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preparation, setting and presentation come together to create a dining experience quite unlike any other. Born as an adjunct to the tea ceremony, kaiseki is a largely vegetarian affair (though fish is often served, meat never appears on the kaiseki menu). One usually eats kaiseki in the private room of a ryōtei (an especially elegant style of traditional restaurant), often overlooking a private, tranquil garden. The meal is served in several small courses, giving the diner an opportunity to admire the plates and bowls, which are carefully chosen to complement the food and season. Rice is eaten last (usually with an assortment of pickles) and the drink of choice is sake or beer.

All this comes at a steep price – a good kaiseki dinner costs upwards of ¥10,000 per person. A cheaper way to sample the delights of kaiseki is to visit a kaiseki restaurant for lunch. Most places offer a boxed lunch containing a sampling of their dinner fare for around ¥2500.

Unfortunately for foreigners, kaiseki restaurants can be intimidating places to enter. If possible, bring a Japanese friend or ask a Japanese friend to call ahead and make arrangements.

Sweets

Although most restaurants don’t serve dessert (plates of sliced fruit are sometimes served at the end of a meal), there is no lack of sweets in Japan. Most sweets (known generically as wagashi) are sold in speciality stores for you to eat at home. Many of the more delicate-looking ones are made to balance the strong, bitter taste of the special matcha (powdered green tea) served during the tea ceremony.

Some Westerners find Japanese sweets a little challenging, due to the liberal use of a sweet, red azuki-bean paste called anko. This unusual filling turns up in even the most innocuous-looking pastries. But don’t let anyone make up your mind for you: try a Japanese sweet for yourself.

With such a wide variety of sweets, it’s impossible to list all the names. However, you’ll probably find many variations on the anko-covered-by-mochi theme.

Okashi-ya (sweet shops) are easy to spot; they usually have open fronts with their wares laid out in wooden trays to entice passers-by. Buying sweets is simple – just point at what you want and indicate with your fingers how many you’d like.

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The film Tampopo (Itami Jūzō, 1987) is essential preparation for a visit to Japan – especially if you intend to visit a rāmen shop while you’re here! It’s about two fellows who set out to help a rāmen shop owner improve her shop, with several food-related subplots woven in for good measure.

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DRINKS

Drinking plays a big role in Japanese society, and there are few social occasions where beer or sake is not served. Alcohol (in this case sake) also plays a ceremonial role in various Shintō festivals and rites, including the marriage ceremony. As a visitor to Japan, you’ll probably find yourself in lots of situations where you are invited to drink, and tipping back a few beers or glasses of sake is a great way to get to know the locals. However, if you don’t drink alcohol, it’s no big deal. Simply order oolong cha (oolong tea) in place of beer or sake. While some folks might put pressure on you to drink alcohol, you can diffuse this pressure by saying ‘sake o nomimasen’ (I don’t drink alcohol).

What you pay for your drink depends on where you drink and, in the case of hostess bars, with whom you drink. Hostess bars are the most expensive places to drink (up to ¥10,000 per drink), followed by upmarket traditional Japanese bars, hotel bars, beer halls and casual pubs. If you are not sure about a place, ask about prices and cover charges before sitting down. As a rule, if you are served a small snack (called o-tsumami, or charm) with your first round, you’ll be paying a cover charge (usually a few hundred yen, but sometimes much more).

Izakaya and yakitori-ya are cheap places for beer, sake and food in a casual atmosphere resembling that of a pub. All Japanese cities, whether large or small, will have a few informal bars with reasonable prices. Such places