世論 What Japan Thinks

As much part of Japanese fireworks festivals as the explosives themselves, the outdoor stalls selling various foodstuffs always attract lots of hungry punters. To find out what people just have to buy at these outdoor stalls, goo Ranking asked an unspecified number of people from the goo Research online monitor group that very question between the 19th and 21st of June 2007.

For me personally, the smell of cooking and sauces actually puts me off rather than attracting me! What do you like to eat?
Read the rest of this entry »

MyVoice recently published the results of their second survey into the most important meal of the day, breakfast.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 5th of May 2007 15,239 members of MyVoice’s internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

During the week my breakfast is a couple of slices of bread in the toaster and a fermented milk drink, eaten every day by myself at far too early an hour. Weekends is similar but with the addition of salad and eggs, and currently since it is in season, mint tea picked from our garden.
Read the rest of this entry »

Between the 1st and 5th of April 2007 MyVoice looked at all-you-can-eat restaurants. This is perhaps a subject dear to many foreigners’ hearts as they can find the portions in Japan a little small. This survey does not, however, cover all-you-can-drink offers.

Demographics

17,261 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based survey. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties.

I’ve got a few favourite all-you-can-eat restaurants in the Kansai area, and we tend to visit about twice a month. Rather than just listing them, let’s try a Google Map of the locations.

Click here to visit my custom Google Maps map.

My number one top spot is Solviva atop of the Hankyu Terminal Building in Umeda. It’s 1,890 yen for a varied selection of Japanese farm cooking, with some organic veggies here and there. There’s about forty dishes to choose from, then another ten or so desserts, organic coffee and tea, and a wonderful view from the counter seats looking north over Osaka. There’s also an alcohol menu with interesting shochu, from boring old wheat or potato base to milk via corn and sesame.

I also discovered this interesting page of reviews of other all-you-can-eat locations in Osaka.
Read the rest of this entry »

With Japan’s Golden Week holidays almost upon us, and with the submission deadline for the April Japan Blog Matsuri just 10 days away, I would like to present my entry, another slightly strange from a Western point of view ranking survey from goo Ranking on what people would most like to eat after returning from a foreign holiday. The survey was conducted between the 20th and 22nd of March 2007.

One may note that a number of the entries in the list are actually recently-imported dishes: number 9, curry, is the first obvious one, but Japanese “curry” (stew with a hint of spice, usually) and sticky rice is quite a different experience from a real curry such as one might find in the UK.

This survey might also go some way to explaining why so many Japanese, even those going as far as the International Space Station, find they need to pack a few Cup Noodles in their suitcases.
Read the rest of this entry »

After having looked at rice consumption in January, as a sort-of follow-up, over the first five days of March MyVoice asked their online monitor community about rice cookers.

Demographics

15,947 members osuccessfully completed the online questionnaire. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

IH is Induction Heating, which is… well, this site describes the process in detail.

Note that I don’t know if just boiling a pan of rice on the cooker counts as a rice cooker or not (although I suspect not), or if the traditional rice pan (I can’t remember the Japanese name of the iron pan with the wooden lid) does either (I suspect it might). As a pedagogical note, the Japanese for rice cooker is 炊飯器, suihanki, which “translates” kanji by kanji as boiling rice device
Read the rest of this entry »

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

The Norinchukin Bank recently released the results of a survey they commissioned into fathers, their eating habits, and what they are teaching their children about food.

Demographics

The survey was conducted between the 22nd of November and 7th of December in 2006, amongst fathers living in and around the Tokyo area, with 400 men aged between 30 and 49 were interviewed. Although it is not clearly stated, I believe all the men surveyed were full-time employment.

The survey results were on the whole presented not in tabular form, but as highlights of the answers given to the posed questions. I will retain the same style in this write-up.

Part three and four looked at what food means to people, and what their thoughts are about food in the future. In Q5 of part three I was a bit disappointed to see there was no information about frequency of getting children to participate. I have the impression that male children especially did basically nothing to help around the house.
Read the rest of this entry »

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

The Norinchukin Bank recently released the results of a survey they commissioned into fathers, their eating habits, and what they are teaching their children about food.

Demographics

The survey was conducted between the 22nd of November and 7th of December in 2006, amongst fathers living in and around the Tokyo area, with 400 men aged between 30 and 49 were interviewed. Although it is not clearly stated, I believe all the men surveyed were full-time employment.

The survey results were on the whole presented not in tabular form, but as highlights of the answers given to the posed questions. I will retain the same style in this write-up.

Part two looked at how fathers interacted with their families regarding mealtimes. Sadly there is no data on why over two in five men make little or no effort to eat at home.
Read the rest of this entry »

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

The Norinchukin Bank recently released the results of a survey they commissioned into fathers, their eating habits, and what they are teaching their children about food.

Demographics

The survey was conducted between the 22nd of November and 7th of December in 2006, amongst fathers living in and around the Tokyo area, with 400 men aged between 30 and 49 were interviewed. Although it is not clearly stated, I believe all the men surveyed were full-time employment.

The survey results were on the whole presented not in tabular form, but as highlights of the answers given to the posed questions. I will retain the same style in this write-up.

Part one looked at eating habits. I found the drinking habits interesting; note that only 7% of drinkers do not drink with their evening meal.
Read the rest of this entry »

Having looked at rice in January, in February MyVoice moved on to bread. Over the first five days at the start of February 13,232 members of their online community completed a private internet-based questionnaire.

Demographics

46% of the 13,232 people were male, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 13% in their fifties.

I eat bread twice a day; once for breakfast usually with just water and sometimes jam on top; at the moment I have some nice cheap Chivers Ginger and Lime Preserve that we managed to find in an import shop. Lunchtime is also bread from a bakery by work, usually a cheese roll and one or two other breads, often sweet, but sometimes they also have nice rice or even tea rolls.

I am surprised, however, by the quite high frequency of bread eating; I would have thought it might have been lower, but perhaps if we saw the detailed statistics we could learn something by cross-referencing age or sex versus frequency of eating.

Incidentally, Tokyo Times had a recent rather entertaining piece on Japanese bread.
Read the rest of this entry »

goo Research recently published the results of some research conducted in cooperation with Yomiuri Shimbun into fish and shellfish, conducted amongst their online monitor group between the 16th and 18th of the February.

Demographics

1,091 successfully completed the questionnaire. 50.3% were male, 21.8% in their twenties, 18.4% in their thirties, 21.6% in their forties, 17.5% in their fifties, and 20.6% aged sixty or older.

Note that in Q7 just 1% eat fish or shellfish less than once a month, which suggests that vegetarianism still has a long, long way to go in Japan! In addition, I wouldn’t be surprised if a significant part of that 1% included people who eat meat instead.

You may be interested in cross-referencing this with another recent survey on tuna habits and quota cut awareness.
Read the rest of this entry »