Some Basics about Selecting Good Sushi

First time at a sushi bar? Here's some help.

I'm surprised at how many people haven't even tried sushi. The most common reaction is, "Ewww... raw fish!", and a common concern was best verbalized by my friend Brian when he said, "I just thought of it as an expensive way to acquire parasites". If you go to dictionary.com, you find their definition says that it's a dish with either raw or cooked fish. In fact, there's no need to have fish at all. You can get beef in sushi, and there are vegetarian varieties as well. Sushi translates into English as "seasoned rice", and refers to the sweetish rice that can form the bite-size beds to present and hold your selection. Perhaps you're entertaining the idea of really trying this stuff. Now you're not sure what to order. Your friends and acquaintances have used strange words to describe their meals. You don't know what they're talking about, and the words are so foreign, that you never related those words to concepts, and you're back at Square One. I am hoping that this page will present the basics in such a way that you'll understand and remember, and enough information on some subtleties to make you feel really comfortable when you order and eat. After all, you won't enjoy your food if you're ill at ease. You may notice that not all of the descriptions have associated photos. As I go back and get more sushi, I'll image them and and fill in the little red squares. But I can only eat a certain amount at one sitting. This is still very much a page under construction, so if you have something to say, now would be a good time to comment. How are they crafted? Basic Ingredients and Materials Aside from the sushi rice itself, there are some ingredients and condiments that should be introduced. Nori is made from seaweed. After harvesting, it is chopped up, then rolled into paper-thin sheets and dried in the Sun. The packaged, dry sheets are about 8 inches by 7 inches in size. They're green, but so dark as to appear black. When wetted again, they're sticky. They are rather strong, and are used to lend structure and support to sushi. It can be cut into thin strips and used as belts to hold things together, or used in sheet form and rolled up to contain sushi, or provide inner structure for rolls where rice forms the outside wall of the roll. Chef may or may not toast the sheets before use. Shoga is ginger, and comes in a range of colors from tan to almost red (two examples are in the thumbnail, right). It's meant to be eaten straight, little bits at a time. It clears your palette for the next bite, and it also helps to clear any wasabe rushes your enthusiatic mix may have delivered you, or you've soaked your sushi too long (oshinko, perhaps?). Wasabe is a green powder made from ground horseradish, and is rehydrated into a paste at the restaraunt. A swipe is sometimes spread by Chef into a sushi directly. A little pile of the paste should come on the plate with your sushi. Take a chunk from the pile (say about lima bean size) and place it in that tiny side plate whose purpose you've wondered about. Pour some soy sauce over it (I use about thrice as much sauce as paste), and mix them thoroughly together. That is now your wasabe dip. Add more paste if you want it hotter. I vary the mix ratio depending on the sushi topping. Dip your sushi into this to add some heat and salt. You're "supposed" to dip the topping, in the case of Nigiri Suhshi, not the rice. The rice absorbs much more of the dip, and it might overpower the delicate flavor of what's on top. I hear tell it's "proper" to use your fingers for all sushi, but for the outside rolls, I prefer using chop sticks - that rice is sticky! Almost everyone has heard a story from someone who has a friend who thought the wasabe was guacamole, put the whole pile on one of the sushis, and turned into the Incredible Hulk. Urban legends, or Darwin Award nominees? You decide. Forms, shapes, sizes ... The sushi rice is usually kept in a tub conveniently right next to Chef, because this is the one place he must return to make any sushi dish. It's made very sticky, so that it can be shaped and molded into various forms to hold the toppings you order. These shapes and styles have names ... Nigiri Sushi - this is the classic sushi that most folks see photographed. It's essentially a flat bed of rice about the size of a thumb, perhaps a swipe of wasabe, your selection of food lying on top, and perhaps a thin band of nori wrapped around it to hold it in place. That's for the raw fish, so it doesn't wiggle away (yes, I'm kidding...). You're usually ordering a pair when you select one item. Makisushi - These are rolls (maki means "wrap") that would be very long, if they didn't cut them into pieces (usually 6. Four is unlucky in Japan). Often, a sheet of seaweed is rolled in or around to hold it all together. The rolls can be "inner" or "outer", depending upon where the rice ends up relative to the sheet of seaweed. Futomaki are giant (maybe 2 inches in diameter) rolls with a variety of stuffings. I prefer to eat outer rolls with chop sticks, but even the inner roll giants sometimes require a control achieved only through the use of fingers. I'm convinced that giant outer rolls are proof that the chefs have a practical sense of humor. Hoso-maki are small (one inch diameter) rolls that highlight one ingredient, but there is usually (at least) one other ingredient that complements its flavor. Gunkan style appears properly to be a roll (inner), but is usually found in the Nigiri portion of the menus. This form has walls of nori extending above the rice, forming a tub. The tub is then filled with sloppy ingredients that require such corralling (like salmon eggs). Takka maki is an unusual form of roll. This is an outer roll with the toppings outside the rice. What toppings roll, conform, and adhere well to this design? - Sashimi for one, which is raw fish. Temaki - the "hand roll" (from "te", meaning "Hand") is a cone of seaweed filled with your selection of contents plus ingredients with complementary flavors. They're very pretty to look at, although the first bite can offer somewhat of a challenge to those with small mouths. There is another form, the Chirashi ("scattered") sushi, where the toppings are laid out on top of a bowl full of the sushi rice. Those toppings are usually forms of sashimi (raw fish), and may be why "sushi" and "raw fish" are equated as one and the same by neophytes. But that isn't finger food, pretty, or fun, so we'll ignore that on this page.

