10 Traditional Japanese Dishes that you should try

When visiting Japan, you’ll, of course, want to taste Japanese cuisine. There are many types of dishes and local specialties you can choose from, but if we were to pick up ten traditional dishes that we highly recommend, they would be the ones introduced below.

If you wish to learn more about Japanese cuisine, join us in our upcoming Osaka & Tokyo Tour.

1. Sushi

Sushi is one of the best known Japanese foods around the world. It is offered in various ways and prices, from the entertaining kaiten-zushi (conveyor belt sushi), where visitors can enjoy sushi for a reasonable price of about 100 yen per plate, to high-end, long-established, traditional Edomae sushi (Edo-style sushi) where you will sit at a quiet counter to eat as the sushi is prepared right before your eyes.

Sushi usually refers to a dish of pressed vinegared rice with a piece of raw fish or shellfish, called a neta, on top. Sushi is generally eaten with soy sauce and wasabi, but those who aren’t too fond of wasabi can ask for “sabi-nuki” (meaning “without wasabi”).

Sushi can be eaten with chopsticks or directly with your hand. However, there’s one thing you should be careful about. When dipping the sushi in soy sauce, you should turn it over and apply the soy sauce to the neta, rather than the rice itself. This is to prevent the rice from sucking up too much soy sauce and erasing the original taste of the “neta” itself.