Japanese does not eat only sushi!

by André Sato

When you think about japanese food, what comes to your mind? I bet it is something related with raw fish, right? Nigiri sushi, makisushi (sushi roll), temaki, or any other western invention roll like hot roll are examples of what most non japanese people think about japanese cousine. But how about japanese people? Is that what they eat in their every day life? Sushi 3 times per day? I will try to show what an average person in Japan eats in every meal.

Let’s start with breakfast. In general, there are two types: the traditional one, which is popular among the eldest, and the western type, popular with the younger generations. There are variations, but the main items are: gohan (white rice), misoshiru (miso soup), yakizakana (grilled fish), tsukemono (kind of pickles), nato (fermented soy bean) and sometimes raw or half boiled eggs (nama tamago and onsen tamago). For the western type, usually they have a slice of shokupan (sliced bread) with eggs or jam together with milk or coffee.

Traditional Breakfast

For the next meal: lunch. Again, there are two main options. One is bringing or buying an obento (lunch box) and eat it at the office cafeteria or outside in some nearby square. Newly married men, or married men who the spouse cook for them, usually bring the lunch box filled with white rice with 2 or 3 types of small dishes like fried meat balls, sausage or omeletes, simple and common things most of the time.

Comercial Obento

Fancy Obento

The other option is eating out in a restaurant or in some fast food chain. A very popular fast food is the gyudon, served in restaurant chains like Matsuya, Sukiya or Yoshinoya. It is very cheap (less than $4) and it consists in just a bow of rice with very thin slices of beef with onions on top.

The plain gyudon

There are night bars which serve cheap lunch also, in average the price for a lunch would be around $10.

For dinner, at home, you can have again white rice with miso soup, with more variety of side and main dishes, such as kare (japanese curry), nikujaga (a kind of stew with potatoes), hamburguer patty, nabe (hot pot) in the winter, beef stew, tenpura (deep fried vegetables), shougayaki (chopped pork with onions and ginger), and many others.

Nikujaga, the flavor of homemade dish

After work, people in general go to have drinks in many different types of izakaya (japanese bars). Those izakayas can be specialized in yakitori (grilled chicken in sticks), yakiniku (grilled meat in genghiskan), okonomiyaki, oden, sushi (finally!), gyoza (dumpling), just to list a few of so many options.

Yakitori

They have also a large variety of restaurants, from many countries but this can be a topic for another post!