おふくろ の 味 mother's taste

These are dishes from MaMaYa, a tiny shop located directly next to Backyard Cafe...hard to notice. It is a real find - one of the last places in Tsukuba to eat home-cooking Japanese food. I suppose a wife could make such dishes but it would take her a tremendous amount of time to churn out the number of dishes we were presented with! We were STUFFED after eating there! Weekdays and Saturday lunch is around 1500yen...dinner is by reservations only and is about 3000yen.

The funny thing about Japan is that it is in fact really hard to find a good Japanese restaurant which serves old-fashioned Japanese food. Family restaurants serve up 'mother's cooking' but it often carries a distinct pre-made or microwaved/frozen food taste.