In a former life a bunch of GIs rented a house near the beach on Honshu for a couple summer months. We mostly just enjoyed Asahi and Kirin there when on a pass, but several times we went down to the street market (1960) bought the fixins and cooked up a mess of sukiyaki ourselves. The Far East Radio for GIs had a weekly program, “ENJOY JAPAN” which the Jo-san announcer pronounced: “Nippon-wa tanoshin-de kudasai”. Memories.
The Japanese have some surprisingly hearty food.