fiogf49gjkf0d Deciding what to
eat
in Tokyo can be a bewildering experience, and not just because you might be at a loss working out what's on the menu, or even on your plate. The problem is that, with at least 80,000 restaurants in central Tokyo (compared to New York's 15,000 and London's mere 6000), you're swamped with choice. Virtually every type of cuisine is on offer, from African to Vietnamese, not to mention endless permutations on Japanese favourites such as sushi, ramen, tempura and
yakitori
. With so much choice there's no need to panic about prices: for every mega-expensive restaurant there's a cheap noodle bar or
shokudo
(eating place) dishing up curry rice, the Japanese equivalent of beans on toast.
Food crazes
come and go with astonishing rapidity. For the moment Chinese and Korean cuisines are in and there are cafAŠs dishing out bagels all over the place. Ever reliable are the
noodle bars, shokudo
and
chain restaurants
, where the Japanese go when they need to fill up without fear of the cost. Tokyo has a plethora of such places, with many clustering around and inside the train stations.
Bento shops
, serving set boxes of food, are also good and plentiful, especially at lunchtime in shopping areas.
For Japanese
fast food
, head for
Yoshinoya
, which serves reasonably tasty
gyudon
(stewed strips of beef on rice), and
Tenya
, which offers a similar low-cost deal for tempura and rice dishes. You'll find plenty of
McDonald's
and
KFC
s around town; a good local chain is
Mos Burger
, serving up rice burgers, carrot juice and green
konyaku
jelly (a root vegetable). Also check out the various chain cafAŠs
for their light meal options, and leaf through the pub,
izakaya
and live music listings, too - many places, such as Ebisu's
What the Dickens
and Takodanobaba's
Footnik
serve good food too.
At any time of the day or night,
convenience stores
such as Seven-Eleven, AM/PM and Lawsons sell a wide range of snacks and meals which can be heated up in the shop's microwave or reconstituted with hot water. For more upmarket goodies, make your way to the basement food halls of the major department stores.
Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections):
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