How To Eat Japanese Food

Here's How:

1. To eat a bowl of rice or soup, lift the bowl with one hand. It's common to sip Japanese-style soup from the soup bowl. Please eat the ingredients with chopsticks, holding the bowl with one hand.
2. To eat side dishes, you don't need to lift plates or bowls. Cut large pieces of food into small pieces with your chopsticks and put it in your mouth.
3. To eat sashimi (raw fish slices), mix wasabi horseradish with soy sauce in a small plate and dip sashimi in the sauce to eat. If you like wasabi, put a little bit of wasabi directly on a sashimi slice and dip it in soy sauce.
4. To eat tempura, put some toppings in tempura dipping sauce if available. Then, dip tempura in the sauce.
5. To eat nigiri-zushi (oval shaped sushi), clean your hands at first. Pour some soy sauce in a small plate. Pick up a piece of sushi with your fingers and dip the topping side in soy sauce to eat.

Tips:

1. If you are eating with Japanese people and want to express appreciations for the meal in Japanese, it's customary to say "itadaki-masu" before eating and "gochisou-sama" when finished eating.
2. It's OK in Japan to make some slurping sounds when eating Japanese noodle dishes.