Cuisine

    There is an enormous range of foods available as you travel around Japan, from Denny's and McDonald's to Indian curries.  Japanese foods themselves range from bland to spicy and from well-cooked to raw.  It's not all raw fish.  Tastes are also changing.  Rice, the traditional staple, has been decreasing in consumption, while red meats have been increasing.  The result is a generation of young Japanese who stand out above their parents.
 

Tempura, adopted from the Portuguese and short for temperance, is deep-fried fish and vegetables as shown with this meal from the Komatsu restaurant in Yatsushiro.
 

A very expensive dish, odori-tai, or "dancing sea bream,"a type of ikiru-mono, "living food,"is served with mouth opening and closing and tail flapping.  It has to be filleted while alive and quickly enough to be still moving when it reaches your table.  This is a dish for special occasions and not served at home. This is also the Komatsu restaurant, near the old Yatsushiro Station.