Would You Like Soy Sauce With That?

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Hello, it's Jared, um, today I'm going to be comparing and contrasting Japanese and American restaurants. But not just any restaurants--I'm going to be talking about the restaurants that people go to when they're drunk, and the restaurants that people go to after work, the restaurants people go to when they don't have a lot of money, when they don't have a lot of time, when they wanna go in and out, eat something that's tasty but not necessarily healthy. And, let's start with Japanese restaurants: In Japan if you are seriously pressed for time or if you are drunk and you want something to absorb that alcohol that's sitting in the bottom of your stomach and is guaranteed to give you a nasty hangover the next day, then you generally would go to one of two restaurants: Yoshinoya(see left) or Matsuya(see right).

They are both famous for something called "gyuu-don" which um directly translated means "beef bowl." It's basically a bowl of rice with um sliced beef--thinly sliced beef on top--and some onions (see below).

It's not generally my thing--I don't prefer beef. It's a large part of African cuisine, but I don't cook a lot of African cuisine here so I don't generally get the beef bowl. I do go to Matsuya a lot, though, because they have the "demi-tama-hanbaagu"(see below) which is a salisbury steak with a grilled egg on top with rice, salad and soup. Very filling. I recommend it. Now, let's talk about the American equivalents of Matsuya and Yoshinoya; well, the only restaurants that come close.

In America, on a weekend (Friday, Saturday, sometimes, you know, the occasional Thursday), you'd get a big group of your friends out and you'd go to the club (see below)).

You dance and you drink and you drink and you drink and you dance
(see below)),
and you get really wasted until 3 o'clock rolls around and you realize, "I'm hungry, I'm tired, I'm dehydrated."

And everybody feels the same way, so you all head to your local IHOP(see below left), or to your local Waffle House(see below right).

IHOP, like the name suggests, is famous for pancakes. Um, "IHOP" is actually an acronym that stands for "International House of Pancakes." Basically, any kind of pancake you could ever possibly think of these people have created and put on their menu. They're visually appealing(see below) and very very tasty. I recommend IHOP. I highly recommend IHOP. It's a great place:
You can go there when you're drunk, and you can go there with your family in the middle of the day. It's a very versatile restaurant.
Waffle House is a little more ghetto compared to IHOP. But it doesn't mean that if you visit America and you come across a Waffle House that you should run screaming in the other direction. It just means that in my personal opinion you might enjoy the atmosphere of IHOP a little better--it's just a little bit more visual, it seems a little bit more cozy, a little bit more clean to me. But Waffle House, um, unlike the name suggests, does not only sell waffles. It does have waffles, um but you can also get sausage, bacon, eggs. You know, it's not limited only to breakfast food. There's T-bone steaks, you can get, um, "melt" sandwiches, you know, hot sandwiches(see below). They're pretty good, y'know. Reasonable prices. I recommend it, y'know, at LEAST once--it'll be a good experience. Just imagine you're in an American Yoshinoya!

The End ^_^
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