Download the Eat Sheet: Japanese PDF.

It wasn’t that long ago that the idea of eating raw fish sent shivers down the spines of many Americans. Now, of course, you can find tuna rolls in corporate cafeterias and see chic schoolchildren in New York and San Francisco toting bento boxes for lunch.

Yet while Japanese food is commonplace in the U.S., many people aren’t any closer to eating it properly, or looking beyond the obvious dishes. After all, there’s a lot more to the cuisine than Benihana and Sushi-A-Go-Go. And understanding the terrain is important for anyone who wants to navigate the shoals of the global market—or simply impress the neighborhood food snob.

Whether you’re in Kyoto or in Cleveland, properly appreciating Japanese food means paying attention to the details. We asked three experts in New York—Hiro Nishida, president of Megu restaurants; Jungjin Park, owner of Rosanjin Tribeca; and Shin Tsujimura, executive sushi chef at Nobu Next Door—to give us a primer.

Selecting sushi. Though sushi is considered elegant in the U.S., many Japanese think of it as casual, humble comfort food. But that shouldn’t prevent you from ordering sushi with care. Start with the lighter stuff such as whitefish, and work your way up to richer-tasting sushi, like clam or fatty tuna. You might explore variations on a theme; rather than ordering tekka maki (tuna roll) yet again, try sushi made with chutoro (medium-fat tuna belly), kihada (yellowfin tuna), or, some connoisseurs’ favorite, otoro (fatty belly). Letting the sushi chef select your meal is called omakase; it acknowledges his or her mastery and ensures that you get the day’s best choice. (It’s bad form to ask for substitutions, even if you’re served a “challenging” piece such as uni—sea urchin.) In Japan, don’t order a California or Philadelphia roll at better sushi joints; they’re American inventions, and some don’t regard it as “real” sushi.

Be soy savvy. It’s considered crude to fill your soy sauce dish to the brim; pour just enough to cover the bottom. Dip the fish, not the rice, by flipping your sushi upside down. This action is easier to perform with fingers—also a mark of a sushi connoisseur. Eat each piece in one bite.

Handling the hot stuff. That dab of green putty on your sushi plate is made from the root of a plant found on Japanese riverbeds. Or it would be if it were genuine wasabi. Real wasabi root is expensive, so almost all U.S. and most Japanese sushi restaurants use a paste of horseradish, mustard seeds, and food coloring. Restaurants that offer real wasabi will grate it at the table upon request, but most believe the amount already placed in the sushi is adequate. If you must use wasabi, apply it sparingly to the fish; never stir it into the soy sauce. The condiment’s “cooling” properties are supposed to wash over your mouth after you’ve tasted the flavor of the fish.

Eat gingerly. The thinly sliced pickled ginger, or gari, is meant to cleanse the palate after you sample each type of sushi. Eat a slice between bites, not draped over your sushi or tossed into the soy sauce. Fresh gari is pale pink or even yellowish (red or hot pink gari has probably been treated with a preservative).

Understand kaiseki. If you’re embarking on a business relationship in Japan, you’ll likely celebrate with a kaiseki, a formal dinner that grew out of the traditional tea ceremony. A kaiseki can last two hours or more and traditionally features an eight-course series of small plates of seasonal vegetables, broths, egg custard, and the like. Kaiseki courses strive to be “not too delicious,” according to Park, because a diner is supposed to appreciate the subtle differences between each one—a bland dish has to be seen in the context of overarching flavor, texture, and ingredient themes. Needless to say, this is not the time to ask for extra soy sauce.

Dump the decor. A snazzy interior design might appeal to American diners, but it can have the opposite effect on serious eaters from Japan, where glitz is seen as a distraction from the food. Some of the best restaurants in Japan have unremarkable interiors and nondescript or even shabby storefronts.

Leave room for izakaya. Now take everything we’ve said about Japanese food and toss it. On your second or third time out with Japanese business executives, you’ll likely end up eating at an izakaya—a rowdy version of an American diner—after a more formal meal. “There are no rules in an izakaya—that’s the point,” says Tsujimura. You can order a wide array of food, from toasted riceballs to okonomiyaki (a savory pancake-omelet, drenched in mayonnaise and Japanese barbecue sauce, that tastes better than it sounds). But the food is not the main attraction—alcohol is. Never pour your own glass of beer or sake. Instead, ask someone else to fill your cup and then offer to pour theirs. An empty glass represents opportunity—leave it to the Japanese to turn the old “half empty or half full” chestnut into a ritual.