Customer Reviews

What's What in Japanese Restaurants: A Guide to Ordering, Eating, and Enjoying

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If you are going on a trip to Japan, take "What's What in Japanese Restaurants" with you. It is a handy, pocket-sized reference book that will save you many a stomach-ache and hopefully let you discover many a good taste. Not all strange Japanese food is to be feared!

The guide outlines many of the main Japanese foods, a few ways to eat them and some simple restaurant etiquette. The food are named in both English and Japanese, with the Japanese written in Katakana and Hiragana. This is important, as most Japanese menus will not contain an English translation.

The books small size is most convenient, as luggage space can be at a premium. In the end, you will be glad you brought this book along.

Great book. I know some Japanese, but the restaurants have proven daunting at best, and it's especially difficult since many of the best ones are specialty restaurants -- and when you walk in and sit down, you can't even guess how to order since you're not sure what they serve! A little time spent with this book helped me immensely, and I was able to pick up some of the kanji along the way. Even if I can't make out an entire menu item, I can usually tell "this is a chicken dish, this is a beef dish, this is some sort of fried vegetable dish", etc. A couple nights with this book and I was suddenly much less intimidated by all that great food available out there!

I found the content of this book very interesting. It's a complete guide to the different restaurants and other eating spots you might find in Japan. The familiar sushi, tempura and teppanyaki are just a few of them. Also there is information on the big regional differences and on ethnic cuisine (Korean minority).
But, unlike Japanese dishes, the visual aspect of this book is poor. Either out of cost effectiveness or to scale it down to pocket size. Type is small and any Japanese character with more than 5 strokes is absolutely illegable.
The different kinds of counting are not explained, but phrases as 'please, turn up/down the flame' and 'please turn off the burner' are translated at the end of almost every chapter.
Worst of all, the text refers often to a chart of the Japanese syllables inside front and back cover. But it simply is not there!
It looks like a inexpencive reprint, that makes me wanting the original version. Less content and bigger type would work wonders for this unique book.

I used this book during a business trip to Japan and found it very useful and accurate, both in and outside of Tokyo. The descriptions of the types of food were helpful, as were the prices (even though the exchange rate has deteriorated). I would recommend this book to anyone who has questions about Japanese food.

This book seemed like an excellent book when I read it before going to Japan. However, once I was there, all of the food sections were pretty much useless. None of the listings were detailed enough and almost all of the restaurants had menus completely unique and different from the one's listed in the book.

However, the book's main redeeming value is page 32/33 and 42/43 that gives very useful phrases to use in restaurants. Otherwise you can pretty much do without the book. If you don't read kanji, you're pretty much on your own and will probably end up pointing to pictures and saying "I want that." If you read kanji, you'll be able to guess over 50% of what's on the menu.

HAVE MY LIMITS AND WITH THIS BOOK I FOUND IT VERY EASY TO ORDER FOOD THAT I KNOW I WILL ENJOY! It can be intimidating to order food of other cultures and having this book helps alot. While I know that the resturant staff TRULY do their best to describe menu items there can still be problems (i.e. busy staff, language barriers etc. I found this book able to make my dining much more enjoyable as i can experiment with new foods while avoiding something that I am not interested in eating at all. ALSO NOTE: IF YOU HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO EAT JAPANESE FOOD BUT ARE TOO IMTIMIDATED BY ALL THE CHOICES, NAMES, AND INGREDIENTS THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU.

Ever ordered raw chicken platter or cow's stomach when you couldn't read the menu? I have, and it's a very unpleasant experience eating it with the whole staff watching and laughing.

With 'What's What in Japanese Restaurants' in your pocket this will never happen to you. Robb Satterwhite has written an indispensable book for anyone travelling to Japan for the 1st or even the 30th time. The book is divided into sections detailing regional styles, types of food, etc., and each section gives the Japanese characters that you will find on the menu, a transliteration into Roman characters and an explanation of the dish. He talks about diferent types of eating places, from standup noodle stalls to the VERY exclusive Japanese traditional restaurant. Included also are useful phrases for dining and there's even a section on drinking. He touches on etiquette and finishes with a glossary of terms. This is the most comprehensive book on eating in Japan that I have come across in more than 20 years of travelling to and fro. An absolute must buy.

We wish we had found this book during our first six months of living in Japan when going out to eat was overwhelming if there was no plastic food displayed outside the restaurant. Extrememely helpful and have had many a good laugh with wait staff over trying to find the right page and what we want to order. Makes your stay in Japan more pleasant.

This book is more suited to those on a culinary tour of Japan, or those looking to taste the entire culture. I went on a short business trip, and ordinary guidebooks seemed to have enough information for survivial (for me at least).

If you're the sort of person who likes to try everything, this book may be for you. For a one week trip, I did not have time to take advantage of all of the information.

This is the book to give to someone who is going to visit Japan for the first time.