{"id":11217,"date":"2015-10-30T06:42:44","date_gmt":"2015-10-30T13:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=11217"},"modified":"2015-10-19T11:45:53","modified_gmt":"2015-10-19T18:45:53","slug":"the-functional-traveller-sushi-apathy-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2015\/10\/30\/the-functional-traveller-sushi-apathy-in-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"The Functional Traveller<\/em>: Sushi apathy in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have only participated in sushi a handful of times since I arrived in Japan.<\/p>\n

Your collective gasps can be heard from across the Pacific. Have I encased myself in a bubble of Canadian comfort food and avoided immersing myself in Japanese culture?<\/p>\n

For many, sushi is the pinnacle of Japanese cuisine; a Western portrait of Asian exoticism complete with sheets of lox folded into koi and lotus leaves.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Functional Traveller<\/em> is an ongoing column in Nexus<\/em> (photo by Sera Down\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The reality here is this: sushi is considered rather blas\u00e9<\/span><\/i>\u00a0unless you prepare it yourself. Of course, every grocery store carries fresh sushi, but often the gravitas<\/i> is toward other prepared meals. Finding a sushi restaurant will prove more difficult: the few you might find are miniscule and often are \u201cstanding\u201d establishments for businessmen on the go.<\/p>\n

So what do the locals crave when they think \u2018comfort food\u2019?<\/p>\n

The most popular quick meal, with outlets more frequent than a corner Starbucks, is gyu-don<\/i>. Its simplicity is equal to its richness; delicately sweet fried strips of Japanese pork are placed on top of a bed of steamed rice. A bowl large enough to feed a carnivorous horse can be bought for approximately $3 and will arrive at your table within minutes of placing your order.<\/p>\n

Similar to this is katsu-don<\/i>. A more greasy meal then gyu-don<\/i>, katsu-don<\/i> is most commonly served as crispy-coated pork patties (katsu<\/i>) on top of a bed of sweet rice with a fried egg balanced precariously on top. Katsu-don<\/i> restaurants are often seen filled with lanky college-age boys, as a single bowl will keep you full for an entire week, give or take, for under $5.<\/p>\n

Of course, I cannot neglect to mention ramen.<\/i> A decent ramen<\/i> restaurant can easily be identified by a queue of stiff-faced Japanese businessmen flanking the miniscule kiosk. While there are numerous varieties of this Japanese staple, the most popular are miso <\/i>and shoyu<\/i>. <\/i>While toppings vary between all types, the variety usually describes the broth: miso ramen<\/i>\u2019s broth is based on fermented soy bean paste, while shoyu<\/i>\u2019s is based on a soy sauce broth. Bowls can run anywhere from $6 to $12 depending on the joint.<\/p>\n

So gasp as loud as you wish; if your travels bring you to the land of the rising sun, you\u2019ll see there are more delicious, diverse, and less expensive options to indulge in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have only participated in sushi a handful of times since I arrived in Japan. Your collective gasps can be heard from across the Pacific. Have I encased myself in a bubble of Canadian comfort food and avoided immersing myself in Japanese culture? For many, sushi is the pinnacle of Japanese cuisine; a Western portrait […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,153],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-october-21-2015"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11218,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11217\/revisions\/11218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}