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Japanese Restaurants in Houston

In my quest to find authentic Japanese food served in Houston restaurants, I have come across a few real winners that I am happy to share. It may be helpful to know if you share the same criteria and tastes when judging Japanese food - To know if restaurants I like might be the restaurants you would like too. Here are my likes, dislikes, and criteria used when reviewing restaurants in this section.

Authentic and traditional Japanese food is what I seek. For this reason fusion is a word I have come to loathe. I have eaten a lot of Japanese fusion and find some common traits, the first of which is adding too much salt and sugar, usually sugar, to what might otherwise be decent food. Order Udon in a fusion restaurant and I almost guarantee the broth will be sweet. I also find fusion means "covered in sauces that hide the natural flavor of our food". Of course you will be afraid to question the quality of the food you have ordered in a place with exquisite interior decor and pretentious waiters. Nope, not a fan of Japanese fusion.

A pet peeve of mine is when a restaurant serves Japanese food without even trying very hard to follow the recipe. The most common examples of this I can cite are; deep frying vegetables in the same batter used for Chinese food and calling it Tempura, and boiling Chinese egg noodles in chicken broth and calling it Ramen. Or perhaps the greatest infraction to a sushi aficionado, completely missing the vinegar in the sushi rice.

Good Japanese food can be distinguished in these ways;

It is normally quite simple and requires few ingredients.

It does not require a lot of seasoning or sauces. The natural flavor of the quality ingredients should stand out most. One exception - Some Japanese food can be pretty salty. All the better reason to have a Kirin Ichiban or two with your meal.

It is not cheap, or at least not served in large $5 portions. Ordering from a true Japanese menu can be fun because the individual items are often reasonably priced though portions are typically small.

Other things to look for when seeking authentic Japanese food in a restaurant:

The soy sauce should be Kikkoman, in a Kikkoman bottle that reads "Refill only with Kikkoman soy sauce". No, I don't own stock in the company, but Kikkoman is to soy sauce in Japan what Heinz is to catsup in the U.S. There are other good or better brands of Japanese soy sauce to be sure. What I'm looking out for is the cheap soy sauce from other nameless countries that shows up everywhere, and if you put that in the Kikkoman bottle, I will know it.

The chopsticks tell a lot. If you have to ask for chopsticks be suspicious. If the chopsticks are anything but bamboo, or at least wood, be suspicious. Japanese food should not be served with plastic or metal chopsticks which are common in Vietnamese and Korean owned restaurants.

I am not saying that Chinese, Korean, or Vietnamese restaurants can't serve good Japanese food. I know of some that do it very well. I am just saying that my experience leads me to approach with caution.

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