051 My Favorite Foods in Japan

In this episode, I'll be talking about my favorite foods in Japan. Along the way, we'll be using these recommended English phrases: My (something-something) phase, and a good deal. As always, the English that we use will be at a Kuli English level, perfect for intermediate English learners who want to get some English listening practice.

Bookmark Chapters:

00:00 Start
02:18 My something-something phase
08:41 Sushi
17:52 Ootoya, Japanese teishoku

Transcript

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Kuli English Podcast. As always, it's me, your host, Chris. So today is Thursday, March 26th.

So, by the way, it's the year 2026. But, you know, new episodes always release on Tuesday. So even though today's Thursday and I'm recording it on Thursday, actually this episode is going to release on Tuesday, March 31st.

So if you're listening to it on March 31st, like, I guess, congratulations, you're listening to it right on the release day. So anyways, today is episode 51. And I have a couple different stuff that I want to tell you about.

But the overall topic of today's episode is going to be probably something like my favorite foods in Japan. And, you know, the title of this episode might change later because, like sometimes if you have too long of a title, then it doesn't really look good. On the podcast app or like YouTube or something.

So sometimes I have like a really long title. And then I record the podcast and I'm like, oh, this is a great title. But then actually later on, like I shorten it into like a short title.

And then it's a little bit different than what I said in the actual podcast. So right now I'm thinking it's going to be something like my favorite foods in Japan. But it might change.

It might end up being something else. And well, before we get started, normally we have like a short little music break. But even before that, let me give you a little heads up about some key phrases that I'm going to use.

So key phrases, meaning like there are a few phrases that are pretty key. Key meaning like it's useful. And I just have two phrases I'm going to try to mention and explain a bit more in this episode.

I'm not going to explain it now. And I feel bad for mentioning it because, you know, maybe the first time you hear it, you want to hear an explanation. But those phrases are, and I'm just going to tell you and I want you to just ignore it.

But the two phrases are my something something phase. And then also the second phrase is a good deal. But first, let's take that short music break.

And then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about those phrases. And I'm going to tell you stories related to those. But as always, we take that short little music break.

Okay, so let's go ahead and get started. So those two phrases, let me go ahead and talk about the first one a little bit. And the first one that I mentioned was my something something phase.

So something something can be anything. So for example, like my rebellious phase or my emo phase. And I'm going to later talk about my McDonald's phase.

I think the easiest example is probably the my rebellious phase. So phase is a word that kind of means like stage or like, you know, a short time period, maybe a medium time period, not a long time period, but like a short to medium time period. And so rebellious means like, you don't really like to follow the rules, you want to go against the rules.

If someone tells you to like sit down, then you don't want to sit down, you want to stand up. And probably everybody knows this regardless of, you know, what language you speak. But there's kind of like, there's like a really common thing with teenagers.

So teenagers, I'm imagining someone, let's say like, you know, like 13 or 14 years old. And maybe when they were a kid, when they were like seven or eight years old, like they listen to their parents, you know, the parents would say, Timmy, like, go, go brush your teeth and go like shower. And then after that, go play piano.

And then Timmy's like, okay, I'll go brush my teeth and shower. And I'm going to play piano. Like, I want to, I want to listen to my parents.

So that's like good boy, Timmy. And then when Timmy is like 13, they might enter a rebellious phase. So then they want to rebel against the parents.

So the parents are like, Timmy, go brush your teeth and shower and play piano. And then Timmy's like, no, I don't want to. I want to, I want to play video games.

And then like the parents are like, Timmy, you have to listen to me because we're the parents. And Timmy's like, I'm not listening to you. And then Timmy runs to his room and like slams the door shut.

That's like the rebellious phase image. 

And there's also, there's actually a cuter version of this, which is, I think it's called like the, the why phase, which is for kids, for like really, really, really young kids, like before they're able to speak probably, you know, when they're like one or like two, they eventually start learning like short little words, you know, like, you know, mama, dada or something like that. And then there's a special word called why.

So why is like a, like if the kids start saying why to everything, then I don't know. They usually pick it up from like some other people saying that. So maybe they listen to their parents ask each other why or something like that.

And then so now when the parent tells the kid something like, hey kid, like we have to go to bed now and the kid's going to say why. And it's like just their way of arguing. So that's called like the why phase.

We've got the rebellious phase. We've got the why phase. And now let me tell you about my own personal phase, which is like the McDonald's phase.

So I used to really, really love McDonald's. And I feel like most people, most kids can understand why McDonald's is great. Like McDonald's has a bunch of fried foods.

