Eating - Kyoto - page 65

» Kampai It is bad form to fill your own glass. You should fill the glass of the person next
to you and wait for them to reciprocate. Raise your glass a little off the table while it is be-
ing filled. Once everyone's glass has been filled, the usual starting signal is a chorus of
kampai , which means 'cheers'.
» Slurp When you eat noodles in Japan, it's perfectly OK, even expected, to slurp them.
In fact, one of the best ways to find rāmen (egg noodle) restaurants in Japan is to listen for
the loud slurping sound that comes out of them!
Major Cuisine/Restaurant Types
With the exception of shokudō (all-round restaurants) and izakaya (pub-eateries), most
Japanese restaurants concentrate on a speciality cuisine. In this section, we discuss the
main types of restaurants you are likely to encounter and we provide sample menus for
each type. If you familiarise yourself with the main types of restaurants and what they
serve, you'll be able to get the most out of Kyoto's incredible culinary scene.
SHOKUDŌ
A shokudō is the most common type of restaurant in Japan, and is found near train sta-
tions, tourist spots and just about any other place where people congregate. Easily distin-
guished by the presence of plastic food displays in the window, these inexpensive places
usually serve a variety of washoku (Japanese dishes) and yōshoku (Western dishes).
At lunch, and sometimes dinner, the easiest meal to order at a shokudō is a teishoku
(set-course meal). This usually includes a main dish of meat or fish, a bowl of rice, mis-
oshiru (miso soup), shredded cabbage and some tsukemono (Japanese pickles). In addi-
tion, most shokudō serve a fairly standard selection of donburi-mono (rice dishes) and
menrui (noodle dishes). When you order noodles, you can choose between soba (thin
brown buckwheat noodles) and udon (thick white wheat noodles), both of which are
served with a variety of toppings. Expect to spend from ¥600 to ¥1000 for a meal at a
shokudō .
IZAKAYA
An izakaya is the Japanese equivalent of a pub-eatery. It's a good place to visit when you
want a casual meal, a wide selection of food, a hearty atmosphere and, of course, plenty of
beer and sake. When you enter an izakaya, you are given the choice of sitting around the
counter, at a table or on a tatami floor. You usually order a bit at a time, choosing from a
selection of typical Japanese foods, such as yakitori (skewers of grilled chicken and veget-
ables), sashimi and grilled fish, as well as Japanese interpretations of Western foods like
French fries and beef stew.