Quote:
Originally Posted by Vexx
This post is pretty much Great Truth. Its the same reason I avoid most 4 or 5 star anythings like the plague (restaurants or hotels). They're like soul-less corporate whores of the world, teleport into one and you may not be able to tell what part of the planet you landed in. I sometimes end up in them on business trips and I hate them.
If you go to Japan, avoid those, make heavy use of the street food nd small eateries, use the mom'n'pop ryokan or minshuku to stay at. Its a lot cheaper and your immersion experience goes through the roof.
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Now now.. Let's not go TOO far. When I was in Japan in April, I actually looked up the Michelin 4 & 5 star restaurants in Tokyo and Kyoto .. I didn't make reservations ahead of time (they wouldn't let me make reservations from outside the country
) so I couldn't get into any of them but some of them seem very nice. In fact, I was trying super hard to get into Ryugin in Tokyo, but was told there was a 2 month waitlist.. The cuisine is supposed to be fantastic.. I did however end up at a very high end rooftop teppanyaki restaurant in Kyoto that served Oumi beef, and it was absolutely delicious.. albeit super duper ridiculously expensive.
Perhaps I'm lucky, as a huge foodie, I've managed to discover fantastic Japanese and other restaurants in both the cities I've lived in here in Canada (Toronto & Vancouver). Many of them are NOT 4 or 5 star restaurants at all.. But some of them definitely are (albeit not Michelin, there's no Michelin guide for Canada). As for Japanese cuisine and sushi.. Of the hundreds and thousands of sushi restaurants here in Toronto, I would go to maybe .. 5 or 6 for the sushi? They have fresh uni and toro! I actually have fewer options when it comes to decent ramen..
OH! And I stayed at this GORGEOUS ryokan in Hakone, definitely busted the wallet, but the kaiseki cuisine was breathtaking.. I actually miss having rice for breakfast since coming back to Toronto..
@Sumeragi - Interesting tidbit.. It's true most of the Japanese restaurants outside Japan are owned by non-Japanese, namely Korean and Chinese, but the chefs at the good restaurants (incl. good ramen places) learned their craft for years in Japan before opening up overseas if they're not ethnically Japanese. Also some of the restaurants do have Japanese chefs, even if the rest of the staff isn't Japanese. I've started to try to not judge restaurants based on the ethnicity of the owner/staff .. but that has bitten my in the butt HARD on a few occasions as well