They've got like fried chicken nuggets and they've got like French fries. I don't know what more you need. Everybody likes French fries.

But I used to love McDonald's so much that like I remember my mom would drive me and my sister to go to piano practice. Like my sister takes piano lessons. And then I didn't actually take piano lessons at the time.

I was just accompanying, I just like also went in the car to go pick up my sister, even though I'm not taking lessons because I knew that we were going to McDonald's. Well, sometimes it wasn't McDonald's.

Sometimes it was Wendy's. But it's like kind of the same thing. And then so like I would do anything to eat more McDonald's or more Wendy's.

Like I absolutely loved it. So what I would do is my mom, like we would go to McDonald's or Wendy's and we buy like a little happy meal set. It's like a little set for kids.

And it comes with a little toy and it comes with usually fries, a drink, and then like maybe some chicken nuggets or something. And then I remember I would always like eat mine and then I would eat my sister's as fast as I could. And I've mentioned this before in another podcast episode, but basically if I ate all of it, I ate mine and I ate my sister's.

Then by the time we picked my sister up, then, you know, since there's nothing for my sister, my sister's going to say, oh, I want some too. And then we go for round two. We like go and buy more Wendy's.

So like I saw this as like, oh, I'm a hero. I'm like getting a win-win for everybody. Like I eat a bunch, but my sister also gets it too.

So it's not just like I ate her share and then she's sad. She doesn't care because we're going to go to Wendy's again afterwards. And then my mom has to, you know, buy Wendy's like twice.

So that I would call that like my McDonald's phase, my Wendy's phase, because now I don't really eat like Wendy's that much. I don't eat McDonald's that much. And, you know, I still like it, but there's just something about, I think being a kid, you like enjoy those things more.

And then as an adult, I don't know, like maybe you're trying to be healthy or something and or maybe you just don't really like the taste that much anymore. And then you kind of, you don't really do that anymore. So I'm going to be talking about food stuff and like all these food things, like I'm going to say them as like, oh, this was my Wendy's phase.

Oh, this was my McDonald's phase. And I also have a Quiznos phase, which I didn't really tell you about. Quiznos is like a sandwich shop.

And as I mentioned these things, I'm not going to talk too much about them, but I just want you to keep in mind that this is what I mean by phase. So like there's like just when I say phase and you don't really remember what it means, think of it as like, oh, rebellious phase. Rebellious phase is the easy one to remember with like a teenager who's like, I don't want to listen to you.

And then they grew up and then they grew up to be like, you know, 23 years old. And then they tell their parents like, oh, I'm sorry for being like a rebellious teenager or something. And then that means that the rebellious phase is over.

So all these phases, usually when I say phase, it means there was a period of time when I really, really liked this food or this thing. And then, but now I don't anymore. So the phase usually is something that you talk about in the past tense.

So let's take a short little break here and I'm going to come back and I'm going to tell you about some more food phases that I've had. 

All right. So now let's get into the real contents of this episode.

This is the stuff that I actually really wanted to tell you about. And these are my food phases. Okay.

So, uh, I guess like I told you about when I was a kid in the U S like I had like a McDonald's phase. I had like a, a Wendy's phase. I had like a Quiznos phase, which I didn't really tell you about, but it's okay.

We don't need to talk about that. But now let me tell you about like my food phases in Japan. So like I moved to Japan about three years ago.

Right. And when I first came, like a, one of the restaurants that I really liked a lot was this place called Sushi Zanmai. And Sushi Zanmai is just like a normal sushi restaurant.

It's actually not a conveyor belt sushi. It's not the ones where there's like something rotating and then you like take one and then they count your plates at the end. It's not one of those.

It's actually just like a normal restaurant where you go and you sit down either at a table or maybe you sit down at the bar and then, you know, you order whatever you want. You say like, I want one of this, or I want three of those and two of these or something. And then like, it's just, it's just like a normal restaurant.

But, um, I went to Sushi Zanmai so much, I think because like, it might've been the very first sushi restaurant that I went to in Japan. And then when I ate it, I was like, oh, wow, this is great. And then so like, I ate it a lot.

At Sushi Zanmai, like uh, I had my Sushi Zanmai phase, right? So there was probably like maybe one or two years where I went to Sushi Zanmai a bunch. And by a bunch, I mean like a lot. So probably something like, you know, two times a week, maybe three times a week.

It was actually quite a bit. And then even within the Sushi Zanmai phase, there's like two different types of like, there's like two different types of that phase. Like the first type is I had my salmon phase.

So I would go to Sushi Zanmai and I would order like many different, things, but most of it was salmon. Like I really loved salmon. And then, so like, that's like the salmon phase, but the salmon phase eventually ended.

