Whenever you watch a Japanese anime, movie, or weekly drama — regardless of the plot or genre, one or more episodes will inevitably be devoted to food (or in the case of shows like FOOD FIGHT, KUITAN, and BAMBINO, every episode revolves around food). Yes folks, the Japanese love food, although different types of people are associated with different kinds of food: convenience store boxed lunches and otaku, sumptuous gourmet meals and OLs, junk food and teenagers.

Strolling around Shibuya or Harajuku on any given day will bring you face to face with the hungry Japanese schoolgirl. And although their allowances are larger than even their American counterparts, Japanese teenagers spend so much on mobile phone services and clothes that most of the time they survive on fast food meals and junk food. Here are the five major food groups, according to the Japanese schoolgirl.

Sweet Crepes

Crepes are French in origin, but it was the Japanese who turned this simple concoction into a fantastic towering sugar-laden street-eat. Instead of just a quick spread of Nutella or butter and sugar, Japanese crepes have ice cream, whipped cream, fruit, chocolate chips, and chocolate syrup all folded into a delicate shell.

Shops lining Harajuku’s Takeshita Doori do brisk business during weekends, where the wonderful smell of cooking crepes permeates the air enticing more people to join the burgeoning line of under-18s in front of the store. You can also get crepes at cafes and sit-down restaurants, but personally I find the ones from the street-side stalls to be the best.

If you’d like to taste them for yourself but can’t be arsed to fly to Tokyo just for dessert, you can visit Tokyo Cafe and have a go at their extensive crepe selection, or for the Harajuku street-eats version give Crepes N’ Creme a try. OM NOM NOM NOM.

Cream Puffs

Cream puffs are called “choux cream” in (transliterated) Japanese, and are available in many neighborhood bakeshops as well as cafes at major shopping centers. While local cream puffs are tiny bite-sized affairs filled with chilled custard and doused in caramel, Japanese cream puffs are huge — about the size of a hamburger, and are filled not just with custard but also fresh whipped cream.

By far the best Japanese-style cream puffs I’ve had in Manila comes from this little hole-in-the-wall cafe in Makati’s Legaspi Village called Happy Cream Puffs. Their choux creams are baked fresh and hand-filled on the spot, so the pastry is always warm and crisp and the cream cold and delicately flavored. You won’t want to stop with just one.

Pocky

If you don’t know what Pocky is, you haven’t been reading enough manga or watching enough anime. Pocky — whether the regular kinds or the mind-boggling seasonal kinds like green tea and dark chocolate, is always a crowd-pleaser among Japanese teens (actually, the entire Japanese population). Once the domain of import stores and gourmet shops, Pocky is now available in regular supermarkets as well as local convenience stores.

Be warned however that there are two kinds of Pocky available in the Philippines: the more affordable Pocky manufactured by Glico Thailand, and the more expensive Pocky made by Glico Japan. There are slight differences in the taste and texture between the two, but if you’re stuck with a small allowance the Thai kind is a pretty good choice. If you’re buying the Japanese kind however give the more exotic flavors a try; I can’t guarantee you’ll like them, but they’re always good for a laugh.

Bottled Tea

What better way to wash out all those sugary treats from your digestive system than a bottle of cold tea? There are many different kinds of tea available on the Japanese market, but the three main types are green tea (ocha), oolong tea, and black tea (koucha). Green tea is unfermented tea drunk straight hot or cold, while oolong tea is semi-fermented but also drunk straight. Fermented black tea — which is more familiar to Western drinkers, is normally taken with sugar and lemon or milk.

My favorite is the cold bottled green tea from Shizuoka prefecture, which is wonderfully bitter and very refreshing. It is very different from the local green tea sold here in Manila, which is laden with sugar and added flavoring — yuck 😦 FYI folks, tea is supposed to be a little bit bitter due to the tannins, and drowning it in sugar masks the true flavor making it a waste of good tea 😦

Starbucks

Japanese teens are just like Filipino teens in the way they worship at the Altar of the Green Mermaid. Perhaps the main difference would be in their preference of drinks: Pinoys love creamy, chocolate-covered Frappucinos, while the Japanese schoolgirls (or at least the ones I wait in line with at Shibuya Starbucks) swear by the straight black iced coffee. I still haven’t figured out why that is.

Have you got a food-related story about your recent trip to Japan? Was there a particular kind of Japanese food you wanted to try but didn’t know where to get it here? Drop me a line in the comments section 😀 I’d love to hear your stories, plus I could help you figure out where to get okonomiyaki flour or a Japanese-style strawberry shortcake. Cheers!