Quote:
Originally Posted by Yume-sama
It's nice because they are a relatively "closed" society and aren't transforming in to the West, the Japanese values are still very strong. It is extremely multi-cultural, and unless you've had French food in both Paris and Tokyo, I don't see how you can argue. My point is that, it's all there, it's all as good and in some cases better than it's home Country (BECAUSE of the quality of work that is insisted upon the Japanese, which *very* FEW other countries implore upon their workers). So I don't see where the argument came from, it's all a matter of personal opinion, based on years of extensive travels around the World, anyways.
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I've been to France and Japan.
I can attest that the bakeries and pastries in Japan are as good or better than the French ones ( in general ). It was a shock to me the first time I went to Japan, to see how many bakeries and patisseries were there.
It was also a lot cheaper than I expected.
I can't speak for the Italian, as I've not been to Italy.
I have never had a bad meal in Japan. There may have been ones that I didn't prefer, but they were never "bad" meals (if that makes any sense).
This is partly due to, as Yume mentioned, quality being an important quality to the Japanese.
They will use quality ingredients and people will pay extra for them. As a result, the food ( in general ) can be better than the home country ( in general ). Where you may find an Italian restaurant in Italy to be superb, the next one may be so-so. In Japan, I have found that the food is always excellent, and rarely dips down to "pretty good".
In addition, in the price range that's accessible to most of the public, the food quality is excellent too.
I'll be going to Paris again next week, so I'll be able to compare again firsthand.
The Japanese do sometimes "change" foods to suit the Japanese taste. and once you leave the big cities, "foreign" food becomes hard to find.
Japanese Curry isn't like most of the curry we get here from the North/Punjab region. It's closer to Southern Indian Curry, I've been told.
They also add matcha and red bean varieties in their breads and pastries.
I've also found that Japanese taste buds are more sensitive, as they don't each as much "flavor-intense" food as part of their diet. Japanese food relies more on taste subtleties. I don't know if that makes more of them discriminating foodies, but they do take food quality seriously.
This is something anyone can train though... I think it involves not eating ketchup-flavoured potato chips.
As for restaurants NOT to go to...
Sweet Revenge. Nice atmosphere... but overrated. We had a really rude server as well ( also the owner? )