So I had to switch to like the second phase and the second phase, it's the okra phase. And, so okra is like the slimy green vegetable. Like if you eat it, there's this really long thing and it's, it sounds kind of nasty, but it looks like snot.

So like if you're sick and you sneeze like that, that that's mucus, you can also call it snot. And that thing looks a lot like okra and okra is actually really good for you. It's like, it's like slimy and it looks weird.

And it's green, but actually it's really good for you. And I like okra. I like the taste of it too.

And then Sushi Zanmai, they have okra sushi. So if I say sushi, like the image that comes to your mind might be something like fish. Like, you know, it's gotta be tuna or salmon or some kind of fish, but okra, like it's vegetarian.

It's not even fish. It's just a vegetable with some like rice and some seaweed. And, and I thought it was really great.

So like at Sushi Zanmai, I would order a lot of okra. And, I remember because, I used to go to the same Sushi Zanmai and it was in Shibuya. And then, I remember like the employee who's usually there and they also remember me cause they're like, oh, this is the guy that orders a lot of like salmon.

And, I think I talked about this in a previous episode, but at the very same Sushi Zanmai, at that place, that's the place where I tried to order like salmon. I tried to order 10 pieces of salmon. And then because my Japanese was wrong, then I accidentally ended up like ordering like sake, like alcohol instead.

And then I, I didn't want to tell them that I made a mistake. So I just like drank the alcohol, even though I didn't want it. But I don't think I, I'm not sure if I've actually talked about that story before, but I'm not going to talk about it right now.

But at the same Sushi Zanmai, the place where I accidentally got like alcohol, like because they've seen me so many times, they know me as like the salmon guy. But then eventually I changed, right? I became the okra guy. And the okra guy is like, it's like a, it's a stronger image because nobody really orders okra.

I think at like Sushi Zanmai, most people order like a real fish, like, you know, salmon or tuna or something. And then there's me and I, I sit down and my, my typical order is like, I want 12 pieces of okra. And they're like, what, what is that? They always check.

Cause they don't believe you. They don't believe that somebody wants to go to a sushi restaurant and only eat okra. They're like, Whoa, what are you doing? But that's my okra phase.

So within my Sushi Zanmai phase, I've got like two mini phases. One is the salmon phase. And then one is the okra phase.

And if you've never had okra sushi, well, if you like okra, you'll probably like it. And if you don't like okra, you probably won't like it. So actually now let me talk about a different restaurant.

So Sushi Zanmai was like one of my favorite places, but now I don't really live close to one. So I kind of stopped going. If I lived close to one, I would probably still be in the middle of my okra phase.

But now I go to like a different sushi place and I go to this place called Sushi Ro. So Sushi Ro is kind of like one of the three most popular conveyor belt sushis in Tokyo. And I personally like Sushi Ro the most out of all those three.

I'm not going to mention the other two because it seems kind of mean to just say like, Oh, yeah, these exist, but I don't like them. But Sushi Ro is like the one that I like. And they also have like a point card system.

So like a point card system, it's not just in Tokyo. It's actually like everywhere. So even in the US, there are a lot of places to have like a point card system.

And if you don't know what that is, it's kind of like every time you go to the restaurant, you get a stamp. And then after you have 10 stamps, which means you went to the restaurant 10 times, then you get something, you get like a discount or you get some free something. And then Sushi Ro, they kind of have that.

They have like a stamp system, but it's on the Sushi Ro app. So you don't actually get like a card. You have to download the app.

And then I have the app. Every time I go to Sushi Ro, I get like a little stamp. And then Sushi Ro, if you go a bunch and I go a bunch, I like live really close to it.

But if you go a bunch, they have this thing where they give you something called a maidomori. It's so weird saying it in English. But you get like this giant plate of a ton of sushi for free if you have a bunch of stamps.

And by a bunch of stamps, I mean you have to have like 36, I think. So if you go like 36 times to Sushi Ro, you get a massive plate. And it's not one plate.

It's actually two plates. And every single time I tried to use that coupon, like it says on the coupon that you can either order the maidomori or you can get like the special seasonal thing. And I always want the seasonal thing because the seasonal thing usually is pretty good.

And then the classic maidomori, it's like it has a bunch of fish. And a lot of them are good, but some of them I don't actually like that much. I want the one that's like the special.

The special is like, oh, it's like tons of different tuna. And I'm like, oh, I love tuna. So then I always try to use the coupon and try to get like, you know, I tell the employee.

And the employee, usually they don't speak that much Japanese. But, you know, I do my best. I speak slowly.

