The Best Fried Rice In Japan Is Frozen???

One of the things that I am absolutely crazy about is fried rice. I am by no means a professional when it comes to fried rice but I can easy eat fried rice straight for a year.

I have seen many and ate many types of fried rice so here is my personal criteria when it comes to good fried rice.

1. Color — Fried rice needs to have a slight brown. Tends to be saltier and tastier the darker brown it is. Perfect when it is not too dark and not too bright. If it is white then you aren’t eating fried rice, you are eating regular rice with toppings.
2. Shine — Some people will disagree with this but I need shiny fried rice. This means that there needs to be oil in it. The more oil the tastier. You might say that it is gross and unhealthy but it is similar to eating kobe beef, they cook it with butter and oil to fatten it up to make it taste better. Fried rice without much oil is like steak without butter.
3. Meat — Probably one of the most important thing I look for in all of my meals is the amount of meat. There need to be a good proportion of meat per serving of rice. You need to be able to see the eggs without squinting your eyes. I do not care too much for the type of meat but since I grew up in Hawaii, I enjoy spam fried rice the most.
4. Cost Performance/Amount —As a businessman, I am always looking for cost performance. Fried rice should be cheap. It uses a lot of cheap rice and requires bits of meat and vegetables. You shouldn’t be paying the price of a regular plate lunch unless you are getting a huge amount of fried rice.
5. Toppings — Fried rice with not many toppings is essentially just rice and not worth eating. Similar to meat but I enjoy fried rice with at least a little bit of vegetables.

Now that you know about my criteria of what I look for in good fried rice, you can now tell if there is good fried rice from a picture. Here are some famous fried rice that you can get for roughly 700–1000 yen at a restaurant. The one on the far left is probably the highest on all 5 criteria's. It probably had the most toppings on a fried rice that I’ve ever seen in restaurant in Japan. Sutadonya is definitely one of the restaurants that you have to visit if you want to eat high quality but good cost performance fried rice.