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In a Japanese restaurant
Appears in
Published 1984
As in Chinese, the Japanese word for a meal is the word for cooked rice. The first distinction made by Japanese diners-out (who are almost exclusively male) is they never drink sake (rice wine) and eat rice at the same time. Thus, though the tipsy Japanese businessmen at the next table in your local Japanese restaurant will probably eat a great deal more than you, they are not technically having a meal at all, but only drinking sake, as they will eat no rice.
Sake etiquette demands one small bottle of hot wine for each person. But you never fill your own cup. If it is empty you replenish the cups of everybody else from your bottle and hope that someone takes the hint. The cup must never be on the table when sake is poured, but held in the hand. Most Japanese drink whisky rather than sake, anyway.