kabayaki; broiled eel or loach in soy-based sauce
A classic Japanese preparation: fish (typically eel or loach) is split, deboned, dipped in a sweet soy-based sauce, and broiled. Often served over rice as unadon or unajū.
I had kabayaki for dinner.
The sauce on the kabayaki at this restaurant is exquisite.
Standard kanji spelling for kabayaki.
Variant spelling with okurigana; also common.
Search-only form; not a standard written spelling.
One longstanding explanation derives the name from whole fish formerly skewered before broiling, whose shape resembled the flower spike of a cattail, 蒲.