Travel report

One separate restaurant for each dish

We had Japan and thus Tokyo in mind, but for the typical Japanese cuisine we had to go to Osaka, the food capital of Japan. Directly after our arrival we are staying face to face with our cheerful Australian guide who lives together with his Japanese wife Yuki and his son Koji in Osaka since many years.

Together we are walking to the inner city, where there is indeed no lack of restaurants! Most of the restaurants show their dishes (in plastic) in the display windows to make clear the sometimes very subtle difference between the different choices. In fact, you don’t choose between distinctly diverse dishes as yakitori, sukiyaki and noodle soup on one menu, but you choose in advance one special restaurant that serves either the one or the other dish.

The following days we are constantly invited for lunch and for dinner by a number of Japanese families who were asked by our guide and his wife to help us due to their very good cooking qualities. One of them, Mrs Midori, explains why for example Sukiyaki is served in separate restaurants. In fact, it is a centuries-old tradition not to prepare dishes with beef in the same room as dishes without beef, as beef has been forbidden in former times due to Buddhism. Meanwhile, her own Sukiyaki is ready and we are allowed to taste. Delicious! The search for a separate restaurant is worth the trouble!

During our voyage of discovery to search for pure Japanese products we learned constantly more about the many traditions, formalities and the unique Japanese cuisine, where dishes tasting totally different are prepared with only few basic ingredients, especially soy sauce and mirin (Japanese rice whine). Bursting with curiosity what we will find there, we leave Japan and travel to another country full of delicious recipes – Thailand!