Tokyo in Depth - Tokyo - page 26

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made up for by cost: Most dishes average
about ¥650 to ¥800, making them one of
the cheapest places in Japan for a quick
meal.
Note that some Japanese restaurants,
but more commonly Japanese-style pubs,
levy a per-person table charge, or snack
charge (otsumami), which usually includes
a snack.
JAPANESE DRINKS
All Japanese restaurants serve complimen-
tary Japanese green tea with meals. If
that's a little too weak for your taste, you
may want to try sake (pronounced sah -
kay), also called Nihon-shu, an alcoholic
beverage made from rice and served either
hot or cold. It goes well with most forms
of Japanese cuisine. Produced since about
the 3rd century, sake varies by region,
production method, alcoholic content,
color, aroma, and taste. Altogether, there
are more than 1,800 sake brewers in Japan
producing about 10,000 varieties of sake.
Miyabi is a prized classic sake; other popu-
lar brands are Gekkeikan, Koshinokanbai,
Hakutsuru (meaning “white crane”), and
Ozeki.
Japanese beer is also very popular. The
biggest sellers are Kirin, Sapporo, Asahi,
and Suntory, each with its own bewildering
variety of brews. There are also many
microbreweries. Businessmen are fond of
whiskey, usually mixed with ice and water.
Popular in recent years is shochu, an alco-
holic beverage produced mainly in south-
ern Japan and generally made from rice but
sometimes from wheat, sweet potatoes, or
sugar cane. It used to be considered a drink
of the lower classes, but sales have increased
so much that it's threatening the sake and
whiskey businesses. A clear liquid, compa-
rable, perhaps, to vodka, it can be con-
sumed straight but is often combined with
soda water in a drink called chu-hai. My
own favorite mixture is ume-shu, a plum-
flavored shochu. But watch out—the stuff
can be deadly. Wine, usually available only
at restaurants serving Western food, has

gained in popularity in recent years, with
both domestic and imported brands avail-
able. Although cocktails are available in
discos, hotel lounges, and fancier bars at
rather inflated prices, most Japanese stick
with beer, sake, or whiskey.

DINING PROCEDURE &
ETIQUETTE
UPON ARRIVAL Although rare in
Tokyo, you may be asked to remove your
shoes at the entryway and place them in a
wooden locker near the door. Then, as
soon as you're seated in a Japanese restau-
rant (that is, a restaurant serving Japanese
food), you'll be given a wet towel, which
will be steaming hot in winter or pleas-
antly cool in summer. Called an oshibori,
it's for wiping your hands. In all but the
fanciest restaurants, men can get away
with wiping their faces as well, but women
are not supposed to (I ignore this if it's hot
and humid outside). The oshibori is a
great custom, one you'll wish would be
adopted back home. Sadly, some cheaper
Japanese restaurants now resort to a paper
towel wrapped in plastic, which isn't nearly
the same. Oshibori are generally not pro-
vided in Western restaurants.
CHOPSTICKS The next thing you'll
probably be confronted with is chopsticks
(though knives and forks are used in res-
taurants serving Western food). The proper
way to use a pair is to place the first chop-
stick between the base of the thumb and
the top of the ring finger (this chopstick
remains stationary), and the second one
between the top of the thumb and the
middle and index fingers (this second
chopstick is the one you move to pick up
food). The best way to learn to use chop-
sticks is to let a Japanese person show you.
How proficiently foreigners handle chop-
sticks is a matter of great curiosity for the
Japanese, and they're surprised if you know
how to use them; even if you were to live
in Japan for 20 years, you would never stop
receiving compliments on how talented

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