Two of the best meals that I have ever eaten have been in Japan.
One of them was breakfast outdoors in the garden of a Kagoshima ryokan overlooking the Sakurajima volcano across the bay.
The other one was the complete fugu dinner that I had in Osaka. Very elegant presentation of a delicious multi-course meal. The fugu was sliced so thinly that it was almost transparent. Somebody else paid for that one...
Best meals, period, I've eaten were in Japan. In the U.S. (outside of Daniel and Per Se in NY) one of the best meals was at a sashimi/sushi place in WDC - a chain of three restaurants, one in WDC, one in Tokyo, and one in the Hague.
The fugu in Tokyo was sliced so thin that it was almost transparent. Somebody else paid for that one...
Somebody else paid for almost all of my meals in Japan, especially the fugu. It was ethereally delicious but nothing special compared to everything else.
The Japanese can do with four or five ingredients what the French do with 29 or more. Even agricultural prefectures like Yamagata are superb - the fruit combined with the better-than-Kobe cattle.
Some people think fear makes it taste better. Did you know you could die?