Kobe Travel Forum

I will be traveling to Kobe in the fall and I am a very picky eater.
I really do not care for fish nor rice.
Should I send or are you allowed to send non-perishable food to
Japan?
Do they have restauant's like the outback in the U.S?
Is the food at McDonald's the same food we have here?

Thank You

Jude

http://forum.virtualtourist.com/discussion-392415-1-1-Travel-0-974466-Kobe-discussion.html

I think these questions may be dealt with above.

Enjoy your trip to Japan!

I took 3 children (all picky eaters) to Japan for a month. We did not visit Kobe, but many other places and I would imagine they do not differ greatly. The kids were initially thrilled to find Macdonalds, KFC etc, almost everywhere we went (and we went to some out of the way places). By the end of the trip though, they had tried (and enjoyed) a hugely diverse reange of Japanese foods. Do not discount the possibility that you will find local food that you will like. There is more to Japanese cuisine than fish and rice. Hope you have a great trip! Tracey

I agree with Tracey..do not discount the possibility that you will find local food that you will like. Although a large part of the Japanese diet is fish and rice, it is not the fish and rice may imagine. Also said was there there are other dishes that you will find that you didn't expect. Pizza and fried chicken may be the most popular foods in Japan right now. McDonalds may surprise you however. They are much cleaner and the staff much more polite in Japan than you may be used to. The same goes for Dennys, Wendy's, TGIFriday's, Outback Steakhouse, Pizza Hut, Dominos, or any other major US chain you might think of. Sorry, but there are only 3 Chili's Restaurants in all of Japan and they are on US military installations.

Kobe is an international port city. You can find many different kinds of food there; not just Japanese/Asian food. There are plenty of noodle places if you don't like rice. There's a McD's. They have the basic menu, plus specialty Japanese menu items. I've found that each foreign McD's I've been into has specialty items not found in the US. There's a Wendy's in the Harbor Circus Mall. If you like Brazilian food, there's a great place in Mosaic (outdoor shopping plaza next to the water).

There's lots to eat in Japan that's not fish but not hamburgers or fried chicken, either. You'd kick yourself if you came all the way to Japan and didn't eat anything Japanese (see my list below).

But your best bet is to find a 'family style restaurant' like Friendly's, Saizeriya, Joyfull - they have things like steak, grilled chicken, pasta, soup, salad (albeit u'll find a bit of a difference in taste). You can usually find those places near any train station, or in underground shopping areas.
For eg. http://www.pachd.com/free-images/food-images/japanese-food-02.jpg

Here are some Japanese foods you can try, though, that most foreigners like:

- Ramen (noodle soup with bbq pork slices)
- Gyoza (fried dumplings)
- Hamburg (like Salisbury steak)
- Tempura (deep fried seafood or veggies - either a la carte or on rice)
- Yakiniku (Korean bbq)
- yaki soba (fried noodles)

You can also wander into the basement floor of any major department store and find a food floor that sells cooked food that's a lot healthier (like nimono or stewed vegetables), but you may find most of the stuff there more exotic. If you're unsure, the Japanese word for 'fish' is 'sah-kah-nah'.

If you're desperate for an Outback restaurant, there's one in Umeda City, Osaka, about 30-40min by express from Kobe.

Umeda 2-1-24, Shinsakurabashi Bldg. 1F.
(Upstairs from Nishi-Umeda station (last stop), Yotsubashi-line exit 10; N side of Sonezaki-dori just W of Sakurabashi crossing] Open 5-11pm (LO) daily. Tel: 06-6457-7121)

Happy eating!