Getting in the door
Walk in and a staff member will call out a greeting and then ask how many. Answer with fingers — two fingers, a small nod, done. If there is a queue sheet by the door, write any name in roman letters; they will call something like it.
If a shop is full, they will say so and often estimate the wait in minutes on their fingers. Waiting outside the door in line is normal and expected; walking off and coming back loses the place.
Ticket machines
Ramen and udon shops often take payment at a machine by the door. Put money in first, then press. Photographs are usually on the buttons; if not, the top-left button is almost always the house standard, priced around ¥900, and pressing it is never a mistake.
Hand the ticket across the counter, or leave it on the little tray. If the machine defeats you, point at it helplessly — someone will appear. This happens to Japanese people too.
Point at the Japanese
Every restaurant page on this site shows the shop’s name and the dish names in Japanese. Show the screen. This works better than pronouncing anything, and staff are used to it.
The one-line order phrase on each dish page — “kore o kudasai”, this please, while pointing — covers the rest. Nobody in a Nagoya restaurant expects a visitor to speak; they expect a visitor to point clearly.
The small dish you did not order
At izakaya, a small plate arrives at the start and appears on the bill. It is a seating charge of a few hundred yen — otōshi — not a mistake and not negotiable. Think of it as the cover charge, arriving in edible form.
Everything after that you order in rounds, a few things at a time. “Toriaezu bīru” — beer to start — is the phrase that opens every izakaya meal in Japan, and saying it earns a grin.
Paying
The bill lives on the table or gets totted up at the end; either way you pay at the register by the door, not at the table. Put cash or card on the small tray rather than into hands — that is just how money moves here.
There is no tipping anywhere in Japan, in any situation. Trying to leave extra causes a chase down the street to return it. Say “gochisōsama deshita” — thanks for the meal — on the way out instead; that is the tip.
Cash
Older shops are cash only, and the older the shop the better the food tends to be, so this matters. Convenience store ATMs (7-Eleven, Lawson, FamilyMart) take foreign cards around the clock; bank ATMs often do not.
Coins matter more than at home — the ¥100 and ¥500 pieces do real work at ticket machines and kissaten. A coin pouch stops being funny by day two.
Six words that do all the work
Sumimasen — excuse me, calls staff over. Kore o kudasai — this, please. Osusume wa? — what do you recommend? Okaikei onegaishimasu — the bill, please. Oishii — delicious, said mid-meal, makes the whole room warmer. Gochisōsama — thanks for the meal, said leaving.
That is the entire syllabus. Everything else is pointing, fingers and smiles, and it works in every shop on this site.