Our 21 favorite Japanese culinary specialties

If we’ve all already woke up with a “big sushi urge”, we show you in this article that Japanese cuisine is much more than that!

For some, the desire to travel lies in the temptation to discover new landscapes, populations with unknown customs, architectures dating back centuries, and to accumulate a maximum of photos of the world... For others, a good reason to travel would be to learn a new musical culture, to go hunting local artists and to perfect their playlists. Finally, for gourmets, travelling is especially the opportunity to awaken your taste buds! Taste new product associations, discover the typical dishes of each country...

It is for all these reasons that Wanderlix now offers you to find, for multiple destinations, our playlist travel , our top of the most beautiful pictures but also our top of culinary specialties !

Today, we fly to Japan to look at the best Japanese specialties! For no, the cuisine of the Pays du Soleil-Levant does not stop at sushi... From the ramens to the yakitoris to the udon to Kobe beef, discover today this top that should put you, without doubt, water to the mouth.

A little hunger?

1. Edamame

Preparation of immature beans, the Edamame are consumed as well in China in Japan, as well as in South-East Asia. Often seasoned only with salt, sometimes spices, they consume mainly as snacks, or during aperitif, before meals.

2. Takoyaki

Speciality of Osaka, the takoyaki are in the form of pasta balls, assimilable to our pancake paste, and contain pieces of cooked octopus.

This food is mainly sold on the edge of the road and consumes on the outside. By barquette of 6, 10 or 12, it is the perfect snack in an afternoon setting, before or after a long visit to Osaka.

3. Onigiri

Onigiris are an integral part of Japanese cuisine, although they are not considered a dish but rather as a snack. Riceballs stuffed surrounded by black algae, often triangular shapes, onigiris are a real "fashion-fam".

If there is a multitude through Japan, one of the most common ones is stuffed with umeboshi , a Japanese plum salted and dried, very acid. As for the others, you can find them with fish (notably tuna), or with miso.

Inputs

4. Gyoza

Gyozas are the Japanese version of Chinese ravioli. Absolutely delicious, they are actually fried ravioli with cabbage and pork revisited, surrounded by a wheat flour bowl. If they can be considered a snack, the fact that they are served in many restaurants to come back makes them place more like an entrance.

Tasted in a bite, they must first be dipped in soy sauce to bring out all the flavours.

5. Tempura

Known for all, tempuras are a Japanese frying dish... originating from Portugal ! Indeed, they are the re-adaptation of peixinhos da horta introduced in Japanese territory by the Jesuit missionaries of the seventeenth century.

Since then, Japanese have adapted the recipe, and since the late nineteenth century, there are even restaurants dedicated to tempuras throughout Japan. Of course, the most famous recipe is shrimp.

6. Miseo soup

Traditional Japanese recipe, miso soup is a must for this top of Japanese culinary specialties! As its name suggests, it is a “simple” broth based on miso, which is a fermented and flavoured soybean paste. It is regularly mixed with a fish broth.

Japanese can eat it both at dinner and at lunch, and sometimes even at breakfast.

7. Sashimi

A blow from the hearts of the writing, the sashimis are considered a true Art in Japan, since the 15th century! Artistic and sophisticated preparation, sashimis are traditional dishes and especially a true Japanese specialty.

Saumon, tuna or dorade, sashimis are slices of fresh fish, the size of a bite, which one loves to eat with friends at the beginning of a meal.

Main dishes

8. Okonomiyaki

Regularly compared to omelette, pancake or even pizza, the Okonomiyaki finally has no equivalent in the West. This is a Japanese dish, consisting of a dough made of egg, flour and dashi which wraps a very variable number of ingredients (from pork to cheese), cut into small pieces.

All is finally cooked on a heating plate, one of the most common cooking in Japan.

9. Yakitori

Another heart of the writing, the yakitori are a true culinary blessing! The yakitori are cooked pins on the grill, each part of which represents a bite.

If his adaptation in the West gave rise to beef recipes with cheese or other caramelized pork, there were only two chicken recipes in Japan: one nature, seasoned with salt; and the other cooked nature and eventually coated with a thick soy sauce.

