FAMILY-STYLE

Food writer MATT GOULDING couldn't wait to get back to the hushed omakase restaurants of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. But would his young kids love the country-and its cuisine as much as he does?

- MATT GOULDING

This was one of the last questions my wife, Laura, and I asked ourselves during a yearslong debate about whether to have children. Trivial as it might seem when stacked against the responsibilities of procreation, Japan was no casual consideration. We'd been carrying on a torrid threesome with the country for almost as long as we'd been together. We fell in love in Japan, honeymooned in Japan, and spent months traveling the country together when I was researching Rice, Noodle, Fish, a book I wrote with Anthony Bourdain back in 2015.

As innocent as we were in those pre-parenting days, we knew enough to understand that everything would be irrevocably changed by having kids. We feared that the magic of Japan―the tiny restaurants; the quiet, contemplative spaces-would be compromised by our new traveling companions. So, we resolved to shelve Japan until our children were at least old enough to spell omakase.

But by the time our oldest son, Diego, was four, and his little brother Dylan was around eight months, we could feel the itch spreading. We were anxious: not just to return to Japan, but to test our mettle as a family. Could we still wander the world for weeks, even months at a time-and would we want to? And how would these little humans affect our relationship with the places most sacred to us? So Laura and I decided to travel to Japan as if it were our first time: Tokyo and Kyoto, plus maybe a side adventure or two. Along the way, we planned to share as much of our collective passion for the country with our children as possible-the wonders of the convenience stores, the science of noodle slurping, the magic of a night in an ancient ryokan.

If the trip was a success, we told ourselves, maybe our two boys would come to love this country as much as we do. And maybe― maybe! Laura and I would learn to love Japan in a new way.
What could possibly go wrong?

DAY 1

SHIBUYA, TOKYO