JapanesePod101.com Blog

Now that I have finished SurvivalPhrases.com Japanese’s restaurant phrase series (numbers 12, 13, 14, and 15), I know that “o kaikei onegai shimasu” means, “check, please!”

With these lessons under my belt, paired with the earlier JapanesePod101.com Survival Phrase lesson number 3, I was feeling confident enough to test my skills out in the real world (not to mention, Peter wanted to test me some too!) So off we went for lunch into a traditional Japanese cuisine restaurant.

Sorry for the poor quality; the photo is from a cell phone, but I wanted to get a picture to show you what negitoro-don looked like! The pink part is the tuna. [Photo by Emily Carsch]

Just as mentioned in the SurvivalPhrases.com podcast, the Japanese hostess said, “irasshaimase, nan mei sama desuka?” upon our entering. Of course, I knew that meant, “welcome! How many people are in your party?” I responded with, “yon mei“, there are four people. The woman pointed to where we were to be seated while welcoming us in.

Immediately, we were given small glasses of water and a menu. So far, I have found that unlike in America where everyone receives a menu, instead, only one is given here in Tokyo and the table shares it. We ordered a dish called “negitoro-don“.

Only minutes later, each of us received two trays. On the first was a dish of cold, thin noodles with a small dish of wasabi and onion, and a small bowl of soy-tasting, cold broth. We put the wasabi and onion in the broth and mixed it. Then I was told to put mouthfuls of noodles into the broth at a time and slurp them up.

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