nigiri poll

weird that list doesn't include the most famous (in Japan anyway):

Tai = sea bream

it's the national fish, very traditional and customary.

first post very much in character bomb

kurodai is way more obscure, for example?

oh it's listed (incorrectly) as "Red Snapper"... my bad!

totally in character, i know!

OPO: Sushi

I guess Red Snapper is the closest N American fish to Sea Bream? is odd that it's listed there as such.

red snapper is a common substitute (because it's ~ 1/3 of the price per lb. depending on the time of the year), the flesh looks similar but totally different fish imo.

Mouthwatering poll. Unagi is reliable and super tasty, but saba takes it as my all-too-rarely sampled favourite.

i've been on a big saba kick of late. prob not something you want to give to a sushi virgin, but i love its fishyfunkyness.

tossup between unagi and hotate

oh man... thank god you don't have to order just one. saba is tasty. dunno. toro maybe...

One of my biggest superego efforts is not eating every unagi on the shared combo plate.

hotate, hand roll style. probably one of my top ten favorite "dishes", period

anyone had mirugai??

i have; it's ok.

voted toro

yes, always order some for your female companion at the bar, it's good manners. if you go to a super authentic place ask for the "himo" or guts of the mirugai... one of my all-time obscure neta.

think hamachi is my favorite. sometimes they come with a little dollop of... something sharp on top. maybe real wasabi? I dunno.

A few months ago I had some fish that was served with a paper-thin slice of lemon (peel and all) on it -- it was really good. I asked what it was, but that info went pffft with the last beer of the night.

my taste in sushi is pretty vanilla but hamachi is fantastic

mine too - i find just a nice fatty piece of salmon laid atop some rice to be heaven

Hamachi is lovely, but I voted Aji. Great with a little fresh ginger and green onion on top.

http://nekokichi.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/sushi.jpg

those cuts look a little big to be from aji (it's a pretty small fish with really low yield)... maybe it's sawara?

whatever it is, it looks mighty tasty

yellow fucking tail. im planning on giving up fish for good eventually but not until i have eaten sushi in tokyo.

so is aji typically cured like saba is?

anoter question. does japan import a lot of atlantic fish?

almost all siver skinned fish (hikarimono) is cured/brined/smoked/seared/cooked because the oily matter in the flesh decomposes extremely fast and the fish tastes rancid if left untreated.

there is one notable exception to this: sekisaba and sekiaji from Oita prefecture which are caught swimming through the intense currents of the Kanmon channel between Honshu and Kyushu islands. because they are so strong and fit from swimming through the channel they contain low levels of fat/oil in the flesh and are one of the few silverskinned fish (mackerel family like saba, aji, sawara, kohada, iwashi, etc.) that can be served unpickled.

japan imports mostly wild bluefin tuna from the north atlantic, some from the farms off of spain and croatia (Med not Atl I realize). Can't think of anything else OTOMH from the Atlantic.

yo all you hotate lovers, what do you like about it? it's something I don't 'get'

unctuous butteriness, melt-in-your-mouthiness. It's more of a texture thing really -- if it's super fresh, it doesn't have much of a flavor at all. After chewing a bit and it warms up in my mouth, the flavor starts to bloom.

I also love the chopped scallop mixed with mayo and masago; when I can find it, that's my "dessert."

^^pretty much what i would say w/r/t hotate (i don't ever fuck w/mayo though)

okay that makes sense - I will chow down on some hotate the next time I have sushi

uni (fresh, in season)

<3 eel

hate to be the pedant police on this thread but WmC but handrolls and chopped "tataki" style fish is in a separate category as nigiri toppings.

hotate in japan is much smaller, more delicate and has much more flavor than the scallops we get here in the states from mid-atlantic/new-england.

the chef will butterfly the scallop so that it's perched in a perfect "hug" of the sushi rice. maybe sometimes you'll get a shiso leaf or some sea salt but anymore strong seasoning would be interpreted as an attempt at disguising inferior quality seafood.

http://www.google.com/images?q=「ホタテ握り」

haha next time I go have sushi I'm gonna order the most bizarre nigiri ever and take pictures and them post them ttt

ilx code fail, click here for pix instead: http://bit.ly/bIFgQs

dyao, we already have that guy fiero thread...