And I'm like, ah, kono kikan gentei de onegai shimasu. And they're like, what? And I have to say, ah, kono kikan gentei de onegai shimasu. And they're like, what? And then eventually I point to the tablet and they're like, oh, okay.

And then what they bring me is usually not what I ordered. And it's like the giant plate of the stuff that I didn't need. But it's like 24 pieces of sushi.

That thing's crazy. But this, so this is where the next phrase comes up, right? So I talked about, you know, like something, something phase. So like I had my McDonald's phase.

I had my Wendy's phase. I had my sushi roll phase. But now I need to tell you, this is a good deal.

So a good deal, meaning like it's a good value. Like the amount that I pay is very small. And what I get is like a lot.

So this Sushi Ro special is like crazy. There's 24 pieces. It's got like, you know, salmon, tuna, like tamago.

And there's like squid stuff. There's 24 things. They have like everything.

And the sad thing is like if they have a lot of variety, there's probably stuff that you like. And that's great. But the sad part is they probably have some stuff that you don't really like either.

So there's probably like, you know, two of the things, two of the 24 things. I didn't really like it that much. And then I usually eat it at the end.

Like, oh, I don't want it to go to waste. So this is Sushi Ro. And if you use the point card, then you get something.

And when you get that something, because it's free, it's a good deal. Which just means like, oh, I'm basically getting this for free. Or like I'm paying such a small amount that it's very, very worth it.

And that's like, you know, Sushi Ro. And actually, let's take a short little break here. And then I'll come back and tell you a bit more about like food in Japan.

Okay, so now let's continue. I'm going to tell you about some more food in Japan. And so I think I have already mentioned this before.

But there is like this Japanese food restaurant called Ootoya, which I go to a lot. And there's also one pretty close to where I live. But Ootoya also has like a point card system.

It's not a point card system. It's just like an app. They call it the Ootoya app.

And then in the app, like you get points. And then I have so many points on Ootoya. Because every time you like use it, every time you, you know, collect points, you get like one or two points.

And then if you have three points, you can get free tofu. And so every time I go, I get free tofu. But because I keep getting more points, like I just have too many points.

So I got to figure out what to do with these points. I have like over 100 points, which means I can get at least 33 tofus. But every time I go, I get more points.

So then it's actually much more than that. But I also have my Ootoya phase. But before I tell you about my Ootoya phase, I need to tell you about my health problems.

And it's actually not that serious. But I have like kind of slightly high cholesterol. So cholesterol is, it's like something that's part of your, I guess it's a, I don't want to say the wrong thing.

But maybe saying the wrong thing is the easiest. So I'm going to tell you some wrong things. But it's basically how much fat there is in your blood.

So in my blood, there's like too much fat. It's actually not really what it is. But that's the simple way to understand it if you have no idea what it is.

And so you get too much cholesterol if you eat too much fatty things. So if you eat like fried foods or if you eat a lot of red meat, red meat meaning like it's not really cooked all the way. And then like some things like actually shrimp are also pretty high in cholesterol.

But if you eat too much cholesterol, then your cholesterol gets pretty high. And that's not good. And then Ootoya is like this Japanese restaurant that I'm talking about.

It's supposed to be pretty healthy. So like when you go there, they have a lot of healthier options. So instead of just like white rice, you can get brown rice.

And then a lot of their stuff is also like kind of like home cooked like fish kind of stuff. It's like very, it like feels very healthy. I don't know if it really is healthy.

It probably is healthy. It's certainly healthier than like McDonald's or Wendy's or something like that. But Ootoya is like, that's where I started going because I had a high cholesterol phase where I was like, oh no, I'm going to die young.

I got to eat healthy. So then like I went to Ootoya a bunch and then I was like, this is actually pretty good. So then I still go there a lot.

I say Ootoya phase, but actually I'm probably still in the Ootoya phase. And now let me tell you about some other things. So not like restaurants in Japan.

I feel kind of weird, like telling you about so many restaurants in Japan because it sounds like I'm like advertising these restaurants, but I'm actually not advertising them. I'm just trying to tell you my personal experience. So now let me advertise like a, not another restaurant, but just like some general food in Japan.

But something about Japan is like the fruits are usually very, very good, at least compared to the US. So in the US, like if you go to the supermarket, you can buy like strawberries or grapes or actually even like melon stuff. And like on average, it's not actually that good, but you get quite a bit. And then in Japan, like I think people believe that the fruits are kind of expensive and it's a little unfair because right now the dollar versus the yen, like the yen is a little bit weak and the dollar is a little bit strong.

