In many Asian countries, there is a long-standing tradition of eating off of shared plates. Families will share a plate around a dinner table, restaurants will serve shared plates to their customers, and coworkers will order out for shared plates to partake of in the break room. This practice may be a little strange to most people in the United States, so our Bellevue Japanese restaurant offers the following tips:
When dining from a shared plate, you will generally have a personal plate upon which to serve yourself. There will often be either a large spoon or an oversized pair of serving chopsticks that can be used for this purpose. If no such utensil is provided, it’s not uncommon to serve yourself with your own chopsticks. When doing this, grab food out of the shared plate with the end of the sticks that you do not eat off of. Keep this in mind and be mindful of others, and you should be okay.