For your first sushi experience, order the tuna, albacore tuna or the salmon nigiri. Other great choices are mackerel (salted and marinated), barbequed eel, shrimp, scallops, squid or halibut. Stronger tasting fish such as hamachi (yellowtail) or kingfish (harimasa yellowtail) also make a good topping for nigiri sushi.

You can replace the sashimi with fish eggs. Salmon eggs are the most common, wrapped in a bit of seaweed to hold them on top of the traditional rice base. More popular in Japan are the little eggs, or roe, harvested from the inside of sea urchins (uni).

Not all nigiri is raw fish though. Shrimp (ebi) and crab (kani) are both cooked before they are laid to rest on the rice, eel (unagi) is grilled and then marinated in a sweet sake sauce for several days. Nigiri sushi can also be made with vegetables such as avocado, or with eggs.

Finally, try blanched scallops, still raw in the middle, for their delicate buttery taste and amazing texture.

Called simply sushi roll, maki or futomaki sushi is probably the first image of sushi that comes to your mind. Maki combines toppings and rice wrapped in sheets of seaweed, or nori, and served in six or eight slices. Typically, maki sushi has less raw fish and often some vegetables, and allows for more creativity and flavor mixes. Some typical rolls include: tekka, or tuna; kappa, or cucumber; avocado; California, which is a combination of avocado, crab and cucumber; Philadelphia, a combination of smoked salmon, cream cheese and cucumber; and Rainbow, which rolls up on the outside slices of fish such as tuna, salmon and snapper. Another type of maki is temaki, or "hand-roll," which is a large, single cone-shaped roll that usually contains larger items, like pieces of vegetables and salmon or tuna.

Sushi can be classified as a health food, being low in fat and calories while high in protein. Seaweed is extremely high in vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, C and niacin. Salmon is high on omegas (brain food) and vitamin D (cold and flu fighter). If handled correctly raw fish is much safer than cooked beef and chicken. By eating fish you could also reduce your exposure to Genetically Modified Organisms, steroids and antibiotics with which chicken, beef and pork are commonly treated.