The Right Way (Gajyumaru)

Tonight, my friend M (in from Boston) graciously allowed me to drag him up to 86th & 1st (smack in the middle of the culinary wasteland that is the UES) for one of my very favorite sushi restaurants in the whole city, Gajyumaru.

I got my normal (ish) order: 2 pieces each of tuna and sea urchin, 1 piece of scallop, 1 avacado and eel roll, one half of a negitoro roll (fatty tuna and scallions - not pictured) and a huge amount of ginger (she brought me a whole separate dish of it).

The presentation is always great too - I think this is a new plate: that's a stone center - very cool looking.

In a recent entry in his blog, Frank Bruni asks the question about when it is appropriate to use one's fingers for food. I won't get into the philosophy of the question now (there are times when others don't, but I really do think fingers are the right answer - more on it some other day), but I did want to clarify something that had been mentioned in the comments on the proper way to eat sushi. The first thing is that it is in fact totally fine to eat sushi with fingers - not even the highest sticklers in Japan would raise an eyebrow. The next point though is that the best way to eat is to dip the fish (not the rice!) in the soy sauce (full sodium).

The easiest way to do it is grab the sushi long-wise and dip the fish and the bottom chipstick into the soy sauce. This totally solves the problem that many people seem to have of rice falling apart in the soy sauce (and allows the right part of the sushi (i.e., the fish) to be flavored with the wasabi/soy). Try it. You'll like it.