Do you know what sushi restaurants are like in Japan? Do you know the correct way to eat sushi? Are you planning to travel to Japan and don't want to embarrass yourself? In this article, we will talk about sushi restaurants and the correct way to eat at them.
Restaurants specialized in sushi are called Sushi ya. In most of these restaurants, you sit at a counter and watch the sushiman prepare your dish. There are many differences between restaurants in Japan and Brazil.
In Japan sushi is much cheaper, but it can also fetch a fortune. All this will depend on the place, the fish and the sushi chef. Usually TV reports generalize showing absurd prices of fine and expensive restaurants.
- Differences between sushi restaurants in Japan and BrazilWe also recommend watching our short video about the diferentes tipos de sushi:
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Differences between Japanese and Brazilian sushi restaurants
Do you know the differences between sushi restaurants in Japan and sushi restaurants in Brazil? Well, many differences will be mentioned in the other subheadings of the article, but we can say that there are many differences, starting with the taste.
The quality of the sushi rice grain used in Japan is much superior compared to Brazil, which is usually made to fill the belly and eat less. Japanese ingredients and types of fish make Japan's sushi menu much richer.
Brazil also has its exclusive sushis. In Japan, it is not common to throw strawberries and ion fruit full of cream cheese in sushi. Even Hot Rolls are not common in Japan, as in Brazil they are made from discarded cuts of fish.
Even so, there are thousands of different varieties of sushi in 日本 that introduce you to a whole new world. Usually in a 日本 sushi restaurant, they also consume other dishes like misoshiro.
Kaiten-Zushi - Mat restaurant
The most common and cheap sushi restaurants in Japan are called Kaiten-zushi [回転寿司], where you find a conveyor belt with sushi plates moving, and then you choose your preferred one and take the plate to your table.
If you want to place an order, you will probably be given a screen to choose your sushi. Kaiten-zushi is an inexpensive restaurant, with prices usually ranging from 100 to 300 yen per plate. The types and colors of the plates determine the price of the sushi.
The video below from our daily Japan channel shows a little bit of the Kaiten-Zushi restaurant.
How to eat sushi in Japan?
At the restaurant the waiter will bring you a hot towel called Oshibori. You should use it to clean your hands and face and then you can put it on the table without bending it. Sushi is made to be eaten by hand and all in one bite.
It is very common and even beautiful to use the hashi to eat sushi, but generally Nigirizushi and Temaki are eaten by hand, to avoid them falling apart. If you are going to eat with hashi, the etiquette rules for hashi.
Normally the restaurant will offer green tea; you can also order a drink. When dipping the sushi in soy sauce, that the important thing is to moisten the fish and not the rice; avoid using too much soy sauce, or it will seem that the sushi only tastes good with soy sauce.
The best sushi restaurants in Japan
There are thousands of sushi restaurants in Japan, if you want to see the best and most famous in Tokyo, let's leave a ranked list below. Use your Google Maps to do a search, it may be that some have restaurants in cities other than Tokyo.
- Sushiryori Inose
- Yoshitake Sushi
- Uobei Shibuya Dogenzaka
- Ginza Seamon
- Sushi Bar Yasuda
- Katsu Midori SeibuShibuya
- Kyubey Ginza Honten
- Sushizanmai Honjin
- ITAMAE SUSHI
- Sushizanmai Tsukijiekimae-ten
- Umegaoka Sushi No Midori Sohonten Shibuya
- Atelier Morimoto XEX
- Umegaoka Sushino Midori Ginza
- Umegaoka Sushi at Midori Akasaka-branch
- Mawashizushi Katsu Midori, Meguro
- Nobu Tokyo
- Tachiguimidori, Echika Ikebukuro
- Tokyo Otsuka Norengai Uozushi
- sushi
- Himawari Zushi Shintoshin
- Sushizanmai Honten
- "A standing sushi bar located in the Shibuya Center Gai, renowned as one of Japan's best"
- Nemuiro Hanamaru, Kitte Marunouchi
- Sushizanmai Yurakucho
- Kura Sushi Shinagawa Ekimae
- Genki Sushi, Shibuya
- Toriton Tokyo Solamachi
- Tsukiji Kiyomura Sushi-Zanmai Higashi Shinjuku
- Shinjuku Makoto
- Mawashizushi Katsu Midori by Ikebukuro Seibu
