I love seeing everyone try to reason their way out of accepting a polite request that literally says that it's not mandatory.
The only one I really would avoid is passing things between or touching chopsticks together. This is reminiscent of Japanese funeral rituals and thus considered rude to do at the table.
The others are more about common sense and trying to help you enjoy the sushi as the chef intended:
- They are bite-sized pieces, designed as a flavour combination, so don't break them up in any way
- If you don't want rice, sashimi is a good way to get that
- Putting too much soy sauce on the rice can make it fall apart
- (real) Wasabi is delicate and mixing it with soy sauce will certainly destroy its subtle flavour. In any case in a high-end place the sushi chef will have added everything that's intended as part of the flavour combination before serving the sushi, so adding stuff is not necessary
But again, these are suggestions. Enjoy the sushi how you like, you're not hurting anyone.
Now in fairness we dont know how high end this Sushi place is, if its a place where your paying for the experience its more understandable but It does read a little bit passive agressive.
Bahaha fuck this I'll enjoy things as I please
"No sushi for you!"
I always find such guidelines strange. Like I get the intention is to share some experience, but I rarely find the intended way of anything enjoyable at all. Even western traditional etiquette is weird. I shall hold the fork in my right hand and you can't stop me aunty! My tea shall be hot juice! And my side shall be mixed with the sauce and meat into a big ol pile before consumption!
I switch my knife and fork as I need to use them, knife in right hand when I need to cut and fork in right hand to eat, that's all I know how to do 🤷
How the hell do i eat it in 30 seconds when it all arives at once?
That's not usually the case in a high-end sushi place. The chef will prepare your orders one by one and serve them out as soon as each is completed, so you will get one piece at a time.
I too am looking for the answer to this. Like are you supposed to eat the entire roll in 30 seconds? You're not even tasting it at that point. I'm hoping 30 seconds per piece.
The guide is probably specific to nigiri sushi, that's what is depicted at least. As the other commenter mentioned: in high end sushi restaurants, the chef will serve you individual pieces of nigiri sushi as you order them, so 30 seconds seems like a reasonable time limit in that context.
Nobody mixes wasabi with soy sauce. They mix horseradish paste that’s dyed green with soy sauce, because real wasabi is prohibitively expensive and most people have never actually had it, myself included.
Please shut the fuck up im trying to eat
Don't eat sushi, got it.
That’s basically how I’m reading this. And I follow that rule quite well.
I have never seen a sign saying I shouldn't cut spaghetti, shouldn't order pizza Hawaii, must split the potato with a fork, must have the knife in my right hand, or that the different cutlery for side dishes are mandatory.
Might be different in a high class restaurant, but whatever.
The only things signs in restaurants tell me is either "we only serve real meat, pussies can beat it" and "we did indeed pass the last inspection, here's the grossest looking cartoon implying we shouldn't have".
So ketchup on sushi is acceptable
I assume it's fine as long as you don't get any on the rice
Yeah I don't believe most of these are real "big taboos" and will continue eating food the way it is most tasty to do, regardless, thanks.
So am I supposed to flip the sushi over to dip the fish side in the soy sauce? That seems a bit awkward
All within 30 seconds after waiting 20 minutes to get a tray of 4.
It's actually culturally appropriate to eat sushi with your hands if you want, making the turn over dipping easier. The only reason they say not to dip the rice side is the worry that it'll soak up too much soy sauce and the fish flavor will be overpowered. But it's not that big a deal.
The passing food from one set of chopsticks to another is pretty strictly avoided in Japan though. They pass bones like that as part of funerary rites so it's pretty closely wired into Japanese people as a cultural taboo.
But yes, you're supposed to flip the nigiri 90+ degrees when dunking. It's why I usually just stick to the sashimi. 9/10 chance I drop the chunk in the sauce. Can't go wrong with that.
Wasabi and soy sauce one is a lie. You are also supposed to eat ginger before and after every dish
Yea I was like WTF. I went to Japan for work for several months and when the guys at Yokohama office took me eating sushi that's what they did.
Unless you hand me a soy sauce pipette i'll just dip the rice part in the soy sauce, thank you very much.
And wtf is tiny tiny rice?
What's with the wasabi and soy mixing? I saw someone do that recently for the first time. He looked very confident at it and I assumed i had been doing it wrong all this time. Why is mixing a thing suddenly?
Why is mixing a thing suddenly?
Definitely not new, people have been doing this since at least the 90s, when I was a kid.
I also know plenty of Japanese people who say dipping the rice lightly into soy sauce is the correct method, so take literally any "sushi etiquette" guide with a grain of salt.
Eat your food in whatever way brings you joy. Anyone that says otherwise is a pointlessly-gatekeeping idiot.
I like my sushi with ketchup
The proper authority has been notified.
Come at me bro! Ketchup is good with everything. And I'm willing to die on this hill. Name me one thing that is not better with ketchup and I'll tell you you're wrong.
It depends. In really high-end and authentic sushi restaurant, there is already wasabi between the fish and the rice. You are supposed to dip the fish side in the soy sauce only.
On the other hand, it's okay to mix the wasabi if the sushi is not prepared that way. People do this even in Japan.
People in Japan do it all the time. Ideally, the chef would get the proper amount of wasabi on everything and you wouldn't need/want to do it, but that is not always the case. It is generally looked on more favorably to dab some wasabi on each piece rather than mixing, though.
It's just personal preference.
I learnt it from a chef in Japan in 2009, and I assume he had been doing it for many years at that time.
Generally, that's something done at a sushi train restaurant where the dishes won't have wasabi in them already. I'm guessing these notes are for a sushi restaurant where the chef prepares the sushi specifically for each customer, so if you wanted wasabi they'd put it in the sushi itself.
I mix my wasabi and soy sauce every time. I also dip my sushi in this mixture rice-side down. I’ve never had anyone complain about this. If any sushi chef ever does complain I will just leave and never give business to that gas station again.
When I lived in Japan (around 15 years ago, so etiquette might have changed since then) it was common to take the fish off of the rice and dip it in soy sauce, then put it back on the rice bed in instances where it was just placed atop the rice. Likewise, it was perfectly fine to mix wasabi into your soy sauce.
I've done things that way since without any overt disdain, so I think these are generally good guidelines, but you can probably get away with doing some things your own way.
And why not chew it off? Is it like in church where you're not supposed to nibble your consecrated wafer?
I agree with the other things, though. And I feel like I'm supposed to repost the old "The Japanese Tradition" video on sushi: https://youtube.com/watch?v=bDL8yu34fz0 It's awesome. (And since satire doesn't always translate on the internet: It's a spoof.)
Sushi is supposed to be bite-sized. In my experience this is not always the case in practice, but the idea is that you should just pop the whole thing in your mouth.
And why not chew it off?
Last time I had sushi (about a week ago), I tried a place I'd never tried before. I ordered some sashimi and they were huge. If I'd eaten those in one bite each, it would have been like that game "chubby bunny". But then again I don't really know how authentic this particular sushi place was. Tasted great, though.
please do not chew off your sushi
Wow, the Japanese must have much bigger mouths than me
It's quite possible they simply make their sushi smaller, depending where you live. Americans tend to make things a size or two bigger than a lot of the rest of the world.
My question is...how do you eat it within 30 seconds? I get that this type of etiquette exists in many different cultures but while I have never eaten sushi, I don't exactly get how that one is even possible?
Don't mix wasabi with soy sauce? So... chuck it into your mouth like a gumball?
3 bucks for some extra wasabi and ginger?! That better be the real stuff for that price
Real wasabi is way more expensive than $3.
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