Japanese Foods

The Japanese cuisine offers a great variety of dishes and regional specialties. Some of popular Japanese and Japanized dishes are listed below.

Kaiseki

Kaiseki was a light meal served at a Japanese tea ceremony but is now also used for a style of light meal, a tasting menu, served in a Japanese restaurant. Kaiseki is popularly served in a ryotei and a kappou restaurant.

Sushi

In Japanese cuisine, sushi is a food made of vinegared rice combined with a topping or filling of fish, seafood, vegetables, or egg. The topping may be raw, cooked, or marinated; and may be served scattered in a bowl of rice, rolled in a strip of seaweed, laid onto hand-formed clumps of rice, or stuffed in a small tofu pouch.

Tempura

Tempura refers to classic Japanese deep fried batter-dipped seafood and vegetables. The batter is made of ice cold water, flour, and egg yolks. Small dry bite-sized pieces of food are dipped in flour, then in batter, and then deep fried for 2-3 minutes. Batter-coated deep frying was introduced to the Japanese by Portuguese missionaries during the 16th century. The origin of the word tempura is either the Portuguese word tempora (which describes the day on which missionaries ate fish) or temperas.

Unagi

Ramen

Ramen is the Japanese version of the Chinese noodle soup dish lā miàn. The original Chinese la mian is believed to have been served with sauce. Ramen has been firmly integrated into the Japanese culinary landscape, and many regional variations exist. Ramen is also spelled "Ramyun" and pronounced "Rām yun".

TeppanYaki

Teppanyaki is a type of Japanese cooking. Generally speaking, it can be done on any iron plate (Hence "teppanyaki"; teppan means "iron plate"), with any ingredients. In the western world, it can be done on a griddle, though in Japan it is done in a special electric frying pan which is also called teppanyaki.

Katsudon

A katsudon is a popular Japanese food; it is a bowl of rice topped with a deep-fried pork cutlet, egg, and condiments. Variations include sauce katsudon (with Worcestershire sauce), demi katsudon (with demiglace sauce and often green peas, a specialty of Okayama), shio katsudon (with salt, another Okayama variety), shoyu-dare katsudon (with soy sauce, Niigata style), and miso katsudon (a favorite in Nagoya). Beef and chicken can substitute for the pork. The dish takes its name from the Japanese words tonkatsu (for pork cutlet) and donburi (for a bowl of rice).

Yakitori

Yakitori, roast chicken, is a Japanese type of chicken kebab.
Traditional yakitori consists only of various chicken parts and vegetables, but in modern usage refers to any sort of beef, pork, fish, seafood or vegetable kebab, which get skewered on skewers named kushi. Yakitori is typically served with salt or tare sauce, which is basically made up of mirin, sweet sake, soy sauce and sugar. The sauce is applied on the skewered meat and is grilled till delicately cooked and is served with the tare sauce as a dip.