicken breast (sasami),

chicken meatballs (tsukune), green peppers
(piman), chicken and leeks (negima),
mushrooms (shiitake), or gingko nuts
(ginnan).
OTHER CUISINES During your dining
expeditions you might also run into these
types of Japanese cuisine: Kamameshi is a
rice casserole, served in individual-size
cast-iron pots, with different kinds of top-
pings that might include seafood, meat, or
vegetables. Donburi is also a rice dish,
topped with tempura, eggs, and meat such
as chicken or pork. Nabe, a stew cooked in
an earthenware pot at your table and
popular mostly in winter, consists of
chicken, beef, pork, or seafood; noodles;
and vegetables. Oden is a broth with fish
cakes, tofu, eggs, and vegetables, served
with hot mustard. If a restaurant advertises
that it specializes in Kyodo-Ryori, it
serves local specialties for which the region
is famous and is often very rustic in decor.
Shojin Ryori is a vegetarian meal, created
centuries ago to serve the needs of Zen
Buddhist priests and pilgrims. A more
recent trend is crossover fusion cuisine —
creative dishes inspired by ingredients
from both sides of the Pacific Rim. A pre-
cursor to fusion cuisine is Yoshoku, dishes
created in Japan after it opened its doors to
the outside world and which are consid-
ered Western but are unique to Japan,
including omelet with fried rice.
Although technically Chinese fast-food
restaurants, ramen shops are a big part of
inexpensive dining in Japan. Serving what
I consider to be generic Chinese noodles,
soups, and other dishes, ramen shops can
be found everywhere; they're easily recog-
nizable by red signs, flashing lights, and
quite often pictures of dishes displayed
beside the front door. Many are stand-up
affairs—just a high counter to rest your
bowl on. In addition to ramen (noodle
and vegetable soup), you can also get such
items as yakisoba (fried noodles) or—my
favorite— gyoza (fried pork dumplings).
What these places lack in atmosphere is

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