EPTOn June 09 2010 13:20 Kennigit wrote:
Important sushi question: How do i know the difference between good sushi and bad sushi. Important information: I'm white. Thank you for your assistance with this issue.
Important sushi question: How do i know the difference between good sushi and bad sushi. Important information: I'm white. Thank you for your assistance with this issue.
Disregard all that stuff about having to live near a coast. This is completely unnecessary. There are plenty of inland cities with great Sushi in the US that get daily shipments from Tsukiji. Also, its a little known fact but almost all fish, especially deep sea fish such as tuna, is frozen at some point between catch and table. It is necessary to freeze tuna to kill the microbial parasites that are inside when the tuna is alive. When people say never frozen, they mean its not refrozen ie after its bought from the fisherman, auctioned off, whatever, its not thawed and frozen again.
As to how you tell the fish has been refrozen, typically fish that has been refrozen will be slightly watery and the flesh won't be as supple and full of flavor. With Uni, you want the uni to look like a tongue and not be runny. The cutting technique will be off at bad sushi places, ie the fish topping won't fit the rice very well and looks odd shaped. Another bad sign is that the fish falls off the rice very easily.
As to the quality of the rice, you need a good texture with just the right mix of vinegar and mirin and have it be sticky enough to be picked up without falling apart but loose enough to fall apart in your mouth.
If you want to see the quality of the sushi restaurant without actually eating there, in the US you should see what kind of fish they serve on the menu. If they have stuff like aji (jack mackeral), Mirugai (geoduck clam), kohada (gizzard shad), different grades of toro (chu-toro, oh-toro), sayori (needlefish), aoyagi (orange clam), or serve stuff like live lobster sashimi, etc...then you will likely not go too wrong. They can't afford to keep these rarer fishes on the menu if not a lot of people are ordering them and if a lot of people are ordering them, the fish turnover rate is really high which is good for you.
Things aren't super important if you are eating rolls as the subtleties wont come through over the variety of sauces used in most rolls found in the US. Traditional rolls are more ones like negitoro (fatty tuna + green onion), ika shiso ume (squid + japanese perrilla leaf + plum paste), toro taguan (fatty tuna + yellow pickled radish), tekka maki (just plain regular tuna). Typically the fish used in the rolls will be the end pieces chopped up and so will be not as good as the fish found in the nigiri.
Also its ok and probably preferable to eat your nigiri by hand. Sushi by hand or chopstick but always chopstick for sashimi.
Regarding the OP, it really depends on the temperature of your room.
A Jiro trip report I grabbed off the web :
http://www.alifewortheating.com/tokyo/sukiyabashi-jiro/
(but I did hear that Jiro Roppongi has English-speaking chefs, but also worse sushi 
