2008 Woodie Awards
Chop it like it's hot
Cultural dining gives the theatre a break and leaves entertaining to the restaurant
Amanda Delaney
Issue date: 1/20/05 Section: A&E
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Japanese cuisine offers a variety of dishes that American's may not be used to eating on a daily basis.
According to japan-guide.com, rice has been the most important food in Japanese cuisine for over 2,000 years. Although rice consumption is slowly decreasing, it is a major part of most Japanese dishes.
A few dishes that include rice are Sushi, which contains sushi rice; Domburi, which is a bowl of cooked rice with some other food such as eggs, chicken or beef put on top of the rice; Onigiri, which are rice balls made of cooked rice and usually wrapped in seaweed and the common Fried Rice which was originally from China.
Besides authentic dishes such as Soba, Sashimi or Somen, Japanese restaurants also offer an unusual dining experience.
The Japanese have very different etiquette at meals than Americans. If you were to experience authentic Japanese cuisine it wouldn't be uncommon to share several dishes of food at your table rather then serving each person with an individual dish.
In American culture it is common to go out and have drinks with your friends before or even during dinner. When finished with a drink it's common to simply refill your empty cup. In Japanese culture, when drinking alcoholic beverages it is customary to serve each other, rather than pouring the beverage into your own glass. You are supposed to check your friend's cups and serve them more as soon as their cups are getting empty. Also, if someone wants to serve you more alcohol, you should quickly empty your glass and hold it toward that person.
However, it is bad manners to become obviously drunk in some Japanese restaurants, such as restaurants that serve Japanese haute cuisine, the same is not true for other types of restaurants. You are not to start drinking until everybody at the table is served and the glasses are raised for drinking.