Gurunavi can help make restaurant reservations for free (for the cost of phone call to Gurunavi)
https://gurunavi.com/en/japanfoodie/...nF3ETY9Vb2oreI This service will be stopped at the end of March 2020
https://gurunavi.com/en/site/informa...xmtlhQszt3fUof
To add to LapLap's tip to search by phone number and look at the website, Android Chrome has an option to Google Translate webpages. Very helpful for researching from a smartphone or tablet. You can also take pictures of non-handwritten text in Japanese with Google Translate app and translate it to your language of choice.
Originally Posted by
evergrn
Konbini bentos don't do it for me. Some of it could be in my head as I associate konbini bento with excess additives.
Kewpie makes an egg yolk like product for combini bento. Some people here are big fans of Japanese eggs
https://soranews24.com/2020/01/15/fa...-store-bentos/ so perhaps you were picking up on it being slightly... different. Combini meals operate on slim margins and fierce competition.
#1 and
#2 lead to some humorous memories. Recently I was surfing around google maps street view near Tennoji Osaka and came across an entire traditional neighborhood with small signs in Kanji (many modern low and mid end places don't purely use Kanji in their names). It visually reads like a sizable historical neighborhood of traditional restaurants which I'd never heard of when photographed at probably 7 am. I mean, it is even generally free of vending machines which proliferate Japan. It turned out to be
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobita_Shinchi. OP- In case you also have the same odd talent of finding yourself in Japanese red light districts or walking by odd looking accommodations with hourly rates posted outside which are actually love hotels, "snakku" or "sunakku" are probably not what you're thinking of
https://features.japantimes.co.jp/snack-bars/