What's available?

This text is a link to a table with pictures of many items common to most sushi bars, and descriptions of them.

My suggestion for a full dinner meal, in order would be:

1. A large flask of warm Saki (rice wine), served with the dinner. If you order it before you start getting your food, it will arrive right away and get cold before the meal is over. If you order it as the food arrives, it will be ready just when the time is right (after the first few bites), and it will probably last the meal. Saki complements the rice, the alcohol cuts oils or grease, and it clears the palette between bites. If you're pregnant, driving, and/or just don't want alcohol, some hot tea is a very good substitute. Miso soup (soy soup with tofu chunks) is normally offered with sushi, but I find it more of a distraction, and it can be too salty.
2. Hamachi (yellowtail)
3. Spicy scallops
4. Green-lipped mussels
5. Tempura shrimp roll
6. Here would be a good time to see if there's something special on today's menu.
7. Oshinko (if I think I'm still hungry enough)
8. Unagi
9. Maybe another hamachi. :-)

1. Hot tea, enough for both of us (I drink a cup before the dinner).
2. Tempura shrimp roll
3. Unakyu
4. Spicy tuna or maguro
5. Ume shiso
6. Tamago

   Where do we go for our sushi?

   The answer to this depends on where we are at the time. For years, we lamented the lack of sushi in West Seattle. Then one day, Mashiko opened up. It's in the Alaska Junction, parking is fairly easy, and the quality is very good. They have a very artistic aquarium to enjoy, in case you have to wait at all. We're very happy that the place exists, but so too is the crowd that has grown. You just have to plan on which day to go. Fridays and Saturdays... it's crowded. If you go to their web site, you can download near real-time images (when the place is open) captured at the sushi bar, their menu, and links to some reviews.

   We've also enjoyed Bush Garden, a place in the International District of Seattle. The prices are good, and so is the sushi.

   We'd like to try Musashi, in the Wallingford section of Seattle, but we hear horror stories of very long waits. It's no wonder - their prices are apparently rock bottom, with little or no sacrifice to quality - just variety perhaps.

   I've tried a few places in Olympia, and the quality varies there from "What's this stuff?" to "not bad". I hear tell (Nov 2002) that a new place has opened, and I'm eager to try it (I haven't had really bad sushi in Olympia yet).

   But there is one place that we'll go out of our way for. Not only is the sushi primo, but Chef is one nice guy, the place is elegant, and Chef does art with fish heads. I mean, display art that goes on the counter tops, albeit not permanently despite the preservation (yes - "Ewwwww"). Miyoshi has been written up in many papers, and here's a review grabbed at random from a Google search on "Miyoshi" and "Bellingham".