Especially if you are a novice and need to read an articles about how to eat sushi (I am, I admit that) then it is very important that you learn how to choose a good sushi bar. I feel like I have met so many people that say they hate sushi, and when they tell me their experience, it has been with picking up cold, old sushi at a corner store or going to a all you can eat sushi place where everything is greasy and the fish is just sloppy. None of which you should really do. Not at least until you know there are also something called good sushi out there.
I think it is really sad to think that these people cannot enjoy sushi because of they had this bad first experience. Here are some pointers that I have found in choosing a good sushi restaurant. Doing this blog and having to eat at almost all of Oslo’s good and bad sushi places has given me some insight into spotting good and bad ones. Unfortunately we don’t have many good ones.
Signs of a good sushi restaurant:
The restaurant smells good, and looks clean and actually has a sushi bar that you can sit at. If they prepare their sushi in the back, that is in my opinion not a good sign.
Choose quality sushi places. A sushi experience should not be about quantity. Try and find the best places, and order less if it becomes expensive. I don’t necessarily think that only the expensive ones are good, but at least in Norway there is usually a correspondence between price and quality.
They have a short menu or no menu at all. Places with sushi menu long as a book with rolls in all different flavors are not usually a good pick…
Presentation is great! Sushi is about the visuals almost as much as the taste. If they do great presentation, then usually they have great fish and ingredients.
Either ask Japanese people where they go to eat sushi and go there, or look for Japanese people in the sushi bar. That is usually a sign of quality.
Japanese sushi chef. This is not always the case, but very very often when the sushi chef is actually Japanese, you WILL get proper and very good sushi
Try and become a local by coming back often to your favorite place. If the sushi chef is properly trained in the traditions of sushi, he/she will most likely treat regulars with better sushi and better overall service than other guests. I love it when at the end of the meal they ask you for your name and then remembers you when you come back. It makes you wanna come back.
In general - the sushi chef is happy to see you, to be there and greets you in an inviting manner. This is more on the emotional level, but still being that close to a person (just a meter away and with sharp knives I might add) when the guy is having a bad day is not fun!! It becomes oppressive and uncomfortable and makes it impossible to enjoy even good sushi.
Both the sushi bar and bathrooms are clean - it says something about how meticulous they are about cleanliness, which most Japanese are.
Well, there are probably tons of other tips too. Please tell me if you know of any good ones!
Choosing a good sushi place is also about not going to the awful ones. I am still working out how to really spot a bad sushi bar, and especially trying to get better at just leaving the place when I first realize that the place sucks. Smell is one obvious indicator that I more and more rely on, if it smell of fish or worse smell of bad fish I always have a bad experience. Cleanliness is another.
Here are some warning signs I found on Eugene Ciurana’s website. He seems to be very good at spotting god and bad sushi places. We rely on the experts here.
The fish and other seafood are not on display at the sushi bar
The fish and other seafood on display look dry
The sushi chef or (worse) a food server wants to take your order for all sushi items at once
The sushi chef doesn’t give you a chance to order “one or two pieces at a time”, Japanese style
The restaurant advertises “all you can eat sushi” for a fixed price
The menu items are not listed in Japanese followed by a translation; they appear only in your native language
The menu consists mostly of rolled sushi with names like California Roll or Oriental Delight
More than half of the available ingredients are cooked
The sushi chef hasn’t the vaguest idea of what you’re talking about if you ask for kazunoko, shiso, inago, chirashi, or yama gobo
The morsels of fish atop nigiri pieces are so large that you can barely see the rice underneath (believe it or not, some people think that the sushi place is good because you get big pieces of fish). Big pieces of fish are good as long as the fish quality is good.
The sushi rice is flavorless; sushi rice must have a delicate aroma and flavor
The restaurant is part of a chain or franchise
He says that if four or more of the conditions above are met, leave the place immediately and head to a different restaurant.
I wonder if he can teach me how to leave…
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