Sushi Etiquette

Sushi Etiquette
Traditionally when eating sushi one should dip the sushi topping-side down into the soy sauce to prevent the rice from soaking up too much sauce; leaving stray grains of rice floating in the sauce is considered uncouth, but can be hard to avoid for those who have difficulty with chopsticks. In sushi-only restaurants, it is acceptable to use fingers instead of chopsticks to eat the nigiri-zushi.

thumb|300px|left|Sushi Bar Etiquette Unlike sashimi, which is almost always eaten with chopsticks, nigirizushi is traditionally eaten with the fingers, even in formal settings. While it is commonly served on a small platter with a side dish for dipping, sushi can also be served in a bento, a box with small compartments that hold the various dishes of the meal. Soy sauce may be poured into a small sauce dish. While many people dip the rice side of nigirizushi into the soy sauce, traditional etiquette suggests that the sushi is turned over so that only the topping is dipped. This prevents the loosely packed rice from falling apart. If it is difficult to turn the sushi upside-down then one can baste the sushi in soy sauce using gari (sliced ginger) as a brush.

Mixing wasabi and soy sauce together in a side dish is the common practice when eating sashimi, however the traditional manner for eating sushi is to use only soy sauce to dip, because most sushi chefs include an amount of wasabi they consider to be appropriate to the sushi itself between the fish and rice. It is not uncommon for people to ignore the traditional sushi eating methods. It's quite common, but not traditional, to see people mixing large amounts of wasabi into their soy dish and dunking their rice ball straight into it. Traditional nigirizushi is made so that the entire piece can be consumed in one bite, and normally this is common method of eating it, although some chefs may include too much rice making it difficult for some people to fit an entire piece in their mouth, so that two bites or more must be