Teriyaki is as common as pizza; sushi’s sold in convenience stores; ramen noodles are the staple of teenagers, undergraduates, and single guys. Noodle shops and bento lunches, once exotic, are commonplace in shopping malls. These popular Japanese-style foods are but small pieces of a much larger, richer cuisine as found in Seattle’s renowned full-menu Japanese restaurants. For years, they primarily served Japanese locals and tourists, not really catering to those unfamiliar with their food and customs.

Sakura 520 S Main St, 621-9717 Mon-Sat 11-3, Sun 5-9 D, Diner’s, JCB (Japanese Credit Bank), MC, V; beer, wine

Menus weren’t friendly to the uninformed. Some categories were left untranslated. In the columns of weird-sounding dishes and inscrutable courses, no easy outs like prix fixes meals could be found. What’s more, when the food arrived, it was accompanied by soup with no spoon, surrounded by tiny dishes of strong-tasting pickled things and bowls of mysterious sauces. Americans with low yuck thresholds feared they might unwittingly eat something gross.

Unfamiliar customs confounded the timid: Do I have to take off my shoes and sit on the floor in those little paper rooms? What if I do something wrong? Japanese places seemed approachable only to those who’d studied up, traveled in Japan, or had the chutzpah to go in and ask questions. Many stayed away. This has all changed.

“It had to change,” says Ray Lim, who manages Sakura, a gorgeous new restaurant and sushi bar in the International District. “There’s a much larger market, and we have to serve it to survive.”

Sakura’s Japanese owners hired Lim, who’s Chinese; Korean chef Kuma-san, former executive chef at the Westin Hotel’s prestigious Nikko (1900 Fifth, 322-4641); and two Japanese sushi chefs. Sakura tries to serve everybody: Asians with Western tastes, Americans with Asian tastes, Korean businessmen, Japanese travelers, neighborhood office workers, sushi fanatics.

Americans, Lim says, tend toward combination dinners while Japanese customers order little dishes from all over the menu. Sakura caters to both groups with a huge menu that includes barbecue, Korean specialties, sushi, salads, noodles, tempura, and traditional dinners like sukiyaki and shabu-shabu. Even the word “pasta” appears on his menu—a sign of the times.

Here’s a miniguide to some Japanese foods that’ll please even the most squeamish among us:

Shabu-shabu: Thinly sliced beef, tofu, mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, green onions, and leafy spring chrysanthemum are swished slightly, portion by portion, in soup stock boiling in a brass pot at the table. It’s eaten by dipping in special sauces made of miso paste, soy sauce, sesame seeds or nut paste, citron or lemon juice.

Soba: Thin buckwheat noodles eaten either hot in soup or as a cold dish with a dip. Minced green onions and other spices are used as condiments.

Udon: Thicker Japanese noodles made from wheat flour eaten like soba with a dip or in a soup with minced green onions and red peppers. Hot dishes are more popular than cold ones.

Donburi: A large bowl filled with rice is topped with meat or seafood.

Sukiyaki: Thin-sliced beef, various vegetables, and tofu cooked at the table in a shallow cast-iron pan, seasoned with soy sauce and sweet rice wine.

Tempura: Fresh seafood and vegetables dipped into a thin batter, deep-fried in vegetable oil, and served with dipping sauce.

Yakitori: Chicken and vegetables on bamboo skewers, dipped in a special barbecue soy sauce and grilled over a charcoal fire.

In most Seattle neighborhoods, there’s a proliferation of small, inexpensive, and authentic restaurants like Mori, in Greenwood (101 N 85th, 783-7708), and Orizuru, on University Way (124 University Wy NE, 632-6975 ), whose menus have English definitions and are divided into familiar categories like “Appetizers,” “Entr饳,” etc. Madison Park’s upscale Nishino (3130 E Madison, 322-5800) is edgy, innovative, and nationally renowned for artful seafood by chef Tatsu Nishino. It’s thoroughly Japanese, but the inexperienced are made comfortable with a European-style ࠬa carte menu. Another friendly feature is the option of omakase style, where you decide how much you want to spend and the chef picks the meal.

Typical of the misconceptions that scare off Americans is the common one about sushi, those handmade delectables of vinegared rice that come in endless varieties. Sushi inspires a cultish following, but many avoid it altogether because they confuse it with sashimi, which is raw fish. While many types of sushi include sashimi, many do not. The tentative can sample widely at a sushi bar by talking to the sushi chefs (who usually love to explain their fare), reading the menu, and by consulting the ubiquitous sushi “charts.” It’s worth the effort.

What about raw fish? Is it safe? The answer is yes—if it’s prepared by Japanese or someone using their strict methods and standards. Theirs is the most hygiene-conscious culture in the world; fish left over at the end of the day is routinely fed to the help or thrown out, which adds to the general priciness of Japanese restaurants, but ensures quality. Besides, old fish is impossible to hide when served raw. Fresh catch has only the faint but clean odor of the sea, never a fishy smell. Parasites, another potential problem, are easily avoided: Bottom fish, like cod, are never eaten raw, while others, like salmon, are frozen first to kill any dangerous critters.

And what do you do when handed a steaming bowl of miso soup with no spoon? Pick it up with one hand and sip. You can dip your chopsticks into the soup to pick up small chunks of tofu or seaweed. Slurping is a sign of a good appetite and eating with pleasure, and is encouraged. Make a reservation for a tatami room if the restaurant has one, especially if you’re with friends. These private paper-walled dining rooms cost nothing extra and are really fun. If taking your shoes off in public makes you nervous, get over it.