Top 5 "I've died and gone to Heaven

Japanese foods

1. Curry rice
A little bit Malaysian, a little bit Thai, mostly indescribable. Not only tasty, but cheap. 500yen will get you a large plate of curry rice practically anywhere in Japan. Top takeaway picks are CoCo Ichibanya (Spinach curry - 600yen) and Matsuya (Chicken curry a steal at 390yen).

2. Okonomiyaki (literally "cook what you like")
Japan's answer to bubble and squeak. Comes in two styles; Hiroshima style, which is a big layered savory galette with fillings of meat, fish and either soba or udon noodles, or Kansai style, which combines whatever fillings they have in the kitchen, with crepe batter, eggs, pickled ginger and cabbage which are then cooked into a big pancake. Most Kansai style places are DIY, that is they give you the bowl and you cook it yourself on your table's hotplate. After cooking your mutha-crepe, smother it in tonkatsu sauce and mayo and inhale. Heaven on a hotplate.

3. Gyoza
Not strictly Japanese (Chinese) but when the Japanese are onto a good thing they like to make it their own. These little puppies are pork and spring onion dumplings, served over rice and drowned in soya sauce, garlic and vinegar.

4. Donburi and Tonkatsu
Another cheapo meal, thus an excellent end-of-month feed. Tonkatsu is either pork or chicken fillet, crumbed, fried and dumped on a bed of rice with tonkatsu sauce; and Donburi is tonkatsu and rice, with a beaten egg poured over it and lightly grilled. Tonkatsu sauce is a Japanese hybrid of ketchup, worcestershire sauce and mysterious spices which tastes better than it sounds...

5. Tempura
Another import (from the Portugese this time). Battered and deep fried shrimp, vegetables etc. Served on either plain rice or udon noodles.The truly chic places also like to give herbs like basil and rocket the tempura treatment.

And then there's deep-fried cheese (a perennial izakaya fave) which I couldn't, in all conscience, put in my Top 5... a cholesterol-churning and yet sublime experience. But not one for the kids.