One of the things I struggled with when I was last in Japan was ordering at restaurants. Since that time I wish I could say my Japanese has improved substantially but unfortunately it hasn't. Does anyone have a list of menu related vocabulary they can point me too? Something like kanji, kana, english. I'm especially interested in yakiniku vocabulary as I love yakiniku, even though a reasonable portion of the menu is often written in katakana, I still don't know what the item is.

I'm hoping to go to Japan again in a couple of months, so I really want to get this area sorted out so I can fully partake in the delicious food on offer.

Have you tried smart.fm. I remember a while ago i seen places+foods/names associated with restaurant stuff.

Great request, I would love such a list as well!

I'll try searching for the list as well. I'll try to post a link later tonite.

Any luck finding one?

This book is my favorite. It covers major regional dishes, has pictures, skimps a bit on yakiniku, but darn near covers everything else. Makes me hungry whenever I look at it. It's like a visual phrasebook. 85 pages of phrases/dishes, 20 pages of essays (somewhat useful), and 10-15 pages of glossary.

amazon.jp link
http://is.gd/a6tzR

ja.wikipedia multilink:
http://is.gd/a6uuQ

I took this book on my trip to Japan last spring:

http://www.bento.com/what.html (reviews, table of contents and sample chapters)
http://www.amazon.com/Whats-What-Japanes...4770020864

It was a great reference for me (post-RTK) and my boyfriend (no Japanese). Above and beyond a list of vocabulary, it also explains how to identify different kinds of restaurants, the culture and etiquette of eating different things, and other useful stuff. It has a chapter on yakiniku.

My only complaint is that the food item names are given in English, romaji, and kanji only - since many food kanji are/were non-Joyo, I had to read the romaji, which hurts my eyes.

I like this book: A Dictionary of Japanese Food

But yakiniku... it's a world all its own. Lots of strange vocab. Yakitori too.

Perhaps just straight-up menus would be the best source:
http://www.y-goen.com/menu/menu01.html
http://www.y-goen.com/menu/menu02.html

Or the names of different cuts of meat:
http://www.kyo-ei.net/yakiniku_mame.html

How about the yakiniku dictionary, over at yakiniku heaven?
http://www.yakinikutengoku.com/jiten/index.htm

Now I'm really hungry, and you can't really go to yakiniku alone. Plus my wife would kill me if she was left out.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. That gives me a lot to work with.

Regarding the book What's what in Japanese Restaurants, my library was supposed to have it, but unfortunately it seems to have gone missing. So I was thinking about grabbing it when I next order some books from Amazon (it is relatively cheap). But there was a comment on Amazon, that the paperback version is not well printed, and that the kanji are illegible. Can anyone who has a copy who has seen a copy confirm or refute this comment?