Eating in Tokyo is fabulous. From the cheapest noodle shop to the most expensive high end cuisines, we’ve always had great eating in Tokyo.

It’s hard to give a short summary, but some ideas you should consider --

-- First question always is, raw fish or no raw fish? You can eat perfectly well in Tokyo and never touch sashimi (raw fish) or sushi (rice, usually with raw fish but also sometimes with only vegetables). But I’d estimate about 50% of the restaurants in Tokyo serve some kind of raw fish, and about 90% of the restaurants feature some kind of fish on the menu. So you have to decide your position on raw fish before you go to eat. 

-- How much can you spend? Lunch is usually a good deal in Japan, but dinners can easily cost $50-100 or more per person if you aren’t careful. However, you can eat well in Tokyo for less than $10 per person, even for dinner. Just don’t eat at the hotels which are always expensive.

-- Do you want food, or to sit down and eat? Most larger department stores have a great selection of food in the basement. This can be a great bargain, though there often is no place to sit -- it’s takeout exclusively. Most larger stores often have a floor -- or more -- of restaurants on the top. These restaurants have a lot of variety and are good price-performers. 

The quick stop stores (in Japanese, kombini, short for convenience store) actually have quite good food and are very popular for a quick bite. They have sandwiches, sushi, rice balls of various types (in Japanese, onigiri), and other foods that are readily eaten on the run. For a unique Japanese experience, I like the teriyaki-noodles-and-mayonnaise submarine sandwiches, though many of my friends consider me a nut for this one. 

-- If you want a real restaurant, get a good guidebook or ask at the hotel. Often you will be directed to places that are not very Japanese, which is OK, depending on your interests. If you are local in Tokyo, I highly recommend the website at www.bento.com which has proven extremely helpful to me in the past. Their recommendations are usually excellent. 

I do not recommend the Zagat’s guide for Tokyo as it has a terrible list of restaurants, mostly ones that are too expensive for what you get. 

Common restaurant chains that are really good are: Mos Burger (much tastier than McDonalds), Sakana (red, white and blue signs with a fish), and Watami (only Japanese characters on a red sign I am afraid, but you might be able to ask for it by name. Watami has calorie information on it’s extensive menu which is very hard to find other places in Japan.