Japan's restaurants serve their food twice, Once inside their premises and a second time inside your imagination. They do this through displays of their dishes in their windows. Other places do this but in Japan it seemed almost universal. Instead of browsing a menu you get to see what a meal would look like by staring at it in a kind of taxidermied  version, sometimes coated with a shiny glaze that makes the food look both more appetizing and kind of unworldly. This is a good way of tackling the language barrier but also allows you to sample dishes from a huge range of places...or your eyes do at least. I especially liked this one in downtown Kyoto for the extra step of showing a beer in mid pour an especially joyous moment in any meal. How do they get that colour and what's holding it in place? It has become like a freeze-frame in a movie. But the really good places don't show anything in their windows. No menus either and often just a name in Japanese on a white background or a nondescript wall or window or hanging fabric. Those are the ones that really get your mind going.