Nabe is a general term that describes “hot-pot” dishes where vegetables, meats and seafood are boiled up in the pot on your table.  It’s usually ordered for 2 or more people (as opposed to single-servings) and is cooked in the central pot.  Diners use ladles to dish the cooked ingredients and soup out to individual bowls before seasoning with soy or ponzu sauces before eating.  Nabe is particularly good to warm you up in Winter and comes in a variety of flavored soups, and pretty much any ingredient you can fit in a pot.

   Popular soup bases include “shio" (salt), “shoyu” (soy sauce), “miso” (bean paste), “tonyu” (soy milk) and “kimchi” (Korean spicy pickled cabbage).  Recently, tomato base soup and sichuan red pepper base soups are becoming popular too.

   Vegetable ingredients include “hakusai” (Chinese cabbage), welsh onion, mushrooms, “konbu" (a kind of kelp), “chikuwa” (bamboo rings), carrot, garland chrysanthemum, and lots of other things.
   Popular seafood ingredients include white fish and shellfish such as scallops and “asari" (short-necked clams), shrimp, and “nerimono” (sausage made from meat or fish)
   As for meat, thinly sliced pork or beef, small pieces of chicken, chicken-mince balls and sausages are all common and delicious.

   When all the ingredients are gone, noodles or rice are often added to the remaining soup as a final part of the meal.