4. Don’t drown your food in soy sauce. In North America we have
a tendency to overuse salt in our foods. Therefore it’s not uncommon
to find patrons in Japanese restaurants literally bathing (or drowning)
the delicate flavour of sashimi or sushi in a bowl of soy sauce. While
you can enjoy the same experience in Japan, you will find that in
more upscale Japanese restaurants, the chef is very hands-on. He
makes the sushi by hand, pl aces it on your plate by hand, you eat the
sushi by picking it up in your hand (not chopsticks) and…the chef will
advise which pieces of sushi are best eaten with soy sauce—which
are best eaten with ground ginger and which should be savoured with
no additives.
Even if the chef advises that soy sauce should be used, you carefully ‘kiss’ the sushi or sashimi with the
soy sauce to apply a thin layer and complement the flavour, resulting in what many refer to as “Umami”
(Pleasant savoury taste).
5. Don’t stick your chopsticks into your rice like two trees. This is a major
dining faux pas (or shitsugen) in Japan and other Asian countries where
chopsticks are stuck into a dish of rice at funerals. In between bites or at the end
of the meal, you can lay your chopsticks across the bowl or plate, or if chopstick
rests are provided (hashioki) then lay the tips of the chopsticks on the holders. If
you are using disposable chopsticks, simply lay them on top of the paper
wrapping from which they came.
6) Drink your miso soup from the bowl or cup. The ingredients in your miso
soup can be plucked out using chopsticks but then you should not start looking
around for the spoon. Just pick up the bowl or cup and drink the liquid broth.
7) Slurp! It’s absolutely ok to slurp your soup, slurp your noodles and anything else you wish.
Everyone around you will be doing it to inhale in all the flavours at the same time. Put aside your
parents’ warning ‘not to slurp’ your food. In Japan is perfectly acceptable.
A sign for the Butatama Ramen Restaurant…savour the flavour and get ready to slurp!