Good chefs are notoriously exacting about how a customer ought to experience a dish that may have taken months, years – or even the arc of an entire career – to perfect.
Gordon Ramsay will not serve ketchup. Marco Pierre White, as the apocryphal tale goes, ejected dozens of diners who asked for more salt or pepper. Alice Waters never accepted requests for items that were out of season.
And Philip Kim, a purveyor of sushi in northern British Columbia, has his own steadfast rule: no extra soy sauce.
“We never serve extra soy sauce, rude people, intoxicated people,” says a sign outside his Kitimat shop – with the first rule highlighted in bold red text.
In a social media post earlier this month meant to be the “last time we debate this”, Kim wrote that his edict was firm: “We never serve extra soy sauce – even if [a customer] offered to pay $1,000 for it.”
For Kim, whose Sushi J restaurant has operated for seven years, the decision is not one of cost. Instead, he said it reflected a theory about customer palettes, suggesting that “not a single person” who asked for extra soy sauce in the early years of his business ever became a regular.
“Why? Because they remembered the taste of my sushi as the taste of soy sauce, not the sushi itself,” he wrote. “Their personal food preferences deserve respect, but my responsibility is to serve my food the way it is meant to taste.”
Sushi has long been a culinary discipline defined by the search for perfectionism. That identity was buoyed by the Oscar-winning documentary, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, in which Sukiyabashi Jiro maintains fastidious control over his omakase meals – including exactly how much wasabi or soy sauce is used with each plate.
Kim admits he may lose customers who want more, but maintains they were unlikely to become loyal patrons in the future.
Some responded to the post saying they “couldn’t imagine being arrogant enough to tell my PAYING customers how they can and cannot eat the food that THEY paid for”.
Another wrote “this doesn’t encourage me to try your restaurant. A smile would get more customers.”
Others used the post as a chance to air their own culinary grievances, including a complaint about a sandwich chain whose owner “refuses to buy Parmesan cheese which I love on the Meatball subs”.
Danny Nunes, a writer for Northern BC Buzz, penned a satirical article about Kim’s decision, warning the move could push “desperate locals may resort to underground ‘soy sauce speakeasies’ where patrons can slip into dimly lit back rooms, whisper a password, and finally drown their spicy tuna rolls in forbidden salt water like their grandparents did”.
Nunes included an image with the words “No Soy Sauce For You’ alongside the stern ‘soup Nazi’ from Seinfeld.
Kim, who said the debate was “over”, added that he understood if the ruling had upset possible customers.
“But I also feel upset when my food is denied its identity. It leaves me in a bad mood for the rest of the day,” he wrote, adding there was a possible solution: “If you need extra soy sauce… visit another sushi restaurant.”
