Since the original plan was to go for Japanese Food, this trip was all about the dining. Here is a little “food journal” of our experience.
In general, it seems that the types and styles of Japanese food we get in San Francisco are pretty authentic: Tempura in Japan is much like Tempura in the US, Sushi is like Sushi, etc. However, there are some very tasty styles that are virtually unknown in the US.

Bob Satterwhite’s book was a great help because it told us what to expect in various types of restaurants, and the translations help pick out what to eat in absence of an English menu.

Friday, Jan 9 ? Tokyo

This was the night we arrived in Tokyo. We were so exhausted from the trip that we just opted for some Pot Noodle from the hotel convenience store, prepared with water from the water heater you’ll find in every hotel room here. Not glamorous, but it did the trick and certainly ensured an abundance of minerals in our diet.

Saturday, Jan 10 ? Tokyo

On Saturday, we walked around Tokyo with Chika from Tokyo Free Guide. She took us to an Okonomiyaki restaurant in Harajuku: a big hit. Okonomiyaki involves little pancakes of a egg and cabbage batter cooked on a hotplate built right into your table. The pancakes can have various toppings like pork, shrimp, squid or leeks and are covered with a sweet sauce and (incongruously) mayonnaise. A spicy sauce is available on the table. Very tasty, and we have never seen this in San Francisco although it does exist.

For dinner, we went into Kabukichu northeast of Shinjuku station. I’m sure tasty food can be had there as well as many, many other things, but we made the mistake of walking into a nearly empty restaurant. This is almost never a good idea, and the food turned out to be remarkably indifferent.

Sunday, Jan 11 ? Tokyo

Tokyo’s Asakusa district is a good place to get Tempura. We had some very decent shrimp and vegetable tempura, mine over a bowl of Soba noodles. Interestingly, when you get Tempura vegetables in San Francisco, you tend to get a larger variety. But these were very tasty. At lunchtime, many places have a line out the door, but the line tends to move quickly. The line moves quickly though, because the restaurant has no problem seating multiple parties at a single table.

That night we searched for (and eventually found) the Jazzbar Samurai. For dinner, we grabbed a quick bite at a western restaurant in the Times Square mall outside the South Exit of the Shinjuku station. The club sandwich was OK, the grilled chicken, not so. In the west, when we order “grilled chicken” we tend to get breast meat, without skin, and with evidence of and actual grilling process. These unstated expectations were not met and I guess there is a lesson in here about assumptions.

Side note: I have since figured out where I went wrong in our search for the Samurai. I somehow concluded that the Times Square mall was at a right angle to the train tracks, and it is built right along them. So walking along it actually took us away from the bar rather than towards it, and I only re-gained my bearing after losing my visual connection with said mall. And Google Maps on my iPhone helped a lot.

Monday, Jan 12 ? Tokyo to Kyoto

So far, we seemed to be locked into one nice meal per day, and one disappointing meal. We kind of broke this trend on the travel day by lunching on, respectively, a sandwich and a Bento Box bought at Tokyo Station: the expectations were not very high to begin with.

For dinner, we landed at a Gaiten-Zushi in Kyoto Station, a conveyor belt Sushi place. That was very tasty, except what we thought was Unagi Ngiri was really something else. But we were in and out for under $40 between the two of us, including drinks.

Tuesday, Jan 13 ? Kyoto

This was our first Kyoto sightseeing day. We fortified ourselves with another Okonomiyaki lunch before starting in earnest. This place garnishes its dishes with Bonito flakes which Laura didn’t care for.

On Tuesday night, we finally went for the big one: a Teppan-yaki dinner involving Wagy? beef. It was Laura’s birthday and since we spent the actual date of our traditional visit to Benihana on a plane, we chose this auspicious date instead.

Wagyu beef is a specialty of the Kansai area: the famous Kobe Beef is one of its variations. It is supposed to so rich, tender and flavorful that it’ll put you off any western steak. Fortunately, this was not the case: while very tasty in its own right, Wagyu beef is so intensely marbled that it’s like steak mixed one-on-one with a stick of butter. We’ll try a regular New York Strip tomorrow night to see if we still like the regular cow meat. Interestingly, there was no knife juggling show: our chef, who was very young and clearly under the weather, prepared our dinner with an intense level of dedication and concentration.

Wednesday, Jan 14 ? Kyoto

OK, we caved: walking between the Nijo-jo castle and the Imperial Palace, we had a quick lunch at Mickey D’s. It tasted like McDonald’s except the reconstituted powdered iced tea tasted like some industrial cleaning product.

Later that day we walked around the Gion district in search of Shabu-shabu. We got very, very cold and hungry and finally found a building on Kawaramachi-dori that had several Shabu-shabu and Sukiyaki places: apparently they come in herds. Shabu-shabu involves thin slices of beef and pork that you cook yourself by dipping them in a Hot Pot of broth on your table. Unfortunately we were kind of disapointed: the broth failed to impart any flavor on the meat so what we were left with was very much like unseasoned boiled meat… not a winner. Maybe we were doing it wrong.

Thursday, Jan 15 ? Nara

This was our day trip to Nara, 25km south of Kyoto. We had lunch in a Donburi place listed in the Lonely Planet. My shrimp Katsudon was very good, but Laura didn’t like the udon noodles in her bowl very much and I agree: they get thick and gelatinous in the broth. Soba noodles hold up much better.

When we got back to Kyoto, we switched it up a bit by having dinner in an Italian place in the station. There are lots of restaurants on the 11th floor of the station building.

Friday, Jan 16 ? Kyoto to Tokyo

We bought some sandwiches on the train platform before we boarded the Shinkansen back to Tokyo. Back in Tokyo, we went to Harajuku for some shopping and then stumbled onto a great little Yakitori place tucked away on the third floor of a building right across from the station. Yakitori involves little bamboo skewers with chicken and other goodies, grilled over charcoal right at the counter. It was a little place, full of locals and the guys behind the counter were a hoot–they put on more of a show than our earnest Teppan-yaki guy earlier this week. This hole-in-the-wall Yakitori was one of the best meals we have had in Japan.

Saturday, Jan 17 ? Tokyo

This was our day at Tokyo Disnea Sea to play the Leonardo Challenge game. We had lunch at the New York Deli in the park: decent reuben and ciabatta sandwiches, and iced tea with sachets of Liquid Lemon.

Coming back from Disney, we landed at a small Tempura place in the ground floor level mall at the Shinjuku Center. Great food, very reasonably priced… we were in and out for ?2010 (just over $22), including beer and sake. Laura had her dish pulled apart into a set dinner for an extra ?150.

Sunday, Jan 18 ? Tokyo to San Francisco

For our last meal in Japan, we got a Harajuku Style Crepe during a last quick shopping run. The main shopping street has several street-side crepe places that do brisk business. The crepes are stuffed with yummies like chocolate sauce, ice cream and various fruits, and then rolled into a cone. Savory variants also exist. To order, just pick a number from the board of pictures.

Kampei!

We were usually served water when we sat down. Sometimes we had to ask. Occasionally we had to ask twice. Tea, green or otherwise, is always available. Beer tends to be light lager beer by Asahi, Sapporo or Kirin. Wine is frequently not available, but Chika turned Laura onto Chuhai, a cocktail of Shochu, soda water and lemon. Shochu itself is a low-end distilled rice wine: it smells and tastes like Scotch. It is said that Chuhai can cause wicked hangovers, but we found that this is not the case when it is enjoyed in moderation.