Sashimi, alongside sushi and ramen is one of Japans most famous dishes. It is thinly sliced raw foods like seafood or even meats such as horse and deer. Seafood is the most common and popular sashimi served just by itself, making it easy to confuse with sushi because sushi consists of raw seafood over vinegar rice. Sashimi is served at many types of restaurants and most izakayas. It can be a delicious side to go with alcohol or a part of kaiseki course meals and teishoku set meals. It is eaten by dipping it with soy sauce and wasabi.

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Satsuma-age comes from Satsuma, Kagoshima Prefecture and it’s basically deep fried fishcakes. Because Kagoshima Prefecture had hot humid summers, they wanted to prevent the fish from spoiling so they invented the satsuma-age. The history is a little bit murky but one theory says that it was invented by the leader of the Satsuma Clan who ruled the Kagoshima prefecture at the time.  Satsuma-age is usually eaten as a side or a topping on noodles, oden or stewed dishes. There are many different types of satsuma-age ranging from vegetables to seafood.

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Shabu shabu is a type of Japanese nabemono or hotpot dish. It usually consists of thinly sliced meat and veggies in a boiling pot served with dipping sauce. The term is an onomatopoeia in Japan - the meat makes a shabu shabu noise when you swirl your meat in the boiling pot of water. The food item is all served raw initially and it is up to you to cook the meat in the boiling pot of water. Once your food is cooked you pick it out of the pot and eat with your choice of dipping sauces such as sesame seed sauce, ponzu sauce or ponzu with daikon. Shabu Shabu is usually only eaten at shabu shabu specialty stores or more commonly at home.

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Although sake is one of the most well known alcoholic beverages in Japan, there are a few other that are more consumed by Japanese people. After beer, shochu sours/chuhai are the second most consumed in Japan. Depending on the place they can either be called sours or chuhai. It’s an alcoholic drink mixed with shochu (a type of alcohol made from sweet potato, barley, rice, buckwheat and sugar cane) soda water and some kind of flavoring. Common flavoring is lemon juice, grapefruit juice, yuzu, grape juice, umeshu and so on. Typically sours/chuhai range anywhere from 3-8% in alcohol.

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Soba noodles are buckwheat flour noodles that can served either hot or cold. Some foods have the name soba in it such as yakisoba, chuka soba and okinawa soba, but note that those do not use soba noodles but rather regular wheat flour noodles. The most basic dish of soba is mori soba - when the soba is prepared cold and served with a dipping sauce (tsuyu). The other popular soba dish is known as kake soba -which is prepared in a hot warm broth with the same dipping sauce but with a lower concentration. Soba noodle restaurants are everywhere in Japan.

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One of the most well known Japanese foods in the world that needs no introduction...sushi! This popular Japanese dish dates back hundreds of years and actually has various forms, but the most common one that everyone knows now is the nigiri sushi - one piece of seafood over vinegar rice. This type of sushi was invented in the Edo period (1603-1868) and was considered to be fast food. There are many types of sushi which can include raw fish, cooked fish and vegetable options. You can find sushi in Japan anywhere. From cheap 100 yen revolving sushi to high end counter sushi, you can even compare low and high quality sushi in Japan.

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This popular fish-shaped cake imitates the shape of the tai fish. They are made with regular pancake or waffle batter with some kind of filling on the inside. The traditional filling is azuki red beans, but more recently there have been other popular flavors such as custard, chocolate, green tea, cheese and sweet potato.

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Takoyaki or octopus balls are a favorite dish throughout Japan, but are famous in Osaka. It’s a ball shaped appetizer made from wheat flour based batter with cut up pieces of octopus, green onion, tempura batter and ginger. It is usually covered with takoyaki sauce and mayonnaise for extra flavoring. Takoyaki is popularly sold at yatai (street food stalls), food courts and of course specialty restaurants.

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A well known saying from the 1960s is that the 3 most loved things by Japanese children are The Giants baseball team, Taiho the legendary sumo wrestler, and tamagoyaki. Tamagoyaki is basically a Japanese omelette. It's actually not a traditional Japanese food and became popular after World War II. It is made similarly to an omelette but with sugar and mirin to make it a bit sweet. There are also different types of tamagoyaki - the sweet one which uses sugar and mirin or dashimaki tamago which uses dashi in it for a burst of umami.  Tamagoyaki is an essential component of bento (Japanese lunch box) and menu item at izakayas.

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Tempura is various deep fried pieces of vegetables and seafood.  It was actually introduced to the Japanese by the Portuguese in the 16th century, but has since developed into a Japanese cuisine since then. Some popular tempuras are shrimp, fish, eggplant and pumpkin. They can be used as a main dish eaten with rice or on top of rice for a donburi , a side dish or toppings on udon and soba. Typically you can find the best tempura at Tempura restaurants which are known to be high class and high quality. The customer sits at a counter and the chef will prepare fresh tempura one by one. For cheaper options, you can eat tempura donburi’s (rice bowls), izakayas or udon/soba restaurants.

Photo credit: Japan Guide