Japanese Sashimi
Sashimi is a slice of fresh seafood usually served together with soy sauce (dipping sauce), green paste wasabi and shredded radish and carrot. Sashimi literally means "pierced body" an it is said that the word came from traditional way of sticking fish's fin to slice their meat to prepare sashimi. Unless the fish is being sliced immediately, it is important to place the fish in ice to keep them fresh without being degraded. Sashimi is often confused as a part of sushi, but sashimi is easier to prepare by basically slicing the fish in raw meat. Meanwhile, sushi comes with vinegared rice topped by raw fish and sometimes cooked fish or other ingredients.
Sashimi is usually a part of Japanese course dishes and any Japanese people eat sashimi as a main dish of dinner together with rice bowl and miso soup. in general, sashimi is dipped into soy sauce often mixed with wasabi to eat. Wasabi not only add hot flavor to sashimi, but also kill hazardous bacteria present in raw fish to prevent potential food poisoning. The most popular sashimi in Japan is tuna and other popular sashimi are octopus, salmon, squid, yellow tails and puffer fish. Octopus is sometimes cooked a bit enough to make it chewy. Puffer fish sashimi known as "fugusashi" is one of the most expensive sashimi needs to be prepared carefully by experts as it contains Tetrodotoxin, a life threatening poison. Sashimi also comes well with a night time alcohol such as beer and Japanese sake.
Freshness is very important in Japanese sashimi and ikezukuri is the most fresh sashimi. Ikezukuri literally means "prepared alive" and sashimi is prepared from a living fish. Some prestigious Japanese restaurants have a bf transparent fish tank and customers can pick living fish and slice their meats while fish is still alive and moving. One of the most popular ikezukuri is called Odori ebi which literally means dancing shrimp. Live shrimp is quickly dipped into Japanese sake to kill bacteria and customers eat them which can still move around in the mouth. I went to the traditional Japanese restaurant with our expatriate boss and he really loved Odori ebi although he was really scared for the first time. He eventually took his girl friend to the restaurant and keep asking her to try Odori Ebi, but apparently she thought it was disgusting and they didn't become romantic that night. 
