I lived in Tokyo for 9th grade (more than a few years back now), and the highlight of each week was the all you could eat lunch buffet at the Shakey's Pizza on the Ginza. At the time, pepperoni pizza was a big hit!
I also got to try their more "local" offerings. Corn kernels as a pizza topping was just odd, while squid doesn't work at all (baking it on pizza turns it into rubber, basically).
Bob
Ah, I remember this Shakey's well. It's been there forever. I remember them bringing out the seaweed pizza, and the locals demolishing it. I held out for the pepperoni.
But in the past 20 years, a lot more Western food has come to Japan. A lot of the baked goods are pretty decent.
As mentioned in the other thread missydarlin referred to, usually if I visit a MacDonalds overseas, it's to try something different, so it's just another part of trying the local food and cuisine for me (like it or not, MacDonalds now is local cuisine in many countries).
There's one exception, and that's because the local offerings are wildly overpriced and a lottery when it comes to quality.
Venice
It's awful to admit, but the only food I eat in this city is either from the deli counter from one of the small local supermarkets (this involves 'picnicking' on a park bench or in the hotel room) or in MacDonalds.
At least I've been able to console myself with MacSquid rings in the past
Hey, Rick Steves gives step by step instructions to Americans on how to eat cheaply (and halfway decently) in Venice. It's mostly bar food, pizza and gelato, but that's not a bad combo!
When driving south from Innsbruck to Italy via the Brenner Pass, the roadside McDs is perfectly situated for a pitstop (food and otherwise) It has an especially nice coffee bar area.
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And on Japan, McD's 3 times a week instead of the endless variety of Japanese food at under $10? That is indicative of wanting the McD as opposed to being at a loss for choices.
IMHO, ramen noodle soup, curry rice, and various containers of rice with a small amount of toppings kept in the warming case at 7-11 is FAR from an endless variety of food. If I could have found something like a mini UA Bento meal for under $10, I would have been all over it.
Err, 7/11 does not comprise the universe of food in Japan.
I imagine the success rate in finding good food is direct correlation the effort one employs when looking for it.
If you go to any area in which offices are located at or about lunchtime, it is almost impossible to not trip over or run into the plethora of tables and displays of bento boxes. So many more of those that McD's in fact.
Quote:
Originally Posted by braslvr
IMHO, ramen noodle soup, curry rice, and various containers of rice with a small amount of toppings kept in the warming case at 7-11 is FAR from an endless variety of food. If I could have found something like a mini UA Bento meal for under $10, I would have been all over it.
Yes, my very first adventure in finding lunch in an unfamiliar neighborhood occurred some 30 years ago when I was in Nihonbashi, an area that looks like solid office buildings. I finished an errand just in time for lunch and stepped out onto a street that seemed to offer no prospects for food.
Then I saw a group of young women in "office lady" uniforms come out of a bank together. I figured that wherever they went for lunch would be affordable and reasonably good, so I non-chalantly followed them. They turned the corner into an alley between buildings, an alley that had a ramshackle little restaurant at the far end. It turned out to be a donburi ("stuff over rice") specialty shop, with a wide variety of options.
The key is not being afraid to go into the little hole-in-the-wall restaurants. The only times I've gotten food poisoning were in circumstances that would have given me food poisoning in the States, such as having tea at a temple where they didn't wash the cups too carefully. (I couldn't refuse because an elderly friend had taken me there as a special treat.)
If you can find the book "Eating Cheap in Japan," buy all means get it. It's maybe forty years old now, but its descriptions and photographs of the foods found in normal Japanese restaurants are still accurate. Reading about these different foods actually inspired me to go out and find them in the real world.
By the way, the best places to find bento are on the station platforms serving long-distance trains. There are also bento shops in neighborhoods, some of which take a cafeteria style "build your own bento" approach. Department store basements also have bento sales counters, both ready-made meals and build-your-own options.
I imagine the success rate in finding good food is direct correlation the effort one employs when looking for it.
If you go to any area in which offices are located at or about lunchtime, it is almost impossible to not trip over or run into the plethora of tables and displays of bento boxes.
Offices? Plethora?? Have you been to Tomakomai?
Back O/T, Korea saw me eating at McDs more than normal also, but for completely different reasons. (again, I was in a small non-touristed city) The biggest was that I can't stand sitting on the floor to eat, especially every meal, and secondly I didn't care all that much for Korean food, only because they use too much sugar and eschew salt.(it could be so delicious with minor changes) Price was not a problem there.
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Not EXACTLY fast food, but there's a Denny's next door to the Tokyo Hilton, and I ate there in the middle of the night when particularly jetlagged. Best Denny's I ever ate at, for sure.
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I normally eat some sort of American chain food once per week when I'm out of North America. Often it is in exchange for using the bathroom, as I feel badly about using it without making a purchase, so I'll get a small order of fries or something.
When I was in Melbourne this year, there was a McDonald's right across from the Westin, I was getting over a sinus infection and didn't want to think about a sit down breakfast - it was just easier some of the mornings to grab two Sausage McMuffins without egg at 7am and put them in my backpack to eat later while sightseeing when I was hungry. It didn't hurt that the Australian sausage was much tastier than McDonald's sausage in the US.
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I ate at a McD's in Espoo this past summer. My uncle took me there before we went to fly R/C helicopters. The previous time I'd had McD's was the prior year, same uncle, same country (Finland). I guess the silver lining is that the beef wasn't bad.
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McDonald's in France, Spain and Mexico, only when I'm craving a fountain soda (Coke) WITH ice.... My drive through experience in France was quite the experience having only a limited French vocabulary and not being able to communicate with my hands.
It has an especially nice coffee bar area.
