Over the last few decades, sushi has become one of the world’s top cuisines, eaten everywhere from its homeland of Japan to the cosmopolitan streets of New York City. According to Statistic Brain, in a five-year period, consumption of sushi grew by 40% in the United States, leading to the $2 billion a year industry sushi is today.
While a huge number of people across the world make it a point to regularly visit good sushi restaurants and get their fix, many others have never stepped foot in their local sushi restaurants. The idea of sushi being little more than raw fish, a pervasive and overwhelmingly incorrect stereotype, according to They Call Me an Egg, is off-putting to some. If you’ve been longing to try sushi with friends at good sushi restaurants, consider trying the best, most popular dishes to ease yourself into it.
Three of the Most Popular Dishes Served at the Top Sushi Restaurants
- Medium-grade Fatty Tuna Nigirizushi
- Salmon Nigirizushi
- Shime Saba Sashimi
Medium-grade fatty tuna, known as “chutoro” in Japanese, is the most popular type of sushi in Japan, according to Kotaku. With a light, fleshy texture and just the right marbling of melt-in-your-mouth fat, a piece of fatty tuna nigirizushi, nigirizushi meaning “hand-formed sushi,” is just delicate enough in flavor and texture to be a perfect gateway sushi. Choose from the good sushi restaurants in your area, and order the medium-grade fatty tuna. You won’t be disappointed.
Salmon nigirizushi, according to ILoveCoffee.jp, a Japan-based foodie blog, is the most popular type of sushi in the United States and the second most popular in Japan. Since, according to Just Hungry, a well-known Japanese cooking site, salmon nigirizushi is almost always made with cured salmon, it makes a perfect introductory dish for first-timers looking for a choice without raw fish.
When you feel you’re ready to try something a bit more challenging, try ordering shime saba. As Magoo Paintrock writes in “Top 10 Sushi Bites,” shime saba is a sashimi-style dish made up of pickled mackerel. While sushi and sashimi are technically different on account of the lack of rice, most good sushi restaurants make an effort to offer the best types of both. Mackerel, a fatty, full-flavored fish is considered to be the best type of sashimi among aficionados. It’s not to be missed.
Jumping into the world of sushi as a complete neophyte can be understandably challenging. However, by starting with these dishes, three of the most popular foods served by all of the best, most unique restaurants serving this ancient food, you can get off on the right foot. Find out more here.