This is just a quick little note to save you from certain doom in case you end up at a sushi restaurant with no idea of what's going on.

We went to Made In Japan sushi restaurant, located at Rytířská 10, to carry out our educational experiment.  It's just around the corner from the old fruit market by Melantrichova, adjacent to Life Bar, down the street from Mustek metro exit and Jungmannovo Square.

Made in Japan has good prices, great service, and really tasty food that was fresh and well prepared.  The kitchen is open so you can see what's going on, too. 

For a basic overview: 

Life started in the oceans, generated a ton of green plants, swam around there for a while, then came up on land to check its email. The human body shows vestiges of all these periods -- remember we breathe liquid for the first nine months of our lives.

Anyway, you can recreate the process of evolution by eating a full meal at a sushi restaurant.  People may debate me on this but in any case, the japanese have the longest life expectancy on earth right now so check it out.

You start with miso soup, a salty collection of tofu and seaweed that's just like the primordial oceans we all came from.  One could live a long long time on nothing but miso soup, but for those of us who wish to take the longer road to enlightenment, we'll expand our focus and include some other dishes.

Don't forget to say "Oh! Miso horny!" at some point during the soup course.  This is not meant to disparage anyone's culture, it's just a funny pun.  Apologies in advance for any offense. 

Following the miso soup, take in some plant life.  Edamame is the classic starter, it's steamed soybeans served with salt and vinegar.  At Made in Japan they like to give you lots of little dishes with special sauces in them, such as flavored salt for dipping.  This is excellent treatment compared to what you find in take-out sushi joints in other cities -- a ragged pair of splintered chopsticks and styrofoam tray. Made in Japan treats people right so take a date and have fun with all the little dishes.

A warning about edamame: you are supposed to bite the sides of the green beans and only eat the little white soybeans inside.  The salt from the outside goes in your mouth with the beans from the inside to get all mixed up nice.  I tried eating the whole bean pod once.  After three seconds of chewing the fibers turned into sharp needles piercing my tongue like a thousand razor blades from the demon underworlds of rusted hell.  Don't do it.

Next up, raw fish!  This is where it gets hardcore for the uninitiated.  Sashimi is the word for a little slab of raw fish all by itself and it's the essence of a sushi experience.  You have a little tiny tray of soy sauce, you dip a corner of the fish in there, and you put it in your mouth.  Then say to yourself, "Now I know how to survive on a desert island." 

"Sushi" means a slab of fish arranged on top of or rolled up inside some rice.   Sometimes it's tied to the rice with a small strip of nori (seaweed) and accentuated with a tiny dab of hot green wasabi paste.  Sometimes it's a roll (see photo here) with other stuff inside. You can see some orange roe (fish eggs) on top of the avocado up front.  Crack those between your teeth to taste the ocean.

Note: if you are at a sushi restaurant and you absolutely revolt at the thought of eating any of it, order a California roll.  It's only avocado and cucumber with rice.  You'll be missing out on all the fun but then again not vomiting at the table is a considerate thing to do for your friends. 

Next photo below is the sushi boat.  Sashimi looks like the pieces of fish you see here, but without their rice-platforms.

Now, do you see that little tray on the left with something bright green in it?  That's your wasabi paste.  It's made from a root I think, sort of like horseradish.  It is so burning hot that it will instantly make your entire head become hollow then explode.  Next time you have a sinus infection, just eat wasabi and thank us for saving you money on nose tissues.

The nice thing is that it's not an oily hot.  Peppers such as the deadly habanero or jalapeno have oily hot from the seeds, and you can't get it out of your mouth.  You sit there dying in pain.  Wasabi is a very clean heat, it flares up like the fumes of an alcohol and then is gone.

In fact, that encapsulates the entire feel of a good meal of sushi -- clean!  There's no food coma, no uncomfortable stuffed belly, nothing bad about it at all.  Sushi is the best food to eat when you want to make out later without feeling like a drunk walrus stranded in a phone booth.

Sushi is a food to savor.  You will find a small pile of pickled ginger, that's the pink stuff.  Use a piece of this in between bites of fish to cleanse your palatte.  Yum.

A note about portions.  You may think that you're paying a lot of money for a small amount of food. 

The point is that it's the best quality nutrition you can get, and you will see how little of it you actually need to keep your body running.  In other words, "eat fish live longer."   You don't go to a sushi restaurant to break yourself on bread and potatos.

Now here's how to impress your japanese lover's parents.  (Besides knowing how to use chopsticks.)

When you pick up a piece of sushi like the ones you see above, flip it over and put it into your mouth with the fish side against your tongue.

Figure that for the people who invented this, they've tasted rice every single day of their life at every meal. 

You're here to taste the fish, so put it in your mouth that way.  It may take some jedi chopstick mind tricks to do this but it will be worth it.  Remember to lean forward so any escaping squishy fishies will land back on the plate and not down the cleavage of your dress.

Another hot topic is sake.  Sake is rice wine, plum wine, some type of wine.  Imagine that fingernail polish remover was kissed by Venus and transformed into a delicious liquid that you could drink and it would make you fly.  This is sake.

 It's roughly analagous to slivovice.  It's clear, powerful, sweet and burning at the same time, and you want to be careful with how many of those cute little cups you knock back.

 Sake can be served hot or cold.  In general, the smell should be flavorful like a memory of the fruit it came from.  If it burns your nose like rubbing alcohol, you're drinking cheap sake.  But by no means let that stop you!

Following the raw fish elements of the meal, you move on to tempura.  Tempura is fried stuff, fried vegetables, shrimp or pieces of chicken.  Sometimes beef.  It will be served with rice or possibly in a soup if you like to order that.  This is another safe bet for people who Do Not Eat Raw Fish.

Other cooked items on the standard sushi menu: soup!  Big giant bowls of hot steaming soup all jammed full of noodles.  There are soba noodles and udon noodles, buckwheat and rice derived.  I forget which is which but the point is they're long and thick noodles to keep your a** alive in the cold weather.  Udon noodle soup will kick chicken soup in the behind seven days a week.

You can usually get the soup, which is a whole meal by itself, with vegetables, chicken, etc.

More sake.  

I forget to mention a little custom with sake -- you never pour your own glass.  It's the responsibility of every person to watch their neighbors and to keep their glasses filled.  So, you can trick your friends and get them sauced on sake, but remember your glass is being watched as well...

To understand this, keep in mind the national motto in japan: "The nail that sticks up gets pounded down."  Therefore you do not pour your own sake, you wait and let the group self-adjust your intake levels.  Interesting.

Are we done yet?  Traditional dessert items are fresh fruit, symbolizing the diet of mammals and hunter-gatherer communities of intelligent beings on planet. 

Restaurants usually also serve red bean ice cream, green tea ice cream, or some out of context dessert like chocolate whatever.   Dessert is not really a sushi thing, in my mind.  

Grab a pot of tea and be on your way, that's more like it.

May Izanami and Izanagi bless you in your ways!