Funny how this restaurant seems to just be named “Japanese Restaurant.” Photo by K. Lund
It’s interesting how foreign food tastes different in every country.
For example, Thai food tastes different in Sweden than it tastes in the US. It’s the same for the other foods I’ve tried here, such as Chinese and Japanese. I can’t speak for all nationalities of food since I avoid eating gluten and I don’t dine out much. Dining out in Sweden is notoriously expensive.
I mostly have experience eating Asian food, and usually it’s at lunch.
In my opinion, the Asian food in Sweden has saltier sauces and the vegetables are less varied (you work with what you can get.)
There’s a Japanese food place near my work and a good percentage of my co-workers buy food there on any given weekday. It’s good food—not cheap—it’s hard to eat lunch there for under $13, but it’s reliably good. A few days ago I chatted up the people working behind the counter of the Japanese restaurant.
An aside: I’m fascinated by other foreigners in Sweden. Something about how my life has led me to Sweden and their life has led to Sweden and there we both are, both landing in the Far North of the planet. What are the odds, that we both come from faraway lands but we are crossing paths in this third country? It just seems amazing. I can’t explain it.
The Japanese restaurant on the corner is owned by a Chinese family who bought the establishment nearly 12 years ago. I asked the owner why they made Japanese food instead of Chinese food. He said the restaurant was already a Japanese restaurant when he bought it. The previous owner taught him how to make Japanese food. He said that Japanese food is more popular in Sweden than Chinese food so they kept it as a Japanese place. The other reason was that the restaurant does not have a full kitchen—professional ovens and all that stuff—so it was easier to make sushi than cook hot Chinese dishes.
A Chinese man serves you Japanese food, taking your order in Swedish. Crazy man, crazy.
It was fun to talk to the owner. I bet no one ever asks the questions I asked him… It’s not very Swedish to interview the guy behind the counter. Actually it’s probably not very anything. I think sometimes the general Swedish reticence makes me want to go the opposite way and do brash things.
