Businessman's Lunch

In the basement of the Tokyo Tower we found a tempura restaurant called Kikutei where you can sit at a counter in front of the kitchen and watch your meal being prepared. As each piece of tempura comes out of the deep fry it is drained for a few seconds, then the chef reaches over the counter and places it on a special piece of paper in front of you. You can also order the box lunch in which rice comes out of this huge cooker, is put into a beautiful wooden box and then covered with the pieces of tempura. Tempura is seafood and vegetables lightly coated in a batter of egg, water and flour, then quickly deep-fried; delectable, light and fresh. Here is what was served as part of the "businessman's lunch", also called a teishoku; Miso soup (with the tiniest clams floating around the broth), raw sliced mackeral, a piece of grilled cod, little slices of fresh salad veges, rice, and tempura style pieces of squid, smelt, eel, prawn, sweet potato, and one more vegetable that I couldn't identify. Dessert was black sesame ice cream. It sounds like a lot of food, and it's certainly way more than I would ever have at home, but the reality is that in Japan the portions are really small, so you end up not being all that full in the end. You get to try everything, but just little amounts. It's all incredibly healthy and low fat, and this is the way everyone seems to eat, which probably explains why they are all thin. I don't think I've seen one overweight person in the city, and I probably saw a thousand people on the subway today, not one of whom had any extra pounds.

For two nights we have been trying to get into a restaurant in the same area as the tempura place, and each night there is a line out the door and down the hall. We don't even know what they are serving. It might be a really hot singles bar or the food is worth an hour wait, so either way we can't lose. We ended up last night in a dark, smoky Yakatori place where they served cabbage with 5 tiny bowls of different sauces to dip it in as an appetizer- what I would call spa food. That was followed by a couple of tiny skewers of meat and mushrooms. By the middle of the night I was starving.

I doubt that all Japanese restaurant patrons know the names of everything they are eating. Some of the offerings are just so strange... But the presentation seems just as important as the food, and the enthusiasm and enjoyment that is so clearly part of the experience. Half the fun is trying to guess what's on your plate. I think the Japanese are as serious about their food as they are about their electronics.