I’ve been craving sushi all day because of this thread, too.
I have a visceral displeasure at seeing a perfectly nice piece of sushi or sashimi drowned in soy sauce.
All that careful selection and prep … for naught.
It’s rather like drowning an expensive steak in Catsup.
But still, it’s your steak, right?
It’s your sushi, right?
Do what you will.
My preferred sushi providers are Korean, so I know more Japanese than they do, and I know more about the lore of sushi than they do.
Big Woop.
Do what tastes good. It’s nice to maybe try it the way the guidelines suggest, but ultimately, it’s your food.
Just don’t waste the sushi rice.
The types of sushi in the US seem to be mainly nigiri(finger) and maki(roll), with the occasional gunkan maki available.
My preferred provider sports both *hakozushi(pressed)[.i] and chirashi(jewel box) as well.
If you’re smart, be nice to the staff, and they’ll “try stuff out” on you. My own sushi chef actually invented one for me, and had me name it: kanpeki na karai maguro hakozushi: they jsut call it “Perfect Spicy Roll.”
They’re trying to get me into Toro, though…I’m more of a hiromaguro person.
IF you really like some wasabi heat, try this little stunt.
get yourself a nice piece of nigiri, spread a thin little swipe of wasabi across the top, then get a lemon wedge and put a few drops of lemon juice on it.
Something about the lemon juice really cranks up to potency of the wasabi, I’m sure there is some chemical explanation for it but yikes. I prefer my sushi a little on the sweeter side so I’m not into wasabi much.
A buddy of mine does this now and then for kicks, we also go into thai places now and then and when they ask how hot he says “hurt me”. :eek:
Now I am going to have to wait till at least saturday before I can go get my sushi fix…AAARG, the pain.
$20 all you can eat sushi bars ROCK!!!
I usually dab a little wasabi on top of each roll, then dip it in soy sauce before each bite. With the pickled ginger I usually leave it on its own and alternate - bite of roll, nibble of ginger, repeat.
I do love wasabi. It’s like a quick slap in the face - stings, but only for a few seconds. Plus it tastes great!
And you gotta have sushi with green tea. Take a little sip after each piece you eat. It cleanses the palate and makes each subsequent piece taste as fresh as the first.
If you want sweet sushi, get a plate-full of nigiri: tamago and kani.
Seconded on the Green Tea: that or sake (hot) are the official beverages of sushi.
Yes, you can dip rolls in the soy sauce. If it has mayonaise in it, like some kani-maki, you probably shouldn’t dip, but you can if you want. You’re probably not going to get many glares if you do.
Like others have said, there are a lot of different styles of eating. Among my Japanese friends, some mix the wasabi in with the shoyu, others keep them pretty separate by partially mixing or dabbing on the piece before dipping in shoyu, others only have whatever wasabi is put on the piece by the chef.
At any place lower than a dedicated sushi shop, I mix a moderate amount of wasabi in and dip most pieces. At a nice place, I follow the chef’s instructions, which he almost always will provide, figuring that some instruction is nice for the gaijin. If it has a sauce on it already, I don’t dip it. I don’t eat with my hands, although it’s definitely acceptable, apparently – particularly for men. It’s easiest for me to take the fish off the top with my chopsticks, dip that, replace it on the rice, and then use my chopsticks to pop the whole piece in my mouth. Dipping rice-first is frowned on just because it ends up being messy as the shoyu makes the rice ball fall apart and you end up with saturated rice sludge in your dish. It’s not a horrible breach of etiquette, just kind of uncouth.
Really though, you can do whatever you want. Even if the chef is a new guy straight off the plane from Japan, he’ll probably just mentally shrug and think “clueless gaijin.” At worst he’ll offer a suggestion (translation: “Do it this way, baka!”) and your ignorance will decrease slightly.
Unless you smuggle ketchup in and try to put it on your unagi. Then he’ll de-bone you with that handy-dandy big-assed knife.
:eek:
<Sobs piteously at the thought of such a culinary atrocity>
Toro is one of the most expensive sushis you can buy - it’s the fatty part of the tuna and is really yummy - the most yummy is Otoro, which is the fattiest.
The whole roll thing is not considered sushi in Japan, it is onigiri - picnic food like a sandwich. Sushi traditionally was expensive special occassion food.
