I wrote this for a lady in Rime Cuisine who is interested in discovering the wonderful world of sushi. Thought it might be of interest to some of the folks here (particularly timidly eating, portly Portlanders... ;-} ). Helen++you might try "tamago" which is a kind of sweetish egg omelette on the rice. It's very good and not at all "odd". Also, I highly recommend "toro" and "maguro" which are used to make both sushi and sashimi. It's raw tuna and has an indescribably clean and refreshing taste. (Toro is lean and maguro is "fatty".) Chances are if you could taste it and not know what it was, you wouldn't even know it was fish. I hated tuna until the first time I tried it raw in a Japanese restaurant. "Unagi" is grilled eel and is something that almost everyone likes. "Kani" (cooked crab) and "Ebi" (cooked shrimp) are quite good and not a taste stretch at all. "Ama ebi" is raw shrimp and a bit more for the adventerous, but I think it's actually better than "Ebi". Once again the taste is subtle and refreshing. I think you'll actually be surprised at how subtle the tastes of sushi really are. The thing that will get your attention is the wasabi. Be very careful when you first try it as it's quite easy to o.d. on. It'll be easier for you if you're already a horseradish fan. I'd be careful about stuff with "shiso". It's an herb somewhat like mint, but it can be quite startling to the uninitiated, somewhat like cilatro can be. BTW, there's an excellent book you might like to check out. It's called "Sushi", by Mia Detrick. Paperback, 95 pages. Chronicle Books, San Francisco. ISBN: 0-87701-238-5. No publication date given (unless you can figure it out from the ISBN number). It's pretty recent though. This is a guided tour of sushi eating++the food and the etiquette. Not a cookbook as such, though it does have a short section on preparing sushi at home. Primarily, it's an introduction to the food with explanations of the ingredients and the most popular types of sushi. The illustrations are all color plates and the book is gorgeous. Each type of sushi is illustrated and explained. Good stuff!