Things You Can and Cannot Do With Sushi
According to a top sushi chef in New York, eating sushi the proper way may present some problems to those who are unaccustomed to the delicacy. In fact, even die-hard sushi lovers may be doing it all wrong. Top chef gives some helpful tips to enjoying the famous dish anywhere you find it in the world.
If it’s easier for you, eat sushi with the fingers. Sounds uncouth but picking up the sushi with your bare hands – in an upscale sushi restaurant no less – is totally acceptable. Chopsticks are also permissible, whether it’s rolls, nigiri or sashimi. The benefit of using your hands is that a better grip of the sushi is more plausible; you can have more control when you dip your sushi into your soy sauce.
Nigiri, sushi with usually a thin slice of raw fish on top of rice, is eaten with chopsticks. And the best manner is to first turn the nigiri on its side, and then pick it up so that one chopstick is holding the fish side and the other is holding the rice side. This way the nigiri will stay in one piece and the rice won’t fall apart.
There’s etiquette of using soy sauce. You don’t ruin the balance of flavors by over dipping. Chefs try to give you the perfect balance to enhance the flavors of the fish and the texture of the rice. So don’t douse your sushi in soy sauce. You have to trust the chef.
If you have to add soy sauce to your sushi roll, do so by gently touching the nori or seaweed on your roll to the sauce. Sometimes, people dip the rice part of the roll into the soy sauce and that can result in saturating the roll with soy sauce. So remember to dip the seaweed part of your sushi into the soy sauce, not the rice.
Usually, nigiri is served brushed with some sort of sauce. You mustn’t be adding any additional soy sauce to the nigiri served by your chef. Did you know there’s a reason chefs put sauce on your sushi, and adding soy sauce to it can detract from the flavor they were hoping you would experience.
You can mix a small portion of wasabi into your soy sauce, if in case you can only tolerate wasabi in small doses. However, if you’re eating sashimi you can put a bit of wasabi directly onto the fish.
Finally, use ginger as a palate cleanser. Chefs put ginger on the side of your sushi plate and it’s not for decoration. It serves as a palate cleanser when eaten in between different kinds of sushi rolls.
Sushi Restaurant in Bellevue
Want to know more how you can enjoy sushi best? Then let our chef at Flo tell you. Just drop by your favorite Japanese restaurant and enjoy one of the best sushi selections in Bellevue.