Fitting Japanese cuisine into Australia: im-perfect translations

In this chapter we offer a case study of Japanese restaurant culture in Melbourne, Australia to consider internationalisation processes and the complex relationship between “host” cultures and migrant cultures. We consider “overseas Japanese restaurants” as a specific site for cross-cultual translations and Japanese food provided within the site as a “foreign” text. Translation can transgress spatial, temporal, and ontological boundaries, and therefore has the potential to break from a fixed set of codes constituting a cultural tradition. Yet, the translation is seen firmly as “Japanese” by its consumers, not simply as a “new” hybrid, or fusion cuisine. The metaphor has the ability to depict cross-cultural discourses between and among producers and consumers, through which a strategic, conscious, and planned interaction is structured.