Slurp the soup
Break the etiquette rules. Eat sushi with your hands and drink soup with no implements.
Miss Manners might tsk-tsk, but the right way to eat miso soup is without a spoon.
I learned this in Tokyo, where my bowl arrived with no spoon beside it. When I asked for one, a woman at the next table gave me a grandmotherly smile, lifted her own bowl to her lips and tipped it, just slightly. No spoon required.
She was right. Sipped straight from the bowl, miso soup tastes better. Credit the scent. It rises to meet you on the way to your mouth, the same way a good wine does when you lift the glass.
The Japanese are a proper people. But when it comes to the table, they rank flavor above decorum. Which is how I learned, on that same trip, that I'd been eating nigiri sushi wrong for years.
Put the chopsticks down and use your fingers at SushiYama or Soji or Homakase. Dab a little wasabi on the nigiri. Then turn it over and gently drag it, fish side down, through the soy sauce. Keep the rice dry, for soaked rice drowns everything. Done right, the slight sweetness of the rice, the delicate raw fish and the tang and umami of the soy come together to a savory balance.
So here's the rule, courtesy of a grandmother in Tokyo: Taste first. Fussiness second.
—Mukul Verma
