We all know America as the kings of fast food; the streets of New York are filled with street vendors peddling hotdogs of dubious quality, Jamie Oliver was practically lynched when he went there and there are more burger joints than there are libraries*. Britain too has become a fast food nation, even though our first fast food restaurant chain in Britain, Wimpy, served its hamburgers on a plate and expected us to eat them with a knife and fork. For those that are interested; Wimpy itself went out of fashion in the seventies, along with flares, unionism and 25-minute rock songs about goblin kings, but the British tendency to eat burgers and pizza with silverware, lives on. Normally Japan isn't really considered a fast food-loving country, since its population aren't corpulent gastropods, but it is. Japan loves it some fast food, some imported, some indigenous, all seemingly served by a good looking young girl with immaculate manners and strong perfume (i.e. the polar opposite of British fast-food workers). So allow me dear reader to explore some of the food options for the lazy foreigner in the land of the rising sun.
American imports
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| Colonel Santa |
KFC – The Japanese have their own version of fried chicken called Kara Age, which is widely available as pub food. That said, one should never underestimate the appeal of bread crumbs and fake colonels, as KFC holds an important place in Japanese culture. The Japanese for some reason associate KFC with Christmas (perhaps they cannot tell two bearded white people apart.)
Mr. Donut’s – A shop that sells...well...doughnuts. Coming from the land of grey skies and gloomy faces, Mr. Donuts was like taking an LSD trip whilst watching the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine film, in that the sheer range of colours blew my mind. They don’t taste half bad either. In Japan the stores occasionally give away free doughnuts, prompting queues lasting for several hours.
Mc Donald’s – Do you know what they call a quarter-pounder with cheese in Japan? They call it a “Kwohta Paunda Chiizu.” The Japanese also sell Teriyaki burgers in Mc Donalds, which are actually better than most of the other things on the menu. The burgers are suitably ‘Japanese’ in size. There are a number of imitators such as the unfortunatly named Mos(s) burger, but none of them sell cheese fondue burgers. Mc Donalds does.
Japanese fast food
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| Yes, that is a raw egg in the middle |
Gyuu-don (牛丼) – Shredded beef (gyuu) over a big bowl of rice (don). This basic dish comes lathered in a delicious sauce not unlike a casserole sauce you might find in British cooking. The bowls come in small, medium, large and Godzilla. These dishes are normally remarkably cheap considering how much they fill you up.
Takoyaki (たこ焼き)/ Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き)– These two dishes are most commonly associated with Osaka and the Kansai region of Japan. Takoyaki are bits of octopus inside batter dumplings and topped with a vaguely sweet sauce, mayonaise and mountains of spring onion and katsuobushi (かつおぶし), which are dried fish flakes. Okonomiyaki on the other hand is a thick pancake made of batter and diced cabbage fried and topped with essentially the same things. Co-incidentally, the best way to annoy an Osakan is to insist that these two originally come from Nagoya or worse, Tokyo.
Ramen （らーめん）- Big bowls of soup and noodles which may or may not include meat, boiled eggs, spring onion. I’ve only ever been to proper Ramen restaurants after binge drinking, and as such I always subconsciously associate them with donner kebabs. The dish is hearty and delicious, but I must confess that I’ve never been able to finish one
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| This sort of silliness would never be tolerated in a good old-fashioned Indian restaraunt |
Curry （カレー）- Curry in Japan is not Indian, thicker, sweeter with more sauce and fewer vegetables. The curry is always brown. You can usually choose how spicy you want it and pick a meat cutlet that you want to deep-fried and served on top. Served with the thick risotto like Japanese rice that is ubiquitous here rather than Indian basmati rice. The rice is always white.
British fast food
Fish and Chips – Only found in ‘British’ pubs, it’s actually scampi and potato wedges.
So there we have it everything you ever need to know about Japanese fast food. You now no longer need to come over here and try it.
*This is not just idle fact, but cold hard speculation
