Japanese cuisine keeps everything v

Japanese cuisine keeps everything very separated when it's served, even something like noodles and tempura with soy sauce will have the soy sauce in a dipping dish, the noodles on one plate and the tempura on another, and then things are combined, mixed, or dipped only as you eat them (this has changed somewhat in the past two decades as more chinese and korean style foods are imported, but it's still a good basic principle). All dishes will typically be served at once, and except for things that need to be kept hot or cooked at the table, each person will usually have their own portion on a separate dish. Japanese foods are also drier, less oily. Japanese food uses a shorter, stickier, and sweeter grain of rice than Chinese food. Japanese chopsticks are shorter than Chinese ones, and the Japanese break the disposable variety by pulling straight apart rather than twisting, as the Chinese do. The Japanese are great exponents of the art of pickling (plums, ginger, eggplant, turnips), and use wasabi root, green onions, various ginger preparations, and citrus fruits for spicing.