Japanese? But I don't like sushi!

Okonomiyaki restaurant in Hiroshima Japan

I hear this often. In Montreal, we've had sushi places for a long time, but nothing else in terms of japanese food which is a real shame because I usually wait till I go to NYC to get my fix. Japanese people don't eat sushi every day for every meal, just like the french don't eat 3 small carrots piled on top of one scallop with butter sauce every day. It's a special occasion meal and not something you'll find easily if you travel there. You're much more likely to find izakayas, grill houses, noodle shops and plenty more. I was lucky enough to spend 2 weeks travelling from Tokyo to Fukuoka with a buddy of mine in 2010 and I loved the food. In the entire time, I had one bad meal and I was REALLY asking for it.

Kazu is the best Montreal izakaya I've found to date, and it's very similar to what you'd find everywhere in Japan. Izakaya is a japanese pub. So you can expect beer and food that goes well with it. Japanese beer is deliscious btw, on the ale and lager side of things but very flavourful. I was surprised. Kirin and Asahi were my favourite beers but Ebisu was also very good. I got to try them all at a baseball game since all the beer vendors are allowed to sell. By the 6th inning I had tasted all the beers Tokyo Dome had to offer me.... twice.

The Japanese seem to treat food very differently from us (Life too but that's a whole other story). Food isnt so much a destination like it is here. We follow chefs, go with recommendations and will make a night of going to one specific place 30 minutes away. We do this for whatever reason. Lack of options, because it's our favourite, because it's a star chef, it's the In thing to do and the list goes on. But in Japan, they go somewhere to do something, and then have a great meal. There's great food everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. I had more than one lunch at a 7/11 or Lawson convenience store. The malls reserve the top floors for restaurants. Not cafeteria style either, just great food. The basement of the same department store (in this example it's Takashiyama) has a large high quality grocery store not unlike Whole Foods. One stroll through the meat counter and I was salivating. You could go 5 train stops away to go to this one place that a friend told you about but you'll never ever find, or you can go strike out on your own and find a killer spot. My first night in Tokyo I was in the Shinjuku district, walking through streets filled with pachinko parlours and Sega arcades. I see this wooden door with a bar so I step in and I ask if they have an english menu. She finds one somewhere, and I get seated at the bar of this little yakitori (japanese grill) spot. I order "Dai Biru" which is a large beer, and then go through the menu and start ordering a couple of things. I try the Gyozas cause I know that. I try some chicken some pork, and some seafood. All grilled on skewers. Everything comes pretty fast and it's incredible! So tasty. I take the menu and order more. And more. To the point where the chef starting asking me if I wanted to try other things (in very broken english). I realized that japan is a place where you need to be adventurous, but their taste profiles are very good. It's not eating crazy things cause that's all they can afford. There's reason behind every bite, and lots of pride also. 4 Large beers and half the menu later, I leave very happy. Throughout the next couple of weeks, I eat everything I can find, but not once did I have sushi. I hit noodlebars, the best steakhouse I ever found, a dive spot in a mountain village that served us gummy rice dipped in a brown sauce and grilled that put the biggest smile on my face, a vegetarian omikase (ceremonial meal) in a buddhist temple, bakeries that belonged in Paris, even pizza. I'd eat on the train station platform, filling my bag with onigiri (rice balls with fillings inside and a nori wrapper), and to cure the biggest hangover I ever had in my life, spicy fried chicken from the 7/11. This, I swear, was better than KFC.

So next time you hear someone wanting to go have some Japanese food, think of these alternatives. Btw, I don't hate sushi. i'm half japanese and I had to eat this once a year for new years at my grandparents place. It was all home made, I didn't enjoy it that much till I got older and had it in different cities where the quality of the fish is much higher.