Lunch in Japan Is a Feast for the Eyes as Well

It looked more like a precious jewel box than lunch. A small cabinet had tiny dishes of food in every drawer. Lacquered boxes and porcelain bowls filled with more delicacies decorated a black lacquer tray.

“In Japan, a meal is to be appreciated by seeing as well as tasting,” said Minako Yago as we sat down to eat at Kamogawa, a restaurant in Tokyo’s Ginza district. “Each dish must delight the eye as well as the mouth.”

A bustling, neon-lit area that makes Las Vegas seem like a sleepy country town, the Ginza has perhaps a greater variety of dining options than any place else in Tokyo. You can sample everything from noodles straight out of the film “Tampopo” to the quail-in-pastry that was the centerpiece of “Babette’s Feast.”

Contrary to current horror stories, you don’t have to spend your life’s savings for dinner, or worse, resort to Colonel Sanders. On the top floors of the major department stores and in the basements of large office buildings are hundreds of small restaurants serving good, typical Japanese food at reasonable prices.

If you want to try a more elegant restaurant, go at lunchtime, when prices are considerably lower than for dinner. Ordering is not difficult, even if you don’t speak the language, because all the restaurants that welcome Westerners display plastic models of the foods in the windows, along with prices in Arabic numerals.

Kamogawa, off a side street and down a flight of stairs, has small dining rooms framed in tree logs and reached by a stone pathway that gives the feeling of a country garden.

“You must begin with at least one sip of soup,” said Yago, who has lived all her life in a suburb of Tokyo. “After that, you can eat everything else in any order you want.” The soup was a clear broth with strips of watercress and a piece of egg tofu laced with seaweed.

“This style of eating is called obento ,” Yago continued. “It’s a simplified version of the very formal kaiseki dining, which had its origins in the Japanese tea ceremony.”

As we reached for a piece of sashimi , we noticed a tiny fresh flower garnishing the tuna. “That’s a sign of spring,” said Yago. “The sense of changing seasons is very important in Japanese cuisine.”

Every time we opened a little drawer or removed a lid, we discovered some bite-sized culinary surprise. A little wicker basket held two pieces of fish that had been deep-fried in a light batter. A porcelain cup was filled with a custard-like mixture of steamed egg, mushrooms, vegetables and ginkgo nuts.

In a China dish, we found tiny new potatoes that tasted fresh from the field. In small drawers were dishes of fresh clams, smoked fish and sweet red beans called azuki. Every serving had been prepared with care and was presented as an individual work of art.

“When eating obento- style, you get wonderful variety,” said Yago. “You never get tired of any one taste because there’s always something different coming up.” At lunchtime, the price for this meal was about $19 per person.

Other restaurants in the Ginza specialize in certain dishes. There are sushi bars, noodle shops and restaurants serving nothing but yakitori, skewers of chicken that are grilled over an open fire.

Ten-ichi is the most famous tempura restaurant in the area, but we found better food for less money at Tsunahachi, a small tempura bar on the 8th floor of the Matsuya Department Store.

We sat at the counter and watched as the chef selected large shrimp and pieces of fresh bell pepper and dipped them into a batter of egg, ice water and flour. Then he carefully lowered them into oil that had been heated to the precise temperature--hot enough to keep the oil from soaking into the batter, but not too hot to prevent even cooking.

When the morsels were cooked to a crisp golden, he removed them, placed them on sheets of rice paper in a small bamboo basket and laid them, piping hot, in front of us. We dipped them in tentsuyu, a mixture of fish-based soup stock, sweet sake and soy sauce, to which we had added grated radish and ginger.

The shrimp were tender, the batter crisp and lacy, without a trace of grease, and the delicate coating seemed to enhance the slightly hot taste of the green peppers.

Then the chef set before us the deep-fried heads of the shrimp, with antennae and spiny protrusions sticking out all over. He indicated that these were not to be eaten with the tempura sauce, just dipped in a little pile of salt.

This was the moment of truth. There was no way we could not eat this without seeming impolite. We gulped and popped them into our mouths. They were delicious--crunchy, crisp and salty.

Next came a parade of special items, each individually cooked in front of us--pieces of whitefish, mushrooms, squid that was not tough or stringy. Fresh seaweed arrived on our plates looking like a fragile lace fan, and pieces of eggplant came stuffed with green onions and mussels. Clams were deep-fried, shell and all.

No, you don’t have to eat the shell--we extracted the clams with our chopsticks. The entire meal, including tea, rice and soup came to about $21 per person. Less elaborate menus are available starting at $7 per person.

Our favorite noodle shop, Kazokutei, we found in the basement of the Chanter office building, near the Imperial Hotel and Tower. The waitress came out to the window with us so we could point to the dishes we wanted, then brought tea. As office workers crowded into the small, neat room, the air was filled with the sounds of slurping--it’s impolite not to slurp your noodles in Japan.

Japanese noodles are firm and have a slicker texture than their Western counterparts. Udon are thick white noodles made from wheat flour, while soba noodles are square in shape and made from buckwheat flour.

At Kazokutei, steaming bowls of noodles in broth came out of the kitchen with a variety of toppings--bean sprouts, chicken and egg, pork slices, vegetables, even pieces of shrimp tempura. There were also platters of cold soba noodles to be dipped in a cold soy broth.

We opted for udon noodles, served cold with a tangy sauce at the bottom, and pork, seaweed, spinach and carrot and zucchini strips on top--cool and refreshing on a sultry summer day in Tokyo. Huge bowls of noodles that make a hearty meal cost from $5 to $8.

For one very elegant meal in the Ginza, we tried Pastorale, in the Hotel Seiyo Ginza. Executive chef Akio Kamata apprenticed under star chef Roger Verge, and Pastorale is one of the best French restaurants anywhere. The room is softly lit with lots of space around the tables and discreet service.

We had an intensely flavored lobster soup laced with cream. For the main course we ordered the roasted quail a la “Babette’s Feast.” Kamata re-created this dish as a tribute to that featured in the film, quail stuffed with foie gras and truffles in a puff pastry case.

When the waiter lifted the lid from the plate, we literally gasped. The movie had come to life. The combination of the delicate quail with the rich goose liver and truffles was ethereal.

Dessert was pineapple sorbet topped with a paper-thin slice of pineapple dusted with powdered sugar. The meal cost about $80 per person, without wine. For us that was very expensive, but it was a meal we’ll always remember.

Recommended: Kamogawa, Okura Bekukan Building; Kazokutei, Chanter Building; Pastorale, Hotel Seiyo Ginza, Ginza Dori Street; Tsunahachi, Matsuya Department Store, Ginza Dori Street.