Nabe dishes

Nabe dishes or hot pot dishes are prepared in a hot pot, usually at the table. Typical ingredients are vegetables such as negi (Japanese leek) and hakusai (Chinese cabbage), various mushrooms, seafood and/or meat. There are many regional and personal varieties, and they are especially popular in the cold winter months.

Some special nabe dishes are:

Oden
A nabe dish prepared with various fish cakes, daikon, boiled eggs, konyaku and kombu seaweed, boiled over many hours in a soya sauce based soup.

Sukiyaki
A nabe dish prepared with thinly sliced meat, vegetables, mushrooms, tofu and shirataki (konyaku noodles). The pieces of food are dipped into a raw egg before eaten.

Shabu-Shabu
Shabu-shabu is Japanese style meat fondue. Thinly sliced meat, vegetables, mushrooms and tofu is dipped into a hot soup and then into ponzu vinegar or a sesame sauce before being eaten.

Chanko Nabe
Chanko nabe is the staple diet of sumo wrestlers. There are many varieties of chanko nabe. A few chanko nabe restaurants can be found around Ryogoku, the sumo district in Tokyo.

Yakitori
Yakitori are grilled chicken pieces on skewers. Most parts of the chicken can be used for yakitori.

Tonkatsu
Tonkatsu are deep fried pork cutlets. Tonkatsu is usually served with shredded cabbage or on top of cooked rice (katsudon) or with Japanese style curry rice (katsu kare).