This is how you eat sushi like a pro

The sushi slid from left to right across the plate and I poked at it with my chopsticks. The sadness, as if I had completely lost my chopstick coordination.

Sometimes it happens to me, but what turns out? You don't have to eat sushi with chopsticks at all. If you go for traditional, it should even be with your (washed) hands. Our neighbors from online food magazine FavorFlav also immediately explain what to do with that wasabi and how it should be with drinking sake.

Whether you eat your sushi with or without chopsticks, at the table or preferably upside down, in the end, you have to know for yourself. But for everyone who wants to take their ‘sushi career’ to a new height: here is the sushi etiquette.

Dipping

Perhaps the most common ‘mistake’: dipping your sushi in soy sauce. In principle, sushi is already ready-to-eat. But if you still want to dip it, it should be the other way around. You only lightly dip your fish (or other topping) in the soy sauce with nigiri. It is not the intention that you drown your sushi in soy sauce and have to refill your sauce every two pieces (oops, guilty). And it is certainly not the intention that you drink your bowl of soy sauce empty after eating (hello, FavorFlav editor-in-chief!).

Bite and go

I ate a so-called firecracker roll in the US: shrimp tempura, crab stick, white fish, salmon, spicy mayo, masago, tobiko, avocado, spring onion with ponzu sauce. This sushi roll was so big. Delicious, but a total no-go if you ask a real sushi chef. Sushi is actually a one-bite dish. Believe me: that really didn't work with this firecracker roll. Instead of the large, beautiful sushi roll with sometimes ten ingredients, we should actually keep sushi pure and simple.

Sake

Sake naturally belongs to it. In Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown Tokyo, the bad boy of food taught the sake etiquette. Lesson 1: before you take a sip of your sake or beer, always kanpai. That's cheers in Japanese. Lesson 2: also make sure everyone has a full glass first and then wait until one of your drinking buddies pours a drink for you. And since we're talking about sake: it's not customary in Japanese sushi restaurants to tip the sushi chef. Instead, you can treat him to a glass of sake.

Wasabi and ginger, where?

Mixing your wasabi with soy sauce until it turns green is not the intention. If you really want to do it right, you put a small dab of wasabi on each piece of sushi. As far as I'm concerned, a rule that can be broken. It's fiddly work, right? And by the time we each pick the wasabi off our sushi, we could have already had three. Dipped in soy sauce with wasabi, that is. With ginger, it is precisely not the intention that you throw it on top of your sushi. Ginger is meant to neutralize your taste. You eat it between two different types of sushi.

With or without chopsticks?

This is a bonus for everyone who is always struggling with chopsticks or shamelessly orders those kiddie chopsticks every time. It doesn't have to be. Traditionally, you eat sushi with your (clean!) hands. You pick up the sushi from the side, just like with chopsticks. But the risk of accidentally dropping it again is much smaller. Itadakimasu!