One Piece Left on the Plate. Nobody Will Touch It. Japan Has a Name for It.
To say Go on, don't hold back. in Japanese, say 遠慮なくどうぞ。 (enryo naku dōzo.).
There is one piece of karaage left and it will still be sitting there when the bill comes. Japan has a name for that piece.
In this video
- 遠慮なくどうぞ。 enryo naku dōzo. Go on, don't hold back.
- じゃあ、いただきます。 jā, itadakimasu. Well then, don't mind if I do.
Why this phrase
Kōfuku and Hana are two friends at a shared izakaya table, one piece of karaage left. Kōfuku's chopsticks hover, then retreat. Hana names the thing: 遠慮のかたまり, the lump of restraint, the last piece everybody wants and nobody will take. It's a real, dictionary-attested expression (added to 三省堂国語辞典 in 2021) but it's chiefly KANSAI; the Kantō counterpart is 関東の一つ残し, and the psychology differs: Kansai names the piece after the restraint that created it, Kantō leaves one on purpose so the plate is never empty. Frame it that way, never as one national term. The hidden rule is that the standoff only ends when somebody releases the table out loud, and the line that does it is 「遠慮なくどうぞ」. Hana plays the friend who knows the custom, Kōfuku the hungry foreigner about to lose the karaage to politeness. Reciprocal beat: 「じゃあ、いただきます」.
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