Choosing a good Japanese restaurant can be confusing. In the United States, there is a huge range of price and quality, and it can be a "hit" or "miss". Here is some tips to choosing a Japanese restaurant.
Look for a busy Japanese restaurant. Quality of Japanese food is highly dependent on the freshness, especially if you are in a mood for sushi. Find a restaurant with busy lunch and dinner business, and you will not be eating a past prime raw fish.
Look for a Japanese chef or an owner. Not the servers (or wait staff) who are often Japanese college students! If you only see other Asian chef or owner, (I've seen Mexican sushi chefs, too!), there is a good chance that they are only after your money (not concerned about providing authentic or quality food.) Except when the non-Japanese chef or owner is fluent in Japanese and had lived in Japan for many years. (I have been to a great restaurant where the chef/owner is an American potter who lived in Japan for many years. They don't have any Japanese chefs there, but the food is authentic and excellent.)
Look for many Japanese repeat customers. If you see many Japanese regulars talking to the chef at the sushi counter or the owner, that is a very good sign. There are some "big-name" Japanese restaurant in the United States that does not live up to their "reputation". They may have many (famous) American repeat customers, but I can tell you that they won't have many Japanese regulars!
Use your nose. When you buy seafood at a grocery store or fish market, anyone who knows about anything about fish would tell you to "smell the fish." Fresh fish should smell like the ocean, not like fish.
Same applies to a Japanese restaurant. If the fishy smell hits your nose then you open the door, run the other way! (Or if someone catches you before you have a chance to escape, politely ask for a take out menu and walk out...)
When in doubt, stick with a cooked Japanese food and skip the raw fish. Japanese often judge the quality of a Japanese restaurant by the quality of rice they serve. So if you order Chicken teriyaki and the rice is well prepared (you can spend the time waiting for the food to spy on the other tables and look for the signs of good Japanese restaurant by following my tips), you can take the plunge and order the rest of your cravings.
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