How to Enjoy Eating Sushi

Eat Sushi Correctly

• The waiter will give you your order along with some green paste, some thinly sliced pink stuff and a bottle of dark mysterious liquid. The dark liquid is soy sauce, which is essential to eating sushi. However, the sushi should not be soaked in soy sauce or the rice will fall apart; the soy is meant to complement, not overwhelm, the flavor of the sushi. With your sushi will be a small dish where you can pour the soy sauce and use it for dipping. Pour as much as you think you will need, keeping in mind that you can always add more. It is poor form to fill the dish like a wading pool.

  The green paste is wasabi, or Japanese horseradish. Grown only in Japan, finely grated wasabi is pungent and guaranteed to clear your sinuses. Because fresh wasabi is expensive, cheaper powder and paste alternatives are often used. Many people mix some wasabi into their soy sauce, but this is only proper with sashimi and maki sushi. Even though wasabi is given for nigiri sushi, it is not traditionally used. If you aren't sitting at the bar, feel free to use wasabi to suit your own tastes--out of the chef's view. The most important thing to know about wasabi is that it is very hot and very spicy.Try a tiny dab to feel it out.

  Gari, or pickled ginger root, is the thinly sliced pink stuff. Used to freshen the mouth between bites of sushi, pickled ginger root comes in numerous small and incredibly thin slices. It is eaten with chopsticks, or hashi, and is for cleansing your palate between different types of sushi.

  The standard protocol in America is to start a meal with miso soup, a clear broth with floating kelp and tofu. From there, your taste buds will enjoy some assorted sashimi (the fish pieces without the rice). But first, place some wasabi in the soy dish, but be moderate; you are paying for the taste of the fish or topping, not the taste of the wasabi. Then it's time to move on to the sushi: While there is no specific order for eating the various kinds of sushi, you might want to eat maki first, since the crispness of the seaweed does not last long after touching the damp rice. Before the nigiri sushi is eaten, the soy dish should be changed.

  While maki sushi and sashimi require chopsticks, nigiri sushi should be eaten with your hands. Grip the sushi from the top, then flip it so that the rice is on top. Dip only the topping into the soy sauce, and always place the sushi in your mouth so the topping meets the tongue first. You're not eating hot dogs at the ballgame; sushi is far more expensive, and should be savored as a delicacy.

  Some restaurants may have you finish the meal with a bowl of miso soup, rather than serving it at the beginning of your dining experience.

  Many people like to eat off one another's plates when having sushi. When you pick something up from a friend's dish, make sure to turn the chopsticks around and use the back end, not the end you ate from. Even if you are uncoordinated, you should try to use chopsticks when eating sushi. A fork and knife will seldom be found at a sushi bar, and even if they are, using them is akin to saying the meat is tough. You don't want to insult the chef, so go with your hands if you have to.