Food

Hey, we love Japanese food as much as the next foreigner in Japan. That's why part of our mission is going beyond sushi and ramen to tell you about the types of food and restaurants you might not know about - from oden and chankonabe to Japan's take on "Western" food.

But our food coverage goes well beyond restaurant recommendations and recipe guides. This hub covers the full ecosystem of how Japan eats: from the economics of convenience-store pricing to the cultural battlegrounds of noodle shops, the safety concerns facing travelers with allergies, and the debates sparked when customers behave badly.

That's why we draw on Japanese-language reporting and polling to surface what's actually being discussed in Japan itself: whether a bowl of ramen costs too little to be worth working for, how the industry's brutal hours put managers at risk of karoshi, and why certain food spaces have quietly enforced rules about who's welcome.

Ramen comes up constantly, but rarely for the reasons a travel guide would discuss. We've reported on the culture of intimidation that keeps women from eating alone at many shops, the unwritten rules that chain-specific regulars police fiercely, the economics of 250-yen bowls that signal either relief or collapse depending on who you ask, and what it means when a chain starts closing stores.

We talk about convenience stores (combini) just as often: as bellwethers for inflation, as unlikely sushi destinations, and as increasingly unaffordable daily staples. Inclusion threads through much of this coverage - e.g., eating halal in Tokyo, or a restaurant that serves kimchi but also somehow thinks it's okay to discriminate against Koreans.