Part 3
By Noriko Takiguchi
In the US, many sushi places are huge and theatrical. One is Ozumo in San Francisco, which serves pretty good sushi, but the dramatic atmosphere is typically American. In Japan, sushi places are more private and personal. This is exactly why you wonder where you should sit when you step into a sushi restaurant.
I told you already that the counter is not for people who are novices in sushi eating. This is because the counter is where you see the chief chef eye-to-eye across the counter, so you should be ready to make most out of that location. If you sit there and just order something overwhelmingly ordinary like tuna rolls, you will not impress the chef or other knowledgeable customers.
Even deciding where to sit at the counter is important. If I were either new to the place or not knowledgeable about fish, I would not sit at the center of the counter because it is too much the center stage. Part of the Japanese manner is that you always accept little less than what is offered. Similarly, you can also enjoy "upgrading" yourself slowly from sitting at a table first, to end of the counter, and then some day at last to the counter center as you become comfortable with the chef at the restaurant and learn much about fish and sushi.
As you might know already, you can order sushi pieces one by one at the counter, whereas you would usually get a set plate at the table. You can ask for sushi a la carte also at the table, but you should do so maybe three or four kinds at a time (not one by one), so you will not trouble the chef too much.
Once you do sit at the counter, if you are a wise sushi eater you will first look to see what is in the glass case. You see what fish are in season, and find the best-looking fresh fish. Then you ask the chef for those fish in a meaningful order and at reasonable timing as the dinner proceeds.
Not Fish
I will talk about the myth (or non-myth) of the right order of sushi eating in my next lesson. First, though, I will look at the non-fish elements served at sushi restaurants, such as gari and tamago.
Gari is the pink sliced pickled ginger that comes with sushi. It is made of ginger with sweet vinegar. and has been served with fresh fish as long as Edo sushi has existed, maybe even longer. It is called gari because of the sound it makes in your mouth, "gari gari," a way of describing the sound of your teeth biting into a fiber-full substance.
Gari is served with sushi for two reasons. The older one is because ginger has sterilization effect, in case the fish is not completely fresh. In Edo era, it was very important that sushi stand had this kind of remedy for the customer, not so much for curing but preventing any future upsetting stomach.
The new reason is because gari has neutralizing effect on taste when your tongue becomes numb in eating series of fish. This helps you taste a new piece in a sensitive way.
The same reasoning applies to tamago (omelet) served at any sushi restaurant. The omelet, cut into small pieces, is made of eggs, fish broth, some mirin (sweet sake) and salt, and it is slightly sweet. After eating several pieces of sushi with soy sauce, you might want to pick up a piece of omelet and "reset" your tongue. You can order the omelet by itself or on a rice ball.
I hear many chefs now buy omelet at market. But the great chefs still create home-made omelet with their own broth. Many connoisseurs of sushi even say that it is the omelet, and not sushi itself, that determines the grade of a sushi restaurant. So, I suggest you never underestimate that tiny omelet. Noriko Takiguchi's blog
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