According to Japanese tradition during a meal dishes do not go one after another but served all at a time. Nevertheless dinner is to be started with soup. It can be suimono soup (ramen egg noodles, soba buckwheat flour noodles) or misoshiru soup, which is considered a very good cancer preventative means and served any time starting from breakfast. Generally all the soups with miso are called misoshiru. A standard variant is misoshiru with sea kale and tofu.

Soup is eaten in the following way: first broth is drunk (the cup should be on the level of a chest), after that other ingredients are eaten with chopsticks. This rule also concerns soups with noodles.

If you are served with some dish in a bowl with a cover, after you have finished eating, cover the bowl again and put chopsticks on a rack for chopsticks. Rice

Gohan

Rice is eaten with chopsticks from a rice bowl which is held on the level of a chest. It is not the custom in Japan to pour rice (gohan) with soy sauce.

Noodle in Japanese dishes is rather long as a rule. That's way it is eaten in the following way: it is taken by chopsticks, taken close to mouth and drawn in. Squelch is allowed in this case.

Sushi is usually eaten in one piece, though half can be bitten as well. Men can eat sushi with hands; women are allowed to eat only with chopsticks. First pour a little soy sauce in a plate. Take sushi turn it and take once again so that you can dip fish (not rice) in the sauce and eat. Some kinds of sushi are delicious even without soy sauce.

Is desirable that you first prepare sauce for sashimi. Pour some soy sauce in a special plate, add some wasabi and mix everything thoroughly. Take the plate with sauce in your left hand, lift it up. Dip each piece of sashimi in the sauce and eat.

Tempura is eaten with chopsticks and dipped into a specially prepared sauce.

When you eat nabemono take a small portion from a common plate on your plate.

Usually served on large dishes or plates.

While drinking sake or beer it is polite to add beverage in the glasses of the people sitting at the same table, not pouring beverage in you own glass at the same time. You should always keep an eye on the glasses on the table and not leave them empty. If somebody wants to pour beverage in your glass you should lift it up not to make the person strain after you.

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