sushi newbie - educate me, please
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Anonymous
| I have tried california rolls and liked them very much. I love fish and am an adventurous eater. I think I would like sushi, but spouse does not eat it and I never know what to order so I wind up just getting teryaki or other non-sushi items. Can you recommend a "beginner" sushi variety for me to order at a restaurant. Also, I would appreciate any tips for "how" to eat it (is it customary to dip it in soy sauce, do I eat it all in one bite, etc.). Thank you. |
Anonymous
| Get some rolls. Tuna roll would be a good start. Eat each piece of the roll on one bite. You can dip it in soy sauce. |
Anonymous
| Make sure to dip it in wasabe (just a little of the green paste, very hot!) and eat some shredded ginger with it. And good quality sake. |
Anonymous
| My suggestion would be to try a variety platter at Wegman's or Whole Foods. Wegman's definitely has many choices so that you can try a variety of rolls and nigiri (thin slice of raw fish on top of rice). I just started eating sushi a couple years ago and I love it. |
Anonymous
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Do you have any friends who like sushi or have tried it that you can go to a restaurant with?
As someone who lived in Japan, I'd hate for you to eat supermarket sushi, which is pretty much the least tasty sushi. I think I have a better idea: go to a decent sushi place (look on Yelp and find one that's well rated) and sit at the counter, NOT a table (almost all legit sushi places have a counter). Ask the sushi chef to make you a few things that a beginner might like -- nothing too adventurous. I'll bet you'll be pleasantly surprised and you will get a cool first-hand glimpse at how sushi is made. |
Anonymous
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Completely agree with 21:58. Stay out of the grocery stores. (That stuff is made by machine, and who knows how long it's been there. You're never going to learn and enjoy fresh fish that way.) Take a friend, sit at the sushi bar, get to know the chef, buy him a beer, eat and learn.
Basic rolls are a good way to start. In addition to tuna rolls, try hamachi (yellowtail), spicy tuna, salmon skin, and unagi (freshwater eel) with cucumber and/or avocado. Then you can branch out. Also, try the tamago (sweet omelet). It's the easiest thing on the menu. I like it as dessert. But it's also a good test. If you've never been to a place before, try that first. If they screw up the egg, it's a sign you shouldn't expect much from the fish. |
Anonymous
| Or, if you're at a table with dear spouse, who's not joining you with the raw, then just order the dinner assortment. They always have one--7 pieces plus tuna roll, 9 pieces plus California roll, whatever. The server can tell you which pieces are which, or there's often a picture card on the table. You can learn what you like that way. |
Anonymous
Do not do this. This is BAD sushi. |
Anonymous
Agree! Only eat fresh! You can definitely taste the difference. I started with the basic maki rolls. I mix a little wasabi with my soy sauce, put a piece of ginger on top, dip and enjoy! Nigiri is tasty too! |
Anonymous
| I have a question -- why is Wegman's sushi not considered "fresh"? I watch them (humans) make it right in front of me and then they hand it to me... how is that less fresh than at a restaurant? |
Anonymous
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Step one: Place you order. (If you're an average-eating woman, I'd get two rolls. Most restaurants have regular menus in addition to sushi menus, so they'll know to bring your food at the same time if you get sushi and DH gets tempura or pad thai.)
I like to get one substantial roll and one veggie roll. - 1 spicy tuna and 1 avocado - 1 spicy shrimp tempura roll and 1 cucumber roll - 1 fun looking more expensive "special roll" and 1 avocado roll (beware the "special rolls" are big and hard to eat and not for beginners) Step 2: Your food should arrive at the same time. When your food arrives put soy sauce into that little bowl you have at your place setting. Put 1 tsp of wasabi into the bowl and crush/blend it around with your chopsticks. Or fork. Whatever. Step 3: Eat one roll/bite at a time. Dip it in the soy mixture. Eat a piece of that orange/pink ginger after each bite. Often, I put a piece of ginger directly on my sushi roll. That's it. Sushi can be filling, but at times I can get a lot. You'll have to experiment with what and how much you like to eat. |
Anonymous
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Wegman's sushi and grocery store sushi is fine, but it's refrigerated and transported home with you, so it's usually colder and the consistency is not optimal. In my opinion. But I eat it on occasion, I just don't enjoy it as much.
OP you should also try a conveyor belt sushi place - they have one at Union Station and one at Tysons. |
Anonymous
Or don't. This isn't the way to eat sushi. The ginger isn't supposed to be eaten with the sushi. The ginger is supposed to be eaten between type of sushi to clear the palate. You can also dip the ginger in the soy sauce and then brush it across the sushi to give it a light ginger flavor. The ginger is not directly eaten with the sushi after you brush it. Too much wasabi will overwhelm the flavors of the fish. Some people mix the wasabi in the soy sauce, but that's considered rude to the chef. There are several types of sushi. Nigiri is a piece of fish or other protein, placed over a rice ball. Maki is a roll of rice and fish and/or vegetable. Temaki is a hand-roll shaped like a cone and eaten like a taco. If I were trying this for the first time again, I would try ordering the assortment (often labeld "Sushi A" or "Sushi B", which usually comes with a California roll, plus maybe another roll. The chef usually includes yellowtail and tuna in the assortment. If you have time, pick a slow day/time at the best sushi bar you can find. Sit at the bar. Talk to the chef and ask what he recommends. He can walk you through it. If you are ordering a la carte, try this: tuna (maguro), fatty tuna (toro), salmon (sake), yellowtail (hamachi), octopus (tako), tamago (sweetened egg omelet), masago (roe), and a California roll or spicy tuna roll or a specialty roll from the house. Wash you hands before eating. Pour a little soy sauce in the shallow dish that they give you. When eating nigiri, you eat it in one bite. If you want to eat with soy sauce, dip it fish side first in the soy sauce and then eat it. It doesn't go in rice side first. You can just dip it in the soy sauce. I also almost always get some miso soup or edamame as an appetizer. Edamame are soy beans boiled and salted. You have to squeeze them out of their hulls and discard the hulls. My kids love doing this! Miso soup is a tofu soup that is salty Choose a good restaurant. Grocery store sushi is not a place to start. It is not as well done as restaurant sushi. It can sit there for some time and get stale, too. |
Anonymous
| Also, if you find that you just like the white girl rolls (California rolls, avocado rolls, anything with cream cheese in it), it's okay to eat the white girl rolls. I order white girl rolls for lunch from a place near my office all the time. I'm sure the chef thinks I'm a barbarian who doesn't know anything about sushi, but he makes the best California rolls I've ever had! His other stuff isn't that great, but his California rolls are killer. So... white girl rolls for me! |
Anonymous
We don't have a Wegman's near us, so I've never seen this. Most grocery store sushi is pre-made by machine and arrives already packaged. If they're making it fresh in front of you, that's terrific, I'm impressed. And if they had a counter where I could sit, inspect the fish under the glass, and eat it right when they hand it to me, and where they also served me beer, I might try that. But that would be a sushi bar. Instead, they're putting it in packages for you to take home. By that time, it's not fresh. And if that package is already sitting in a cooler when you get there, then it's really not fresh. |