10. Pasta/food dishes

Here is undoubtedly the most typical specialty of Japanese culture, and the one that is found most in the heart of manga and other animes: noodle/paste dishes. Among them are the udons (above), which are with the soba, the most consumed pasta of Japan, and which consume as hot as cold, making them noticeable all year round.

The ramen (below) are a dish of noodles plunged into a broth. It is regularly based on beef or fish, seasoned with miso and garnished with different vegetables. If imported from China, they are now considered to be 100% part of Japanese culture.

11. Karê raisu

Karê raisu, also known as Japanese curry rice, is one of the most consumed dishes and one of the largest Japanese specialties! But the curry doesn't just find its place with rice!

In fact, Japanese also consume it with thick noodles, udon karê, or with toast, pan karê.

12. Sushis/Makis

If sushi and other makis are an emblem of Japanese cuisine through the West, it is important to know that they are one of the specialties of Japan that are the least consumed by its inhabitants.

Riz vinaigré accompanied by raw fish, they can come in multiple forms. It is also the Westerners who have created most of the recipes you know today, not the Japanese themselves.

13. Donburi

Donburi is one of the most typical dishes of Japanese cuisine. Literally, it means "great bowl" in the Japanese language. This “big bowl” is then packed with unsealed white rice, before being crowned with multiple garnish.

According to the trims, his name then differs. It can be about katsudon with breaded pork, gyüdon with beef lams, or unigadon with grilled eels.

14. Fugu

Once again here, the kitchen is particularly close to Art! Fugu, Japanese gastronomic specialty, is the most dangerous dish ever cooked. Indeed, a single mistake in its preparation can prove fatal to the consumer, so its poison is toxic.

The preparation of this fish dish, often served raw, is also extremely framed in Japan, and the chefs wishing to serve it must first undergo a 3 or 4-year training!

15. Sukiyaki

The sukiyaki is also called Japanese fondue, and could be widely compared to our various beef dishes in sauce, long left simmered.

Beef meat is then cut into thin slices, and cooked with a multitude of vegetables to give a magical taste to the final broth. Tasted with family, sukiyaki is one of the favorite Japanese specialties of the locals.

16. Beef of Kobe

How do I evoke Japanese culinary specialties not to mention Kobe's beef? The most famous and desired red meat in the world, Kobe's beef is known for its tenderness and inimitable taste.

Sold worldwide at gold prices, this specialty is consumed in Japan both as grilled meat, but also and especially in broth, as in the sukiyaki seen previously.

desserts

17. Dorayaki

Dorayaki is a Japanese pastry shop, whose beignet is, in turn, native to a recipe from Portugal: the Castella. If originally, the dorayaki had only one layer, it is since the beginning of the 20th century that it is covered on both sides.

This pancake sandwich is golden and kilted to anko, a cream of sweet beans. To be tasted fresh, this Japanese specialty could be comparable to our madeleine.

18. Mochi

The mochi is a cake based on gluant rice and generally kilted, in turn, anko, this sweet beans paste, particularly soft and light. Nowadays, mochi recipes are numerous, and anko has been replaced by chocolate, jam or ice cream!

19. Yokan

Yokan is a pastry that is truly comparable to the fruit pastry. It seems lighter, however, and is also made up of a red bean paste.

In Japan, the yokan eats at tea time, as a confectionery.

Drinks

20. Bubble Tea

This is the popular drink of the moment in France, and it comes directly from Japan! The Bubble Tea, tea with tapioca beads originally from Taiwan, has been a fury for more than two years in Japanese metropolises, especially among young teenage girls.

If young people appreciate the softness of the tapioca beads, they mainly follow the trend and especially look to appreciate these drinks for... their Instagram photos. If this drink is particularly consumed by adolescents, it is still difficult here to talk about a true "Japanese specialty".

21. Saké

Here it is, a real Japanese specialty, to finish this ranking! The sake! Alcoholic wood based on rice, it is served as a digestive after a heavy meal.

But for Japanese, the word saké can be extended to all alcoholic beverages. That’s why they prefer to use the term Nihonshu more specific.