If you are as eager as I was to get started, you need to know what a typical, everyday Japanese home-cooked menu is like. One of the things I appreciate about Japanese cuisine is that there are far fewer types of foods, seasonings and ingredients, as we have in America. This means it can be cheaper and simpler to eat this way. Foods eaten only in season, fewer ingredients combined in endless ways.
One interesting fact is that, today, the Japanese live in tiny apartments and homes. Most kitchens do not have a regular oven--they get by with microwave and toaster ovens. Their dining rooms and kitchens are too small and inadequate to do gourmet cooking or entertaining. Because of this, and also because their cramped quarters don't allow them the Feng Shui sparseness and touch of nature they crave, most Japanese eat at restaurants a lot. The restaurants are able to provide the proper setting, beauty, touch of nature, and properly prepared foods for a proper experience. Because most restaurants are subsidized by many businesses (transactions are often conducted over a meal), the prices are generally affordable enough for the common folk. In Tokyo, back in 1976, there existed one restaurant for every 100 people! It's probably still the same today.
On to a typical Japanese Breakfast. You can have one of these, or a combination:
1 - Rice and Nori: steamed rice with a sheet of roasted nori seaweed. The eater either crumbles the nori into his rice, or he can roll some rice up in a piece of nori and eat it like that.
2 - Miso: Miso soup with chunks of tofu and bits of nori and/or scallions is the Japanese equivalent of a bacon-and-eggs breakfast.
3 - Eggs: with exposure to the western cultures, the Japanese now eat egg dishes in the morning, when they can afford it (recipes below).
For breakfast I had steamed rice, with both crumbled nori and slices of Japanese omelet on top, and some soy sauce. It was delicious!
A Note on MSG: the use of MSG has gotten a bad rap in the US because of how much of it the Chinese use in their foods, causing some bad reactions in a percentage of people. However, the Japanese use it sparingly and, as far as I know, it has not caused a problem with eaters of Japanese foods.
SIMPLE JAPANESE OMELET (Serves 4-6 with rice)
Heat a skillet with 1 tablespoon vegetable or olive oil. Mix the above ingredients (this is delicious with or without the optionals) into a nice froth. When a drop of water sizzles in the skillet, pour in about 1/4 cup of egg mix and tilt pan to coat the bottom, making a very thin omelet. Once it is mostly cooked (top still a little runny), using a fork, chopsticks or a small spatula, carefully roll up the omelet into a loose roll, as best you can. Take it out and put on a paper towel. Repeat until all the egg is used up and you have several rolls of omelet. Using either a cloth napkin or a bamboo shushi roller, place an omelet roll on one end, then roll it up tightly. Do this with each omelet. Lastly, slice crosswise into 2" slices and serve several slices on top of rice.
Even Simpler Omelet: instead of doing many thin omelets, you can pour the whole egg mixture into the skillet. Stir it a little at first, then let the bottom brown and the top mostly finish cooking. Roll it up as above, then roll it tightly as described above and slice. This will be one thicker roll instead of several thin omelet rolls.
A traditional Japanese omelet consists of eggs mixed with a little fish stock and soy sauce. A special, long, narrow omelet fry pan is used. The chef pours in a thin bit of egg, and places a sheet of nori cut to size on 3/4 of the egg. When he rolls up the omelet, this nori is rolled up with is, creating a thin green layer rolled with the yellow omelet. This roll is then moved back to the top of the narrow pan, another thin layer of egg mixture is poured on, the roll is lifted so the new layer can cook under it as well. Another sheet of nori is added; when ready, the cooked roll is rolled up again in the new layer of egg and nori. This is repeated several times, then sliced to make a beautiful yellow and green spiral omelet.
Another egg breakfast, taken straight from England I believe, we saw in a modern Japanese anime movie. A slice of toast is spread with mayo, then a leaf of lettuce, then topped with one fried egg. My family calls this Bird in a Nest and it is a favorite here.