What are the differences between Japanese and Chinese Cuisine?
Lots of things: Chinese cuisine likes to mix things together (stir fries, sechuan chicken, etc) and serves each different dish in succession. Often there will be only one dish of food at the table at a time and everyone will share. Chinese food uses a lot of oil (all that frying), and a lot of sweetening. Chinese food also makes a lot of use of more “exotic” ingredients, like coconut and bat, has more meat than Japanese food (though less seafood). Chinese noodles tend to be thinner and firmer than the Japanese. For spicing, the chinese use ginger, and peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves, fennel, anise–the “five spices”. Japanese cuisine keeps everything very separated when it’s served, even something like noodles and tempura with soy sauce will have the soy sauce in a dipping dish, the noodles on one plate and the tempura on another, and then things are combined, mixed, or dipped only as you eat them (this has changed somewhat in the past two decades as more chinese and korean style foods a
