What is in Japan: 10 dishes you can try in Moscow

I did not visit Michelin restaurants, but tried to choose the places where ordinary Japanese eat. The number of locals per square meter of the establishment was of great importance. According to my observations, the Japanese are very fond of eating. They are even ready to stand in lines at their favorite eatery. It’s hard to imagine such a thing in Moscow, because if there are no vacant places, we just go to another institution. What I tried there and where to find these dishes in Moscow – further in the text.

Sushi (aka sushi)

In Japan, the letter “sh” is pronounced like the sound “s”. I liked the sushi the most, especially the kaiten zushi or the carousel sushi. You come to a restaurant, sit down at the table, and plates with different sushi are constantly going in front of you. You just take the ones you like, and at the end of the meal, the waiter counts your plates, each of which has its own price. Fish and seafood are freshly caught. Go to any sushi bar and enjoy.

Okonomiyaki (aka Japanese pizza)

Okonomiyaki is a popular Japanese street food. Of course, this is not very similar to the usual pizza, but the essence is the same. On a special teppan stove, chefs fry a cake with various ingredients inside: cabbage, egg, tuna and others, and then pour a special sauce on top.

Gudon

Gudon is a very simple and understandable dish for a Russian person. It’s just a bowl of Japanese rice and beef stew with onions. However, I did not like the high fat content of the beef. In Moscow, this dish is prepared with more meat than fat.

Sashimi (aka sashimi)

A heavenly pleasure in divine raw fish or seafood. Sashimi is a fillet cut into small pieces and served with soy sauce and sometimes rice. Some are afraid to eat raw, but if you go to proven popular establishments, then you will get nothing but pleasure.

Takoyaki

Another very common street food that I first learned about back in Moscow in the Japanese bistro J’PAN is takoyaki. These are balls of batter that are fried in a special pan with hemispherical indentations. An octopus is put inside (in Japan I saw only him) and then poured with sauce, mayonnaise and sprinkled with tuna chips. Verdict: takoyaki is clearly not baked there, the dough remains too liquid inside. But you should definitely try.

Matcha ice cream

In Japan there is a cult of matcha tea, so you can find a lot of products and dishes with it in the composition. The biggest blow fell on desserts, which is not surprising, because matcha goes well with sweets. Most of all I remember the ice cream matcha, which I ate almost every day and now, sitting at home, I humbly dream of it. Try everything that says “matcha”, it’s almost always delicious. But matcha latte is such a popular drink with us, I almost never met it, and if I did, it was tasteless and only in cow’s milk. In Moscow, in some places of the match, latte is just a bomb.

Bento

Bento are food boxes that are sold in any stores, supermarkets and kiosks. Ready-made lunches look much more presentable than their Russian counterparts, and I was not at all afraid to take them from the store. Bento contains rice, meat or fish, and fresh or pickled vegetables. Every housewife in Japan should be able to make beautiful bento.

Wagyu

Wagyu beef is famous all over the world due to its rich taste, marbling and high cost. Meat can be found both in the markets (in the form of a shashlik) and in restaurants. My advice is to choose a good place with positive reviews. It’s still more of a restaurant product.

Gedza

Do you think there is some special secret in Japanese fried thin dumplings with a variety of fillings. No, nothing special at all, because these are just fried dumplings. Perhaps sour cream would correct the situation (but this is not certain).

Ramen

In fact, ramen is a soup made with wheat noodles. It is inexpensive, and it is very problematic to finish eating due to the size of the portion and the richness of the broth. It takes many hours to prepare it. The rules are as follows – drink the broth with a spoon, and use your chopsticks to suck in the hot noodles, while simultaneously eating meat, chicken, fish, eggs or vegetables. Tip: before visiting ramen, it is advisable to be brutally hungry.

Where is Japanese food in Moscow?