How do you eat well in Japan if you can't stand queuing? My honest answer: you don't chase the famous restaurants. We eat at food courts and simple places, and when we want a really good meal we book a hot-spring hotel with dinner and breakfast included. What I share about Japanese food may not be the best food in Japan, but it's probably the most convenient.
I'm not a Japan expert. Some of my friends talk about Japan like going home, and every trip feels like a homecoming for them. I'm not like that. This is how we actually find food on our trips, from someone who has lived in Brisbane long enough to forget how to wait in line.
I talk it through in Cantonese on my podcast, in my own voice, with English subtitles on screen.
How often have we been to Japan?
Not as often as you might think. For years we simply didn't have much money. Our first trip to Japan was to Okinawa in 2014. Then nothing for a while. The next trip was to Osaka, before Covid. Then another few years' break, and then Tokyo in late 2023. These days we go a bit more often.
So what I know about Japan may be different from what you know. I don't have a list of secret restaurants. I have a short temper for queues.
Why are restaurant queues in Japan so hard for us?
After living in Australia for so long, I'm used to walking into a place and sitting down. I just have no patience for queuing for food. In Tokyo and Osaka the queues drove me mad: always waiting for a table, and never enough time to eat.
Once in Tokyo we queued at Tokyo Station for a rice dish and waited ages. Another time in Hakata we went for ramen, and again there was a long queue. It's always like that.
The result is that there are lots of famous restaurants in Japan I've never tried. I'm fine with that.
Is a food court a good way to eat in Japan?
For us, yes. When the queues are huge, we usually end up at a food court or a simple restaurant without a line. It's actually fine, because it saves money too.
The other problem is the plan. With a day of sightseeing, it's hard to fit meals into the schedule. Planning a trip around proper meals at set times doesn't really work for us, so we eat where we are, when we're hungry.
Our evenings in Tokyo were usually spent walking, like this one past Kabuki-za in Ginza near our hotel, and then finding food nearby.
What is ippaku nishoku at a Japanese onsen hotel?
When we want to eat something really good, we stay at a hot-spring (onsen) hotel and book the plan the Japanese call ippaku nishoku: "one night, two meals". You stay one night and get dinner and breakfast at the hotel.
That's where we eat a bit better. The meals come to you, there's no queue, and you don't have to plan around a booking. Normally, the rest of the trip, we rarely eat anything fancy.
Do you need to book omakase in Japan?
Yes. Friends keep telling me to try omakase, the chef's-choice sushi meal, but you usually have to book well ahead. And I never seem to have time to do it before the trip. So my sushi in Japan is more like this: a plate of nigiri at a casual place, no booking needed.
Tips for eating in Japan if you hate queuing
- Don't plan your day around a famous restaurant. If there's a long line, walk on; there's good food everywhere.
- Use food courts and simple restaurants. They're quicker, and cheaper too.
- Eat a little off-peak. An early lunch or a late dinner means a shorter wait.
- Book an onsen hotel with dinner and breakfast (ippaku nishoku) for your one big food night.
- If you want omakase, book before you fly. It won't happen on the day.
So the food I share from Japan may not be the very best. But it's probably the most convenient, and that's what works for us.
This is part of my Japan travel series. For what we actually ate, read 12 days of Tokyo food. Getting around? See my Tokyo subway 72-hour ticket review, the Yokohama day trip, or our first snow in Hokkaido. Do you queue for food in Japan, or are you like me? I'd love to hear.
All photos are my own, taken on our Tokyo trip in late 2023 (the departure hall photo is Brisbane Airport), and edited for the web: cropped, levelled, and a face and a number plate pixelated. I didn't take photos of the queues themselves. AI helped me edit the English.
