Chopstick Etiquette: The Do's and Dont's

Last week, we wrote a post on 5 customs you need to know before visiting Japan. This week, we decided to take it a step further and talk about the Japanese etiquette for using one of the most symbolic items of Asian cuisine: Chopsticks.

Seeing as how we own a Japanese restaurant, we always come across people who use their chopsticks in a very interesting ways.

That being said, here are some Do's and Don'ts for any of you that want to use chopsticks the real Japanese way.

1) Don't stick your chopsticks in your rice. This is how rice is offered to the spirit of a dead person, and is usually inappropriate for dining room tables.

2) Don't pass food from one chopsticks to another. Not only will this prevent you from making a mess, but this is reminiscent of a Japanese custom performed at funerals involving bones.

3) Don't take food from a communal plate with your own chopsticks. In Japan, this is considered to be very unsanitary. You should use the supplied serving utensils. If there aren't any, turn your chopsticks the other way and use the fat or unused ends to pick up the food.

4) When you aren't using your chopsticks, do set them at the front, next to the table’s edge, with the pointed ends towards the left. (as opposed to setting them on your plate/bowl).

5) Do use chopsticks to pick up pieces of food that are slightly too large to eat in one bite. Simply bite off what you can and then return the rest to your plate.

BeJeweled for Sushi Lovers

Video game heavyweights, THQ have recently launched a very cool Sushi themed game into the Apple App Store. Those with iPhones and iPod Touch are in for a treat as they can keep sushi on their mind and in their hands 24/7 with Chop Sushi.

The game is very similar to another classic, Bejeweled, where the player mixes jewels and diamonds to make rows of similar shapes. This time around they are matching up Sushi and Wasabi and the game play and graphics look pretty nice for a micro sized game.

Hopefully in the future they will add location based resources to find nearby Sushi restaurants based on the GPS in the iPhone. This will allow for calling ahead, making reservations and ordering takeout on a stroll downtown.

The app costs $2.99 but is well worth it for any sushi lover.

*We have contacted THQ about sending us some coupons for the app to give away on a Twitter and Blog contest –we will let you know as soon as we hear from them! :-)

5 Customs You NEED to know before visiting Japan.

If you are planning to visit Japan in the near future (or you are just fascinated by the customs of other countries) here are 5 Japanese customs you should be familiar with.

The Art of the Bow

Respect is and always has been an integral part of Japanese culture and society. From the moment children enter school (where they learn about it everyday), to the time they start a family, to the time they die, showing respect is ingrained into their everyday lives. That being said, one of the most important ways you can show someone respect in Japan, is by your bow.

Now, you might be asking yourself "Well, a bow is just a bow...right?". Well, if you are a tourist, as long as you make a good attempt at it (nodding your head or bending at the waist), that will usually suffice. However, when the citizens of Japan bow, they have to take a few more things into consideration.

For example, a friend might get a lightning-fast 30-degree bow; while a teacher (or office superior) might get a slow, 70 degree bow. It all about position and circumstance.

Dining Etiquette

Here are a few customs to take note of when dining in Japan:

- Before starting a meal, the Japanese say "itadakimasu", which is an expression of gratefulness for the food served. After eating, they say "gochisosama deshita", meaning “Thank you for the meal.”

- If you’re with a dinner party and receive drinks, wait before raising the glass to your lips. Everyone will be served, and someone will take the lead, make a speech, raise his drink, and yell “kampai!” (cheers).

- When drinking alcoholic beverages, it is customary to serve each other, rather than pouring your own beverage. Periodically check your friends' cups and refill their drinks if their cups are getting empty. Likewise, if someone wants to serve you more alcohol, you should quickly empty your glass and hold it towards that person.

- When eating soup, drink out of the bowl as if it were a cup, and fish out the solid food pieces with your chopsticks. Also, slurping noodles or making loud noises while eating is OK! In fact, slurping hot food like ramen is polite, to show you are enjoying it.

-Some restaurants provide an o-shibori, or damp hand towel, to wipe your hands before eating. Although you will see some men wipe their faces with them, women should only wipe their hands. When you're finished simply fold the towel and put it back on its tray.

Taking off your shoes

When entering someone's home, place of business, or hotel, it is customary to take your shoes off at the entrance (called the Genkan). Usually a rack will be provided to store your shoes, and a pair of guest slippers will be sitting nearby.

Also, never (and I mean NEVER) wear the slippers when you need to step onto a tatami mat (used in most Japanese homes and hotels). Tatami mats are wonderful, attractive floor coverings, but they are easily damaged if mistreated.

The toilet also has a special pair of slippers. However, don't forget to switch back to the house slippers when you leave the toilet. It is extremely bad form, for example, to reenter the main room of a house wearing slippers that have been running across dirty linoleum.

