Matt Fargo (69 page)

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Authors: Dirty Japanese: Everyday Slang From "What's Up?" to "F*%# Off!"

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Cafés

kissaten

Starbucks is every bit as ubiquitous in Tokyo as in New York and has better coffee than other chain alternatives. But if you’re a hippie who feels like Starbucks harshes your socially conscious mellow, check out some of the Japanese coffeehouses. Doutor has bagel sandwiches!

Starbucks
sutaba

Like Japanese bra sizes, drinks at a Japanese Starbucks are all one size smaller than their name suggests, so that a “medium” corresponds to a “small” in America.

Doutor
dotōru

At Doutor, you get these exhausted businessmen chain-smoking and drinking coffee next to bag ladies mumbling into their teacups. The coffee ain’t great, but the atmosphere has no pretensions.

Segafredo
segafurēdo

Segafredo specializes in sticky drinks like the “Pina Colada Yogurt Granita.” They are leading the whole Frappuccino genre into the 21st century.

Renoir
runoāru

Pretentious and froufrou, Renoir is the type of place that frowns on to-go orders and prefers for you to sit down with
all the other widowed madams until you order a tiramisu out of sheer anxiety.

Sushi expert

sushi tsū

Oh, you thought Japanese slang was just for punkass kids? Well, tell that to the septuagenarian chef behind the sushi bar pulling his knife through a yellowtail with all the precision of a brain surgeon. He still has shrapnel in his knee from the Russo-Japanese war and knows more sushi slang than a rapper knows Ebonics. So try out some of these words next time you’re at a sushi restaurant and see if nobody notices that you’re a big fat American who rubs his chopsticks together and then orders a Coke with his California roll.

< CAN I GET SOME
…

. . .kudasai