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The Lantern wrote
How to survive sushi
Erin Pompili
4/4/07
The first time I went to a sushi bar, I did everything wrong. I sat at a table, was scared of wasabi and did not order nearly enough rolls, thus forcing a follow-up trip to Taco Bell. The more I went out for sushi, however, the more comfortable I felt ordering eel, using chopsticks and mixing wasabi into my soy sauce.
With an increase in sushi restaurants comes an increase of first-time sushi experiences. Many college students who swore they would never eat raw fish are finding themselves sitting in a booth and wondering what they should do with the unidentifiable lump of green paste sitting on their plate. To cut back on the confusion, here is a guide to surviving your first sushi experience.
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The Lantern’s Guide to Surviving Sushi
By: Walker
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Just had some poke in Hawaii a few months back. Man oh man, was that good stuff.
I realize I was far too abrupt about sushi in Columbus earlier. I didn’t mean to imply that there isn’t good fresh fish around — just that a tuna is a really big fish that comes from really far away and is pretty hard to keep at peak freshness for long, and that if the tuna is the least bit less-than-fresh, preparing it as tartar makes that fact awfully hard to hide… so I have to suspect that Columbus restaurants are automatically at a hellish disadvantage when it comes to serving it. If they can make it, and make it top-notch, that’s terrific, but it’s certainly not their comparative advantage.
Just had some poke in Hawaii a few months back. Man oh man, was that good stuff.
I realize I was far too abrupt about sushi in Columbus earlier. I didn’t mean to imply that there isn’t good fresh fish around — just that a tuna is a really big fish that comes from really far away and is pretty hard to keep at peak freshness for long, and that if the tuna is the least bit less-than-fresh, preparing it as tartar makes that fact awfully hard to hide… so I have to suspect that Columbus restaurants are automatically at a hellish disadvantage when it comes to serving it. If they can make it, and make it top-notch, that’s terrific, but it’s certainly not their comparative advantage.
I am in complete agreement. This is why I am asking.
As shipping gets faster and cheaper, places located far away from the ocean will be able to serve fresher and fresher ocean fish. Sort of goes against eating locally, but by comparison to 100 years ago, you couldn’t get tuna in Columbus any other way than tinned, I’d imagine. ;)
Similarly, I find it amusing that the Ruth Chris chain wanted to expand their seafood offerings, so they bought out a smaller Columbus-based fish chain with plans to expand it across the country.
I don’t think it’s going to get cheaper any time soon.
I can only hope that someday our tuna can right a mag-lev high-speed rail system straight into our mouths.
I don’t think it’s going to get cheaper any time soon.
+1
Such as? I didn’t know there was an etiquette to chopsticks. Please help a well-meaning gaijin. I like sushi and I’d hate to think that I was offending someone with my clumsiness.
Such as? I didn’t know there was an etiquette to chopsticks. Please help a well-meaning gaijin. I like sushi and I’d hate to think that I was offending someone with my clumsiness.
Someone who gets offended by a chopsticks newbie deserves to be offended.
[quote="hazy stars"]
Does anyone know of a killer place to get some super fresh, unadulterated Tuna TarTar?
Unadulterated as in to eat at home and prep yourself? Or not overdone up with weird sauces and such in a restaurant? If the latter, I recommend Lindey’s in GV (comes with wasabi and gaufrettes) and Elevator (I don’t remember how they prepped it, I just remember I loved it.)
Wikipedia has a good start on some of the more common etiquette stuff.
Given the source, I’m sure there’s other things that aren’t listed here, or are stated differently elsewhere – but that’s also kind of how etiquette works sometimes.
I think the most common things people do that aren’t so great are sticking chopsticks upright in a bowl of food, moving bowls/plates around with them, and crossing them.
Twice, apparently.
It’s funny, I wasn’t so much making a locavore argument, though that’s what one might reasonably expect. It was a little more abstract than that — more like eating food that’s in season because it just feels right for the season. Big red strawberries and ripe tomatoes are part of the experience of summertime. Given the existence of a southern hemisphere and transportation and so on you can get them in the dead of winter, and we’ve become very accustomed to doing so, but something about it is a little incongruous, you know? Not necessarily environmentally (though there is that) or nutritionally but, I guess, aesthetically.
So by the same token, tuna tartar in Columbus is one of those things that can be done, and if, like Hazy, you’re craving it and nothing else will satisfy that craving, Tony Miller and his Hawaiian fisherman are a Godsend and she should walk back in the kitchen and give him a big ol’ hug for making it all possible when she’s done with the meal. I don’t mean to imply in the least that I wouldn’t order Tony’s tuna because it wouldn’t be good — the food that I’ve had at Latitude has been excellent, and I suspect he wouldn’t serve it if it weren’t. But I probably wouldn’t order it for the same reason I wouldn’t order gazpacho in winter — it’s just… odd. That’s all.
So not a locavore argument so much as a “when in Rome” argument, I guess. :)
Edit — that said, it occurs to me that I did just enjoy gator jambalaya last night — :oops: — but in my defense I ordered it after Henry Butcher had assured us that it was very, very fresh gator….
I’m not a chopstick newbie, but I’m still interested in learning if I’m doing something obscene with my chopsticks. Mae, do you care to enlighten?
Digging deeper from the Wiki link above, this page is a nice collection, with the lists being actually built from polls on a Japanese site. I think it’s funny to see the difference in what people consider rules that should not be broken vs. what they most often point-out in others.
Of course, this is only for Japanese culture…
Huh. I admit to resting chopsticks across dishes. I’ll try to cut that out. I also admit to spearing food, but only as a last resort. Some of them Asian foods is slippery!
I was under the impression, based on personally observed eating habits, that it was okay to hold a bowl of rice near my mouth for ease of eating. Maybe it’s the “shovelling” part that makes it rude.
Licking, sucking, biting, and chewing the ends of your chopsticks are considered lascivious. I have pointed this out to a few friends who were just trying to get that last grain of rice.
The articles that shroud pointed out were great for listing the most common mistakes. However, Japanese etiquette is quite complex (like the Japanese language, there is a hierarchy of politeness) and some of the things they listed as examples of poor manners would be perfectly okay in a casual setting. For example, resting your chopsticks side-to-side across your bowl is okay in a restaurant if they did not provide you with a chopstick rest. You can also make a chopstick rest out of the paper sheath that the waribashi (disposable chopsticks) come in.
The Japanese people I know don’t take offense at poor manners, they just see it as what it is: a marker of ignorance. They will patiently tutor you in the correct way to say or do things. What is offensive is when someone neither knows nor cares to learn.
I do the resting chopsticks on the rice/soup bowl thing all the time, and it would seem that everyone else does it too. I think if you’re not supposed to do it, your host or hostess will provide you with a neat little holder. Generally that’s how these things work as far as I can tell.
The Japanese people I know don’t take offense at poor manners, they just see it as what it is: a marker of ignorance. They will patiently tutor you in the correct way to say or do things. What is offensive is when someone neither knows nor cares to learn.
I’ve used chopsticks since I was a teenager (self taught), but about 10 years ago during dinner I had a Japanese friend take my hand and rearrange my fingers for me.. Since then I get comments on how well I use chopsticks. Kinda weird.