Sushi Terms and Vocabulary

Many Japanese restaurants include the formal or Japanese way of pronouncing fish or dishes. Below is a list of the most common words found in restaurants. Try to familiarize yourself with these terms before your next sushi date!

Types of Sushi

  • Ama Ebi – raw shrimp
  • Anago – saltwater eel
  • Bento Box – a meal served in a rectangular tray that consist of tempura shrimp/vegetables, rice, and other cooked fish
  • Chirashi – a bowl with sliced fish over rice
  • Ebi – cooked shrimp
  • Edamame – salted soy beans eaten as appetizer
  • Fugu – poisonous blowfish
  • Futomaki – big sushi roll
  • Gari – pickled ginger served on every sushi plate to cleanse the pallet
  • Goma – sesame seeds
  • Gunkanmaki – rice on the bottom wrapped with nori and topped off with ingredients
  • Hamachi – a fish that is also called yellowtail
  • Hokkigai – surf clam
  • Hotategai – scallop
  • Ika – squid that can also be deep-fried into calamari
  • Ikura – salmon roe/egg
  • Inari – fried tofu skin stuffed with ingredients or rice
  • Kaiware – daikon radish, usually shredded with sashimi as decoration
  • Kani – real crab meat
  • Kanikama – imitation crab, also called Krab
  • Maguro – bluefin tuna
  • Maki – a sushi roll
  • Mirin – sweet rice wine mixture used in tempura batter and sushi rice
  • Mochi – sweet rice cakes that are served as desserts
  • Nigiri – A piece of fish on top of a ball of rice, sometimes wrapped in a thin seaweed
  • Nori – seaweed sheet used in sushi
  • Ponzu – A traditional, sweet and sour sauce used in sushi rolls and appetizers
  • Saba – mackerel
  • Sake – fermented rice wine that contains a modest amount of alcohol content. It is usually served heated and drank in small sake cups
  • Sashimi – sliced, raw fish
  • Shiso – a Japanese mint leaf that is used as decoration
  • Shiro Maguro – albacore tuna
  • Tai – red snapper or sea bream
  • Tako – octopus
  • Tamago – sweet egg omelet usually served as nigiri
  • Tatami – a traditional Japanese flooring that is made of bamboo. You may find Tatami rooms in a restaurant that would require the removal of shoes
  • Temaki – a cone-shaped hand roll
  • Tobiko – flying fish egg or roe that usually comes in orange color
  • Toro – belly fat/meat from maguro tuna. Not commonly on the menu, but people who know their sushi will order this as sashimi
  • Uni – sea urchin
  • Uzura – quail egg
  • Wasabi – Japanese horseradish found on every sushi plate

Useful Phrases

Here are some useful phrases you can use to impress your waiter or waitress.

  • Domo – “thank you”
  • Domo Arigato – “thank you very much”
  • Dozo – “please”
  • Hai – “yes”
  • Kampei – “cheers”. Said before drinking sake/alcohol
  • Konichiwa – “How are you?”