Free Matt Fargo by Dirty Japanese: Everyday Slang From "What's Up?" to "F*%# Off!"

cheap and dirty. You see a lot of angry parents and whiny kids there.
     
    Casa
kāsa
    Casa has a lot of Salisbury steaks, curry, and omelet dishes. None of which are great.
     
    Saizeriya saize (saizeriya)

    Saizeriya is an Italian family restaurant—like Olive Garden except edible.
     
    Bāmiyan
bami (bāmiya)
    Bāmiyan is a Chinese family restaurant. The food isn’t great and the service sucks, but the one by my house had the hard drink bar.
     
    Yumean
yumean
    The Chinese food at Yumean isn’t that great, either, but I would place it an inch or so above Bāmiyan.
     
    Don
don (sutēki no don)
    “Don,” as this steak house is affectionately called, makes a damn good steak. Applebees, Chili’s, Outback—they don’t got shit on the Don.
     
    Bikkuri Donkey
donkī (bikkuri donkī)
    Bikkuri Donkey does not purvey donkey-based cuisine. They specialize in Salisbury steaks, and do a good job with it.
     
    Bldy
birudi
    Bldy (this is the actual spelling) has a very eclectic menu, but none of it is great. Fortunately, they are reputed to have the hard drink bar.

Cafés
    kissaten

    Starbucks is every bit as ubiquitous in Tokyo as in New York and has better coffee than other chain alternatives. But if you’re a hippie who feels like Starbucks harshes your socially conscious mellow, check out some of the Japanese coffeehouses. Doutor has bagel sandwiches!
    Starbucks
sutaba
    Like Japanese bra sizes, drinks at a Japanese Starbucks are all one size smaller than their name suggests, so that a “medium” corresponds to a “small” in America.
     
    Doutor
dotōru
    At Doutor, you get these exhausted businessmen chain-smoking and drinking coffee next to bag ladies mumbling into their teacups. The coffee ain’t great, but the atmosphere has no pretensions.
     
    Segafredo
segafurēdo
    Segafredo specializes in sticky drinks like the “Pina Colada Yogurt Granita.” They are leading the whole Frappuccino genre into the 21st century.
     
    Renoir
runoāru
    Pretentious and froufrou, Renoir is the type of place that frowns on to-go orders and prefers for you to sit down with
all the other widowed madams until you order a tiramisu out of sheer anxiety.

Sushi expert
    sushi tsū

    Oh, you thought Japanese slang was just for punkass kids? Well, tell that to the septuagenarian chef behind the sushi bar pulling his knife through a yellowtail with all the precision of a brain surgeon. He still has shrapnel in his knee from the Russo-Japanese war and knows more sushi slang than a rapper knows Ebonics. So try out some of these words next time you’re at a sushi restaurant and see if nobody notices that you’re a big fat American who rubs his chopsticks together and then orders a Coke with his California roll.
    < CAN I GET SOME …
    . . .kudasai
    water
ohiya
    soy sauce
murasaki
    tea
agari
    ginger
gari
    check
oaiso

    Can I get it sans wasabi?
sabinuki de onegai shimasu
    What kind of sushi do you like?
sukina osushi wa
    You don’t eat California rolls so much in Japan, eh?
kariforunia rōru wa nihon ja amari kuwanai ne

Yuck!
    mazui

    In my experience, it’s pretty hard to find food in Japan that is actually bad. Even the hot lunches served at the poorest elementary school in Japan are light years tastier than the shit that Americans eat. If you’re British, even homeless people in Japan eat better than you. But let’s imagine that you do get served something that doesn’t taste quite right while you’re in Japan. Be sure to express your discontent immediately and vocally, because by now you probably already have food poisoning.
    This tastes weird.
aji ga chotto hen da
    This tastes bad.
mazui na kore
    Seriously, this is fucking gross.
iya gekimazu da nā
    This is total shit.
kuso dayo kore

    This is a shit among shit.
kuso no naka no kuso dane
    Seriously, we are eating poo.
unko da ne maji de
    I can’t fucking eat this.
konna mono kuenē
    This restaurant fucking sucks.
kono mise wa saitei saiaku

    Is this Korea? Because this shit tastes