Going to a sushi restaurant, how do I know if it’s raw or not?

[DanielaDressen]

I’ve never had sushi. I don’t want to eat raw fish and thought it was all raw. Dd is desperate to go but she’s vegetarian so doesn’t care as will eat the vegi stuff but I’d like something more than avocado and rice. Will any of it be cooked fish and how do I know the difference? Google is giving conflicting answers.

In a sushi restaurant, a poke bowl will be raw fish. The original 'poke' bowl is from Hawaii where native Hawaiian's eat raw fish. Anything else is not real poke. It may be cured, like ceviche (which is cooked through the process of acid) but it is not 'cooked' in the way OP likely wants it to be. Ceviche in poke bowls, tastes and feels like raw fish.

In the sort of restaurant OP plans to go to (a chef trained in Japan) that she claims is v. good, it's going to either be raw fish or ceviche. It's not going to be tinned tuna or just some avocado plopped on top. Even in Itsu (which let's be honest is one up from that conveyer belt nonsense) it's sushi grade salmon tartare.

OP might be able to get a rice bowl...if she's lucky. But if she's going somewhere nice, I doubt it....

I thought I would hate sushi but when I tried it I loved it. Try the prawn ones if you want something cooked. If not, the veg ones are very nice (it's not just avocado). A lot of sushi places do other meals though. For example, Yo Sushi do beef teriyaki, chicken gyoza, chicken katsu, hoisin duck roll. Hopefully you'll find something you'll like.

Shrimp may be raw. It might even be served surprisingly complete depending on what you order.

I don’t really eat fish, though I have expanded my palette a bit. In my 20s I had a friend group that loved going for sushi and it was great fun even with my pickiness.

Tamago: this is egg. It’s really tasty
yakitori: these are little appetizer things and not all places have them. Often grilled skewers. My favorites were quail eggs and chicken with lots of wasabi.

if you want to try some raw fish, get the tuna. It will not taste fishy at all. The texture is not slimy or noticeable in any way. A lot of people like the spicy hand roll for tuna, it will be sort of like a spicy tuna salad but with raw fish. I prefer tuna sashimi, though I recommend ordering it as sushi the first time. The rice will make it less intimidating.

I'm not really keen on fish in general, so I wouldn't want to try proper sushi either. I don't see anything wrong in that?

Have anything 'tempura'. They usually do a prawn tempura roll, those are my favourites.

A spider roll will have fried soft shell crab.

A California roll will have that fake crab stick thing, if you like those you'll be fine.

Anything chicken or beef will likely be cooked as well, I'm sure the menus will describe it for you.

Some tips:

• maki, uramaki and futomaki rolls are your safest bet. They are the ones with a little meat/fish wrapped in rice and seaweed, and come in different sizes (small, medium large).

• nigiri is 🍣 that roll. They're rice draped in raw fish so avoid.

• AVOID SASHIMI, it's just slices of raw fish.

Sushi is my favourite meal! Enjoy

My favourite restaurant is a sushi place in Glasgow, a wee independent where the chef trained in Japan. They do poke bowls with other toppings. I’m sure the OP can read and if it says “teriyaki chicken poke bowl” she can be pretty sure it’s cooked.

They westernise a lot of dishes.

Edited to say it’s also a “nice” place with a really great proper sushi menu, but also with more western skewed dishes.

does the restaurant have a trip advisor review? you could get a few ideas from there and the staff will always be really helpful.

Enjoy 🍣

It does but most of the reviews just talk about it being excellent, authentic sushi but don’t mention specific dishes.

someone does say Tuna Hosomaki, Salmon Gunkanmaki, Gyoza, Karaage, and Takoyaki. Nirigi and Sashimi all excellent

The photos of the food look pretty but no idea what any of it is 😁

These three are all cooked dishes, Karaage Is fried chicken, gyoza are dumplings, takiyaki is a littlebfriedball of octopus, batter, fish flakes.

Weirdly plenty of people (me included) don't like cooked fish but love sushi. I hate cooked fish, but find raw fish completely different in terms of taste and texture. Not fishy at all.

Some miso soup, karaage (fried chicken), gyoza (dumplings, typically pork), some sort of vegetable sushi. You will have a wonderful meal.

I'll go with her. I bloody love all of it, raw included.

Your photo of sushi; front left is salmon nigiri,

front right is salmon roe "gunkan" style, where the toasted seaweed sheet is wrapped around the lozenge of rice to provide a shelf for the roe to sit on, then there's some cucumber sticks shoved in there too. This one will pop in your mouth and is like tiny savoury boba.

The red coloured fish you can see is tuna, the far left is tuna/maguro nigiri, then on the right of that is a tuna maki with seaweed/nori on the outside.
Maki means roll.

The other ones to the right are more maki rolls, I think I see avocado in some of them.

the black dots in the rice are black sesame seeds.

Right at the back left, with the yellow filling is a hosomaki, it looks like takuan/ pickled mooli. Which is an Asian radish. No fish in this one.

This photo is a pretty basic selection you will find in most sushi restaurants, with the exception of the roe, that's a little bit more unusual.

If it's a really good sushi place it should have uni /sea urchin on the menu!