So then like it's not fair to compare those two. But in Japan, generally people believe that fruits are expensive. But in Japan, the fruits are really good.

I don't really know why. I don't know why. I can't explain in terms of science why the fruits taste better in Japan, but it's like, it's usually like sweeter.

It's more ripe. It tastes like fresh. And so it's fantastic.

So I guess I'm not sure if I can call this a phase, but it's just like while you're in Japan, it's like a fantastic opportunity to buy fruits from the supermarket and then you like eat the fruits and it's pretty good. So like, you know, grapes. Well, bananas are kind of like the same everywhere, I think.

Well, the truth about bananas is like a long time ago, all the real bananas died. And then so now all the bananas that we eat for the past like, you know, 20 years, they're actually like not even the original bananas from like 50 years ago. So bananas are all kind of the same, but like grapes and yeah, especially muscat grapes, shine muscat grapes, and then like strawberries and even like a pears in Japan.

I think they actually taste better than most fruits in the US. And of course it depends. As with all things, it depends. You can't just say like, oh, this is always better.

So like, you know, if you buy like a really good fruit in the US, of course that's going to be much better than like a really bad fruit in Japan. But I just mean like on average, if I go to the supermarket that I always go to and I buy fruits there, usually that supermarket has pretty good fruits compared to the supermarket that I used to go to in the US. And that's all I'm saying. So fruits are great.

And then also I guess the protein, I don't actually, I don't think this is like a thing that has to do with Japan, but it like could be. And so let me tell you about protein. Okay.

So protein, what I mean by protein is actually a protein powder. So there's a couple different types of protein powder that you can drink. But if you do any kind of like athletics or like any kind of like serious workout stuff, like protein is probably like a supplement that you might consider.

And if you drink protein, then, you know, like it kind of fills you up a little bit. So actually a lot of people, unless they have like really, really good diets where they eat super healthy, most people don't do that. So most people have diets where they eat like a lot of junk food, a lot of Wendy's, a lot of McDonald's or something like that.

And if you have one of those diets and you drink protein, then you get like a decent amount of nutrients and you feel full. And then you don't really eat as much of the other stuff, which is bad for you. So I'm like a big fan of protein.

But in the US like the protein that I got, I would get the protein. I would mix it with milk. And then I drank that.

And that's like my protein shake. But then after I came to Japan, I tried a bunch of different protein powders and I found one that I really like a lot. And it's actually a brand called Savas.

So S-A-V-A-S. Like I really like that brand. That brand's chocolate.

I think they call, they have like a couple different chocolates. They're like, oh, this one's dark chocolate. And this one's like rich chocolate.

And I like the rich chocolate. I think that one's really good. And then I found out that if you mix that, number one, if you mix it with milk, it's pretty good.

And like, well, I guess milk in Japan is also pretty great, but that depends on, you know, what you're comparing to. But I found out that if you mix the protein powder with coconut water, it's really, really good. And it tastes like, like dessert.

Like it tastes like sweet, but actually there's, you know, there's a decent amount of fake sugar in the, in the protein powder. So that's probably why it tastes sweet. But if you mix it with milk, it's like, it's pretty good.

And then if you mix it with coconut water, it's so, so good. So that's like my new favorite drink. It's also on par, meaning like maybe equal to, like Gong Cha.

And I didn't really talk about Gong Cha because I feel like I've talked about Gong Cha so much before. If you don't know how I feel about Gong Cha, I love Gong Cha. So that's like the short summary.

So that's like the food in Japan that I have recently been really into. And again, the two key phrases that I mentioned were, number one, my something, something phase. So, you know, my rebellious phase, my McDonald's phase, my piano phase or something like anything that you did a lot of, you could say like, you know, my something, something phase, my, I don't know, like if you mentioned, if you played a game and the game was called, let's say like Silksong or something, you could say my Silksong phase or something like that.

That's a very, very common use, a very native, very natural way to say stuff. And then the second phase -- ugh, the second phrase, that I also said was a good deal. So a good deal just meaning like, oh, it's either like really cheap or you get a lot for it or maybe both.

And it's like the cost performance is great. And so I mentioned these two phrases and if you want, you can, you know, try to use them in your everyday life. If not, it's fine.

But these are, I think these are good examples of native phrases that I think are relatively easy to use. And I don't really hear non-native people use them. So I picked out these phrases in particular.

So anyways, that's probably enough for this episode. Yet again, it might be a little bit of a short episode, but sorry. So anyways, I hope you enjoyed this episode of Kuli English podcast.

And as always, if you want to support me, you can. If you don't want to, you don't have to. And I hope to see you next Tuesday.