Otoshi is a unique part of Japan’s restaurant culture that can feel like a scam if you’re not ready for it.
With record-breaking numbers of foreign tourists visiting Japan, that means there are also record-breaking numbers of foreign tourists eating in Japanese restaurants. And while there’s a lot to love about dining out in Japan, from delicious food to sterling service, there’s also a potentially awkward, annoying, and confusing aspect to it.
When eating at non-fast-food restaurants in Japan, right after you’re seated the waitstaff will usually bring you a moist towel. Some restaurants might bring you a cup of tea as well, and another possibility is that your server will bring you an appetizer in a small dish. However, while unasked-for towels and tea are complementary services, the small dish of food is not, and you will be required to pay for it.
This unsolicited appetizer is called an otoshi, which comes from the word tosu meaning to pass or be led though, as in a customer being led through the restaurant’s entrance to their seat. In the vast majority of restaurants that have otoshi, the type of food you’re brought is entirely up to the restaurant, so you won’t be asked what sort of otoshi you’d like. A plate will simply be brought to the table for every member of your party, generally with the waitstaff matter-of-factly saying Otoshi desu or Otoshi de gozaimasu (“Here is your otoshi”).
The otoshi is never anything particularly fancy, often some pickled or simmered vegetables, a bit of tofu, or a morsel of meat or fish (the otoshi in the photo above is a few omelet slices and some squid). It’s also never very big. Most otoshi can be consumed entirely in two or three big bites. And no, otoshi aren’t especially tasty either. While they sometimes use regional or seasonal ingredients, otoshi are routinely the most forgettable part of the meal, in terms of flavor, and there aren’t any restaurants that have customers lining up because of their high-quality otoshi.
▼ Shredded cabbage with a bit of dressing, served as an otoshi
So why do otoshi exist? As a substitute for service charges. Japan, famously, has no tipping in its restaurant culture, and while bars (as in places that serve drinks only) often have a table charge, restaurants generally don’t. The otoshi is a sort of compromise: the restaurant doesn’t want to charge customers simply for the privilege of dining within its walls, but the otoshi’s small portion size and simple ingredients mean the cost to make them is negligible, and so the price customers pay for otoshi is almost entirely profit.
Still, for many foreign travelers in Japan, being bought something you didn’t order, aren’t allowed to send back, and yet have to pay for can be shocking, and perhaps the most confusing thing of all is that rarely, if ever, do restaurants mention how much they charge for their otoshi until they bring you your bill. There’s no sign at the door or sticker on the menu letting you know how much extra you’re going to have to pay for your meal.
You might expect that that sort of vagueness would make Japanese people angry too, but the otoshi system causes very few arguments between Japanese customers and restaurants. It’s rare for otoshi to be less than 300 yen (US$2.10), most are 600 yen or less, and even at more expensive places they’re unlikely to hit quadruple-digit prices. So when Japanese people are going out to eat at izakaya (Japanese-style pubs), “dining bars” (i.e. fancy izakaya), or high-end traditional Japanese restaurants, the types of restaurants where otoshi are most commonly encountered, they’re generally braced to pay about 500 yen or so more than the cost of the food and drinks they ordered. What’s more, the clientele at those kinds of restaurants tends to be either groups of friends or coworkers, for whom splitting the bill is the norm in Japan, or couples on dates, and so generally no individual person themselves is paying all that much extra. Meanwhile, at fast food or casual restaurants, including teishokuya (set meal restaurants), ramen joints, and revolving sushi restaurants, the sorts of places where you might find a family dining together and a parent paying for several other people’s meals, there’s no otoshi.
Still, it’s understandable if you, as a traveler in Japan, feel uneasy about otoshi. Maybe you’re still new to the Japanese restaurant scene and not 100-percent confident you can tell an izakaya from a teishokuya, or maybe you’re on a tight budget and not in a position to take a loosey-goosey attitude about how much your dinner is going to cost. And yes, while they’re by no means common, there are unscrupulous restaurants in Japan that charge exorbitant prices for woefully small and low-quality otoshi, but picking up on their shady aura can be tricky if you’re only recently arrived in the country. So with that in mind, here are two Japanese phrases to keep in your linguistic back pocket in case you want to confirm the otoshi situation before you sit down and get brought a dish:
● Otoshi wa arimasu ka? / お通しはありますか？
“Is there an otoshi?”
● Otoshidai wa ikura desu ka? / お通し代はいくらですか？
“How much is the otoshi charge?”
That way you can be sure that you and the restaurant are on the same page regarding Japan’s appetizers that don’t appear on the menu.
Photos ©SoraNews24
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