I lived in the very traditional north of Japan for 7 years in a fishing village.
oh and the ginger is to clean your palate between sushis
Not really, no more than using too much black pepper implies the same thing for the same reason. It’s archaic enough to have lost the association.
People like to read a lot of mystical stuff into sushi custom but there’s really nothing to it. I have eaten at plenty of sushi shops all over Japan and I can
assure you that the Japanese eat it any number of different ways. Eat it with your fingers or chopsticks if you like. Smother with wasabi if you like. Dip it in soy sauce if you like (but be careful here, because this is a good way to cause the sticky rice to fall apart).
One tradition that is definitely true is the tradition of gobbling a whole roll, while facing south, on the day of spring *setsubun * for good luck.
As an afterthought, I should add that sushi chefs can be as anal as any chef anywhere… meaning that some of them take great care to season the product in a particular way, and would like you to enjoy it as they’ve seasoned it. If that’s the case, they’ll generally tell you. If not, just keep in mind that drowning it in condiments might be masking some really good flavor. But it’s your choice, and none is less “Japanese” than another.
I really hate it when gaijin start going off about what is the most “Japanese” way to do things because generally it’s either something that can’t really be generalized or is just exaggerated hearsay from other gaijin. :rolleyes:
I discovered the secret code for getting food as hot as I want it at Thai places is to say “Thai hot.” Merely “very hot” or even “as hot as it gets” will not do. Unless I’m a regular, I’m guessing most Thai places simply think I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. If, after you say “Thai hot,” they furrow their brow and ask “are you sure?” you know you’re in the right place. I don’t order all my dishes this way, but gai pad gaprao (Thai holy basil chicken) is best enjoyed, for me, nuclear strength.
I’ve never heard that before. Which part of Japan is that from?
Several studies have demonstrated that Wasabi (real wasabi, not green dyed horseradish) can kill parasites that are sometimes associated with raw fish.
This is big time true, and I am sometimes denied “Thai Hot”. I only convince the hostess about 1/3 times that I know what I am doing.
They often refuse to serve me Thai hot, and I am sometime denied Asian Hot.
I’ve heard people from all over Japan talk about it, so I reckon it’s everywhere.
I have been witness to an even more, shall we say, provocative approach…
Six of us, all from NYC and in our mid-twenties, found ourselves about an hour’s travel deep into central New Jersey (i.e., The Sticks). We passed through a little downtown area (some restaurants and shops clustered around a train station depot) and went into a Thai restaurant for dinner that still had “Grand Opening” banners on the outside.
The menu was pretty typical, with some of the dishes highlighted in red for “spicy”, and some of those further annotated with little chili pepper graphics next to them (1, 2 and up to 3 chilis).
One of my party ordered one of the “3 chili” dishes, and the server started into a little warning speech about how spicy he might find it. He interrupted her with a dismissive wave of his hand that seemed to encompass the entire town: “Oh, come on. We’re from NEW YORK CITY. I doubt even your spiciest dish is going to be all that hot to us.”
Now I reckon myself a fire-lover when it comes to Thai food, but I caught the look on her face when he said this, and shuddered.
It was the spiciest food I have EVER eaten.
When we asked for the check, the waitress sweetly asked my friend, “The Challenger”: “So, was it spicy enough?”
“Yesh. Shank You. Delishush.”
We got the leftovers to go in a styrofoam box. The Challenger said when he took it out the next day, the food had dissolved it halfway through to the other side.
Moved to CS.
-xash
General Questions Moderator
I don’t know of a reason why you can’t dip your rolls into the soy sauce. I actually prefer a light dip and then I flip it over before eating. That way, the soy sauce spreads down and through the roll before it hits your mouth.
I eat sushi with my fingers and not my chopsticks and although I understand that to be perfectly acceptable I have yet to see another person do the same. I’ve never been to Japan so my sushi experiences are confined to the United States.
I will lightly dab the rice corner into the soy souce but I’ve yet to lose any rice during the process. A little bit of soy goes a long way so I just barely dab the corner before popping the whole thing into my mouth. If the chef puts wasabi in the roll then that’s fine with me but I don’t put wasabi on anything of my own volition. If you like wasabi, knock yourself out.
Marc