Tipping

Tipping is a common practice in the United States, as well as many other countries. When someone does a service for you (and does it well), your first inclination is to give them a nice tip. However, in Japan, there is no such thing as tipping, no matter what the situation is (cabs, restaurants, personal care etc...) What may surprise you even more is that, in Japan, to tip someone is actually a little insulting. You see, the services you’ve asked for are covered by the price given, so why pay more?

(FYI: If you are in a large area like Tokyo (and you don't speak any Japanese), a waiter or waitress might take the extra money you happen to leave, rather than deal with the awkward situation of explaining the concept of "no tipping" in broken English.)

Just try to keep reminding yourself: a price is a price.

Bathing

If you are living with (or visiting) a Japanese family or you plan on using the public baths, it is important that you pay special attention to this custom. In Japan, washing yourself is only a prelude to taking a bath. Japanese begin by soaping and scrubbing themselves before entering the tub (which is similar to a shower). The bath, or ofuro, is used only for soaking (which is considered the most relaxing part, and the heart of the bathing ritual.). So every evening, after getting squeaky clean, you can sit back and relax neck-deep in a bath of very hot water.

Have you been to Japan before? Have you seen these customs in action? Tell us about it in the comments section!

Saki Bomb! Saki Bomb! Saki Bomb!

Chances are, if you've ever been to a Japanese Restaurant/Sushi Bar, you've either done a Saki Bomb, or you've seen someone else do a Saki Bomb. At Ichiban, people order them all the time. However, there are times when people come in, want to do a Sake Bomb, but they don't know how. So for all you first time Saki Bombers, here is a step by step process on how to drink one correctly and enjoy it in the process, next time you visit us, or your local sushi restaurant. 

Step 1: Pour the beer in the Pint glass and the saki in the shot glass. 

 

Step 2: Place your chopsticks across the top of the pint glass so that they are about ½ inch apart, the approximate width of the shot glass.

Step 3: Place the shot glass on the chopsticks so that it rests above the middle of the glass. Each chopstick should be holding up one of the edges of the shot glass.

Step 4:With a big group of friends chant "sake...sake...sake...BOMB!", and slam the table with two balled fists, and watch the sake drop into the beer. Chug and enjoy. Repeat as necessary.

And there you have it! You are now an Ichiban Pro at doing a real Saki Bomb. Woohoo! So next time you come in with some friends and order a round of Saki bombs, you'll be able to show someone else (whose never done one) how take it like a champ!

Next time you do a Saki Bomb, take a picture or a video email it to us and we will post it on our blog!

What Do All Sushi Rolls Have In Common? Sushi Rice!!!

Did you know that there is a specific rice used for sushi? Do you know what sets it apart from your normal every day rice and how it stays together so well? Chances are probably not. So today's post is a tribute to one of the biggest staples of Japanese cuisine....sushi rice. 

Sushi rice is prepared with short-grain Japanese rice, which has a consistency that differs from long-grain strains such as those from India. The essential quality is its stickiness. Rice that is too sticky has a mushy texture. However, if not sticky enough, it feels dry. 

Freshly harvested rice usually has too much water, and requires extra time to drain the rice cooker after washing. Sushi is made with white, short-grained, Japanese rice mixed with a dressing made of rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and occasionally kombu and sake. It is usually cooled to room temperature before being used for a filling in a "sushi." In some japanese restaurants, short grain brown rice and wild rice are used as well.

There are regional variations in sushi rice and, of course, individual chefs have their own individual methods. However, most of the variations are in the rice vinegar dressing. The Tokyo version of the dressing commonly uses more salt; while in Osaka, the dressing has more sugar.

So there you have it. Now when you go to your favorite local sushi restaurant you can tell all your friends about the important "role" rice has in the process of making sushi.

Sayounara!

-Ichiban

Follow us on Twitter!

The road to our very first TweetUp.

These past few months have been amazing. You see, we've always wanted to find a way to start connecting with the Orlando community (online), but there has always been a few things against us. 

1) We aren't very tech savvy. Even though we knew we needed/wanted to start a blog, we didn't really know how or where to begin. Which blogging platform should we use? How do we design it so it looks good? What's the best way to promote it?  As for Twitter, what were we supposed to tweet about? How do we get followers? How do we reach people in Orlando? There was so much information online and so many choices, that it became very overwhelming. 

2) Time. As some of you may know, running an independent restaurant is very time consuming. So even though we knew that we needed to get the ball rolling on our online presence, we simply didn't have enough time to learn and/or do it ourselves. 

