Oysters, Sushi and Sashimi

[MaineWriter]

Hi sweetie,

You might start with vegetable roll for a warm-up!  Then, the 3 basics that a few have mentioned — salmon, tuna and yellowtail — are excellent for sushi-beginners.  They're mild, even faintly sweet.  The California roll is also popular & easy to eat but I don't quite remember the ingredients . . . like a vegetable roll with a little tuna or something . . . maybe someone more expert here can help on that?

A California roll has crab, avocado, and cucumber.

L

[serious crayons]

A California roll has crab, avocado, and cucumber.

And the problem is that sometimes, instead of crab, it's surimi. Y'all know what that is, right? Pureed whitefish molded into pencil-shapes and flavored like crab, complete with pink stripes painted along the side? Yuck.

I have a question:  what's good to move up to from there?  I've had the aforementioned foods but am curious about what else there is.  What else in the sushi universe is good for folks who are relatively new to it?

Just about any kind of regular old fish is good, in my experience. The next step, I guess, would be things like eel and sea urchin. Also roe: I would suggest the first step would be something with the little tiny red roe (I think it's salmon?) before trying the bigger bead-sized roe.

Do you go to one of those sushi places where you can just check off on the menu what you want? I'd suggest doing that and just experimenting. Get some basics, and add in some untried things. You can't go too wrong.

[Lynne]

I haven't tried sea urchin yet - so I guess I need to add that to the list.  I like the caviar too, especially the little red ones, salmon roe, I think, also.

Some other suggestions for people who don't want to try the raw items the first time out, in addition to California rolls, are eel, tempura rolls, and softshell crab rolls.  The eel is a bit exotic, but comes with a sweet tamarind(?) sauce.  The tempura is basically fried shrimp (beware tails) and vegetables in a light batter.  And softshell crabs are yummy most any way you get them.