There are many joys to traveling abroad: learning about other cultures, immersing yourself in the history of another country, meeting new people, and gaining a new perspective on yourself and the world around you. But the simplest and most base pleasure is probably sampling the delicious cuisine of wherever you go.

If something as generic and homogenized as fast food at McDonald’s will take on a new dimension when you are traveling, then all but the most humdrum or picky eaters will find a universe of flavors when they travel. As fans of anime and manga we get inundated with images of various foods from Japan. Thankfully we live in NYC so it is not that hard to find all but the most obscure or regional dishes somewhere in one of the five boroughs. The thing is, while it scratches the general itch, there is surely a palatable difference between having a hot bowl of ramen in the East Village and a similar bowl in the heart of Tokyo.

There are some Japanese dishes we have seen countless times in anime and would love to actually eat in Japan. This is just the tip of the iceberg of a culinary desires but we don’t want this little post to be 10,000 words.

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