3) Finding the right help. We constantly get companies that come in and try to pitch us their services. Whether its SEO, Pay Per Click campaigns, or Social Media, we get at least 1 salesman a day coming in to "sell" us. As we mentioned before, we aren't the most tech savvy bunch, but we aren't stupid. The way these salesmen talked to us about their services, seemed like they were trying to dupe us. They thought that if they threw technical terms at us, we would automatically think they were credible and hire them on the spot. WRONG. Until we found someone we trusted, and was willing to explain everything in terms we understood, we would not be starting an online campaign. 

That's when we met the guys from Endagon Innovations (referred to us by one of our servers @andymcgrotha). After meeting with them a few times, we couldn't believe how different their approach was. They actually took out the time to listen to our goals, our expectations, and our qualms. Not only that, but they provided us with tons of articles, videos and websites about social media and SEO that explained it all in plain english. Woohoo! 

After meeting with Endagon a few more times, we finally felt comfortable getting the ball rolling on our social media initiative. We were sooo excited! :-)

One of the first things they had us do, was setup a Twitter account. They told us it would be a great way to start listening, learning, and sharing information, as well as an avenue to start getting to know some of the people in the Orlando community (something we've been wanting to do for a while). However, as we mentioned before, time was an issue for us, and we knew it would be hard to man the Twitter account ourselves. Understanding our dilemma, EI told us they would help us with it until we got our feet wet, and really had time to start doing it all ourselves. However, they made it clear how important it was for us to be fully involved in the process...so every week we meet and go over EVERYTHING (blog post ideas, contests to run, things we want to talk about on Twitter, articles we want to share etc...). So even though we aren't doing the actual tweeting, we are fully involved in what is being said/shared.

That being said, we've met so many new people on Twitter and have even found regulars we never knew tweeted before. Not only that, but the amount of support from the Twitter community has been AMAZING. 

MissyWard @orlandoichiban -- I'm totally addicted to your Candy Canes! 1:03 PM Jan 2nd from twhirl in reply to orlandoichiban

leebennett @orlandoichiban Next time I hear of friends thinking of sushi, I'll propose your spot

Then, out of nowhere, we got a tweet from one of our followers Ted Murphy from IZEA. 

tedmurphy @orlandoichiban You guys should host a lunchtime tweetup with a sushi special to bring in the downtown tweeps. I would go.. and help promote 2:53 PM Dec

What a great idea! But would people really come? After talking it over with Endagon as well as our other followers, we decided that this would be a great way to meet all of the people we had been tweeting with. Once we decided on the date and tweeted about it...we couldn't believe the response we got. 

- @NFiStudios will be at the @orlandoichiban tweet up! http://tinyurl.com/9mufoc

- @Social_Citizen is looking forward to the Tweetup this Tuesday at @orlandoichiban.

- @Bananakin - @orlandoichiban nice job on next week's tweetup... looking forward to it!

This was truly unbelievable. 

Now, a day after the Tweetup, we are so happy that we decided to it! We had a great turnout (around 16 people) and met so many amazing people from all around Orlando. It's safe to say that we will definitely be doing this again! 

So once again, thank you so much for all your support and for allowing us to get to know all of you amazing tweeple. We can't wait to keep learning and sharing with all of you, and hopefully meet even more of you at our next TweetUp. 

Before we go, we want to thank all the people that came to our first TweetUp. It was great meeting and getting to know all of you. 

So to all the tweeple that came:

@tedmurphy, @elizabethb, @megs15, @sterlingraphael, @loganlenz, @dustyowens, @elross, @social_citizen, @creativezing, @derekbender, @thomascox, @ericschechter, @dinotalesbykari, @liberatr and @brightgirl 

Thank you so much and we can't wait to see you again at the next one!

-Ichiban

Our First Tweet Up!

Konichiwa all you Sushi Loving Twitterholics!

There isn't a day that goes by (since we joined Twitter) that you haven't taught us something new and/or motivated us to keep listening, sharing, learning, and growing within the online community; and we can't tell you how much it means to us. Not only that...but we now have someone to talk to about sushi 24/7!  So THANK YOU!  

So to all the new people we've met on Twitter, and all the regulars we never knew were on Twitter (but we do now!) we want to show all of you our appreciation. On Tuesday, January 6th at 1:00 pm, we will be having our 1st Official TweetUp! So if you like sushi and love Tweeting, come enjoy 10% off your check just for being a Sushi loving Tweeter. Plus, we would love to meet all of the people we've been Tweeting with!

Also, the official tweet code for the event is #sushitweet for any of you tweeters that want to track the event

If you do plan on coming it would be great if you could leave a comment on this post and/or sign up for the event on Facebook, so we have an idea of on how many people plan on coming. We look forward to seeing all of you there!

Our address is:

19 S. Orange Ave. 

Orlando, Fl 32828

Click here for directions. 

We also want to give a quick thanks to Ted Murphy from IZEA and Endagon Innovations for giving us the inspiration to make this happen!