:) last time I went I had sweet shrimp w/ mayo & almond flakes nigiri

haha, i read that as corn flakes at first.

don't get the mayo sushi thing. mayo + rice just don't work together.

Shime saba ftw

anyway at a lot of places I go to they offer giant hotate like this:

http://reigai.meblog.biz/image/kappa_Jhotate.jpg

often w/ a slice of lemon. I always found them...not quite bland, but the taste wasn't that great and it always felt like kind of a waste of money. so iono

seems like shellfish are one of those things that more often than not there is an inverse correlation between flavor and size.

my favorite oysters to eat raw are usually the smaller ones. giant lobsters are usually much more fibrous then smaller ones, and 1-2 pound crabs are usually the tastiest, etc.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Of these ones I have not had, what are the top 3 I need to try? (I think we're going to sushi next week for the Viceroy's bday.) Bear in mind I live in New Mexico so this shit is not going to be hella fresh.

Abalone Awabi
Albacore Bincho or Bintoro
Amberjack Kampachi
Arc Shell Akagai
Black Sea Bream Kurodai
Bonito Katsuo
Cockle Torigai
Gizzard Shad Kohada
Pacific Saury Sanma
Red Snapper Tai
Scallop Hotate
Sea Bass Suzuki
Surf Clam Hokkigai

I haven't had about half those either but I would try pacific saury, red snapper, and scallop! stay away from abalone, I think, if my experience with cooked abalone is anything to go by.

Someone told me the first time she ate sea urchin, she burst into tears.

This list is just making me think of Animal Crossing fishing tourneys.

Sanma/Pacific Saury is very hard to find outside of September/October.

we chow down on pacific saury all the time over here, it's like $1 a fish ;)

maybe pacific saury is a different species then Sanma... Sanma is very seasonal, 6-8 weeks in autumn.

maybe (wiki says otherwise)... all i know is that I'm gonna chow down on some pacific saury today for lunch!

and it's June!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

re: tai/sea bream/snapper, from "The Story of Sushi":

Sushi menus in America often simply list the fish as "snapper", a catch-all catergory that can include a variety of sea breams, snappers, sea bass, and ocean perch. True tai is a single species of sea bream called Pargus major. It lives in the water around Japan, Korea, and Russia.

red snapper is a common substitute (because it's ~ 1/3 of the price per lb. depending on the time of the year), the flesh looks similar but totally different fish imo.

― _▂▅▇█▓▒░◕‿‿◕░▒▓█▇▅▂_ (Steve Shasta), Wednesday, May 26, 2010 2:03 PM (3 weeks ago)

^^^this. it's primarily cost-driven.

if you go to a japanese sushi bar, ask for "madai" = "true sea bream". it's my favorite.

steve, you ever had engawa??

many times. engawa is the name for the fin muscle or most commonly, the fluke but not exclusively. good stuff. very low yield, good chefs will score it to help with the texture which can be a bit more tough than fluke cuts from the central body.

^"of most commonly"^

fuck this is making me hungry and i don't know where the late night sushi is in williamsburg, if it exists at all!

least favorite, 'Hawaiian white tuna'/escolar - not a fan of the taste, and it turns out that I'm one of the people who gets orange oily shits from eating it.

escolar is really unhealthy for you. in japan it is classified as "unfit for human consumption". i wonder who decided to sell it to americans, esp raw? scary shit (literally)

SS do you think people will still be eating sushi in 20 years? or will overfishing severely limit what's available?

I love sushi but I'm kind of worried about how sustainable it is.

re: escolar, I remember some news organization did some ~investigative reporting~ and found that a lot of sushi joints in america will serve you escolar when you order 'white tuna'

I thought they were interchangeable - there's no such thing as 'white tuna,' it's all escolar that they dressed up with another name.

I guess 'snake mackerel' wouldn't be a big seller.

i think quite a bit of what people eat is farmed (arguably sustainable), probably more than they know. wild seafood will probably(?) become either too expensive or taboo or both.

white tuna (in japan) = bincho or more literally shiro maguro which is probably closest to what North Americans know as Albacore. escolar is cheap, oily, and incredibly unhealthy. fit for cats but that's about it. very similar reactions as to olean/olestra.