Forum - View topicAnswerman - What Are Japanese "Family Restaurants" Like?
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residentgrigo
 Posts: 2583 Location: Germany |
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Hamburg Steak is considered "Japanese comfort food". Huh, i currently live in said Hamburg. Hanbāgu steak, lol.
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Emma Iveli
Posts: 679 Location: Hobo with internet |
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That's exactly what I was excepting when I went to a Denny's the second time I went to Japan... Yeah me and my friends went to Denny's because well to mix things up and get some American Food (that wasn't McDonalds and even then I got the Ebi Sandwich). We were all surprised that it severed Japanese food. It also doesn't help there used to be a Denny's in Japantown in San Francisco that I went to many times as a kid so that might have also affected how I saw it... |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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If I may make a confession, I do wish to go to Denny's at some point. My stateside friends sternly warn against doing so, and doubtlessly with good reason, though a slight but certain fascination endures their words of caution.
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CorneredAngel
 Posts: 854 Location: New York, NY |
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The Denny's that's literally across the street from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building looked like it was very much the default breakfast place for office workers in that part of Shinjuku Last edited by CorneredAngel on Mon Nov 26, 2018 3:58 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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mrakai
Posts: 42 |
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[quote="Emma Iveli"]
I miss that place. The didn't really do much different than the rest of the Dennys in the states, but they did have nice Hawaiian breakfasts. |
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DerekL1963
 Subscriber Posts: 1121 Location: Puget Sound |
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Their warnings are probably at least powered by a sort of snobbery... There's a lot of people who look down on the diner chains and view them as refuges for penniless wanderers of various sorts. Which is not entirely untrue, but it does vary wildly with the location. (I love Denny's and Shari's and their ilk, but you couldn't pay me to visit one in the inner city or near a college... especially from the dinner hour into the wee hours.) The same goes for the food. It's mostly plain high-calorie bog standard American standards, and there's a lot of folk who look down their noses at that too. But the biggest problem is no doubt service... Not only does it vary wildly from location to location, it also varies even more wildly from shift to shift. American restaurants in general, all across the spectrum, do not emphasize or enforce any norms of service quality. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4789 |
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I don't know that it's "snobbery" as much as "concern for Zin5ki's gastrointestinal tract." I don't know about Denny's as a whole, but eating at the long-since-closed one near here was essentially taking your life into your hands. Besides, we had Perkins around here, which is a huge step up. |
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Zin5ki
Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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I dined at Chili's once and was reasonably fine thereafter! Does that not entitle me to attempt tasting the ware of the fabled Denny? I understand it is useful for when you want breakfast at an inconvenient hour. |
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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Unfortunately, I doubt any actual Japanese family restaurants are as interesting/oddball as Wagnaria.
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Asterisk-CGY
 Posts: 398 |
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Man what I really want is to find another place that did Parfaits. We used to have a Japanese cafe here that had the franchise of one of the more well known Japanese brands that I can't remember anymore, but then turned generic before closing down altogether, and replaced by a high end sushi joint. Granted, I could also just make my own.
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Yeah, was blanking on the name of that one 90's Japanese Denny-esque family restaurant chain where the waitresses wore the iconic orange-and-white-apron outfits-- Which became a corporate-disguised icon throughout most of 90's anime, whenever the characters had to stop off at a nice mainstream cafe'. (And why the orange-and-white-waitress look briefly became one of the official fetishized Japanese fan costumes, along with maids, schoolgirls, shrine-maidens and race-queens.) |
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DerekL1963
Subscriber Posts: 1121 Location: Puget Sound |
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People exaggerate about Denny's... And yes, breakfast is available 24/7. It's an American thing, I don't know why.
As I said, I think people exaggerate about Denny's. That being said, I usually choose Shari's (a regional diner chain) over Denny's... But that's as much about the one Denny's in the area being rather inconveniently located as anything else. What I really miss is Waffle House... |
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RegSuzaku
Posts: 273 Location: Ikebukuro |
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Yeah, there are Dennys, Gusto, and Jonathan's everywhere. In the ~10 blocks from my school to Ikebukuro Sunshine City, there are at least 3 of each. The Jonathan's diagonally across from Laforet Harajuku is still there. There's at least one of the three chains, usually two or more, near almost every Yamanote line train station I've been to, and by most of the less major ones as well. ...... the Gusto by Ikebukuro station that's on the 7th floor of the building with Dennys on the 3rd floor and Toranoana on the 6th floor... at that Gusto, there's a new drink bar machine that has hot or cold milk drinks. So you can choose hot or cold, choose cocoa, matcha latte, royal milk tea, strawberry milk, or vanilla milk. So.... Arata from Tsukiuta loves strawberry milk, and his partner Aoi is called the prince of the group, and I ship them, and they're my favorite characters in everything, so... I like to go there and get strawberry royal milk tea. Because ship. |
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ly000001
 Posts: 76 |
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A friend who has eaten at Denny's in Japan said he was surprised how much better the food and service was compared to the ones in North America. Regarding the North American ones, he said something like "You only go there if it's 4am, you've been out all night drinking, and there's nothing else open."
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Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1767 |
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I enjoy Denny's in Japan. It's cheap, portion sizes were fairly large and the service was very fast. I went to one in Harajuku. Honestly never had a problem finding Denny's in Tokyo. They weren't as common as McDonalds though, but they were fairly common in areas near train stations.
Denny's had free WiFi in Japan, which was nice because I could give the portable WiFi a break while I ate. Was it the tastiest meal I've ever eaten? No. But I paid 1500 yen for soup, rice, ebi fry, some veggies and an unlimited refill soft drink/tea. My friend especially appreciated the prices after she dropped a stupid amount at Animate and Lashinbang. What I didn't see mentioned in the article is that the Japanese Denny's really strives to give you the item exactly as pictured on the menu. US Denny's will flop 3 pancakes on a plate and there you go. Japanese Denny's does pay a bit more attention to the presentation side. The cup of corn soup shown in the menu looked exactly like the one I received. The ebi fry and veggies were close matches as well. The place was clean, well lit and despite there being several parties waiting before us, we were seated within about 10-15 minutes. Staff also spoke a limited amount of English too, which was unexpected but welcomed. I recommend reading the reviews on TripAdvisor if you're curious or if you'll be in Japan sometime soon. |
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