That's a pretty bold and inaccurate brush you painted on Japanese cuisine. Yes western cuisine in Japan isn't that great, but who's eating western food in Japan? Funny you mention mayonnaise also because white Americans are stereotyped with eating mayonnaise sandwiches.
>Funny you mention mayonnaise also because white Americans are stereotyped with eating mayonnaise sandwiches.
I'm not even going to pretend that I didn't grow up eating fried spam sandwiches with mayonnaise and government cheese, on white bread no less. But that's neither here nor there.
In the US I essentially have a severe discoverability problem - there is great food, but you have to really hunt for it and do research to find it - sites like yelp are no help to me at all, a 5 star rating in the US translates to about a 2 star in Japan on tabelog, i.e. there's not enough resolution. Btw. in Europe the problem is usually the same, so that's not purely an American problem, more like Japan being an exception. There you can condidently walk into any place and get great food with about 70% success rate, and the other 30% is usually still good enough to not bother or even endanger you. A 3 star rating is standard, everything above promises greatness. Also, the accuracy with which Japanese can replicate (and often improve ok) Western food is surprising.
Tokyo is better if you have 2 weeks. NYC is better if you have a year. At least today.
What is missing is the more exotic stuff. Latin American, Middle Eastern and African cuisines are underrepresented compared to Western megacities.
But yeah I think you're touching on my point which is there's just much more breadth in NYC.
From my perspective, I think Japanese people would be impressed by the very, very top restaurants in NY. After all, Masaharu Morimoto (Iron Chef Japan -- as people were talking about Iron Chef...) was head chef at Nobu in Manhattan.
Having said that, restaurants in Japan (especially izakayas) have shockingly good food -- even (especially?) out in the countryside. It's pretty hard for me to think of a (non Michelin star) restaurant in a major North American city that has food as good as the local izakaya in my town (admittedly it is famous in the area). It would cost me a month's salary to eat the same quality of food in a fancy restaurant in the west. But there are factory workers who eat (and mostly drink...) there every day, without going broke.
I think that's probably true of a lot countries, though. I mean, is there a paella restaurant in Valencia that will not blow your mind? Or if you walk into any hole in the wall in Marseille, of course you are expecting one of the best seafood experiences of your life. Maltashen and sauerkraut in any random inn in Bavaria; Fish and chips in an authentic "chippy" on the coast of the UK. And let's face it: coal fired (don't hate me, gas lovers!) pizza shop in Manhattan.
I'll be honest, I don't think this is much to do with Japan. I think its more to do with the move towards glizty chain restaurants with mediocre food - dumbed down both for the audience and the preparers. To open a viable restaurant these days you need $2 million in capital and the risks are enormous. Especially in big centres like NY, London, etc, the costs of running a restaurant are so huge that you can't afford to run just a ridiculously good local pub, filled with local cuisine.
Why are there so many great izakayas and restaurants in Tokyo and (especially) Osaka, then? Because they are 3-4 generations old and the children of the owners are expected to (and groomed to) take over the shop. The shop is the entire life of a family for multiple generations -- no franchises, no sunny holidays in Okinawa, no merchandising, no fancy-pants buildings. Just making amazing yakitori (or whatever) every single day from the time you are 18 until you die. You are a fixture in your community and the people who live and work in that community love you. They visit you for dinner, for special occasions, or even just to chat. If the shop closes down, people practically have a funeral for it.
I think modern day western culture frowns on this kind of life. While I can understand that perspective, it's one the things I like about living in rural Japan. Like I said, though, I don't think it's just Japan. It exists everywhere in every culture -- it's just more obvious in some places than others.
I’ve eaten in so many “Emperor has no clothes” michelin-starred restaurants at this point that I would pass for something truly brilliant but not hyped at all. For example, udon at Kendon in Fushimi Inari, or tanmen at New Tamaya in Nagoya, hanbagu from Tsumugi Kitchen in Nagoya, gyuniku from Kuroushi in Handa, or even Italian from Pepe Rosso in Sancha, Tokyo. These places will melt your brain and I doubt any of them rates above 4 on Tabelog.
In Japan, you have to go out of your way to eat bad food and get bad service. In New York, it’s an effort to find both good food and passing service, even in the Michelin ranks.
I’ll throw a bone to NYC: Marc Forgione has a damn good restaurant in Tribeca, and Sole di Capri (also Tribeca) is amazing and under the radar.
That sounds amazing, and very vaguely like Mexican food.
There's no reason to believe that we in America have the final word on what pizza ought to be.
It seems odd to deem the entire culinary culture of an international metropolis as being worth less than the mediocre fare of a country that puts corn and mayonnaise on pizza.
I'm not saying the best food in Japan isn't the best food in the world, but Japan's average is in no way better than the best in NYC. That's just silly.