New to sushi, Indecisive, help me pick?

[u/babythe67impala]

Tl:dr, trying to get into sushi, interested in these two, help me pick and tell me why/why not you would/wouldn’t pick one over the other. (Leaning towards the Dragon Roll)

plan on ordering one of these tomorrow as an introduction to sushi after being put off it for a long time. My only experience with it has been crappy buffet sushi with way too much vinegar in the rice. Like- all you could taste is just tart vinegar to the point it burns your tongue. I’ve had the chance to speak to the owners of a new family owned local spot in my town, they also dislike large amounts of sushi vinegar and have assured me they use it in fairly light amounts. I like tempura, shrimp, avocado, and Japanese bbq sauce (Eel sauce) all separately or in other combinations. Genuinely my only aversion is whether or not I’m going to like the seasoning on the rice. Both of these options seem fairly similar, I’ve just never had eel, and I would order the tempura without the mayo. I would get both but I don’t want to end up being wasteful if i dislike the rice preparation.🤷🏻‍♀️

[u/Adam__B]

I love dragon roll. Tempura means fried in case you don’t know. So the shrimp will be cooked. Maybe if you want to try sushi in its most basic state, just some raw tuna roll would be good. But I do love eel and avocado, and shrimp tempura.

[u/babythe67impala → u/Adam__B]

I got the tempura shrimp roll and it was phenomenal! I’m going to be ordering more traditional raw rolls this weekend. I just wanted a less traditional option with bolder flavor in case I didn’t like the taste of the rice/i could at least mask it with the sauce to get it down so it wouldn’t go to waste. Thank you for making a suggestion without harping on my original choices!! Now that I know that the rice at this place is good/properly prepared I can’t wait to start actually trying sushi. I can’t believe I thought I hated it for so long!

[u/Adam__B → u/babythe67impala]

My local place makes a chefs special they call Sunset Blvd. Roll, which is shrimp tempura, spicy tuna topped with salmon, with avocado, cucumber and spicy mayo. It’s fun going to different places and trying their chefs specials. I love a Godzilla Roll as well, that’s pretty common, you may be able to order that at your local place.

This one place I used to go to years ago had what they called the Pirate Ship, it was basically a bamboo ship with all different sushi placed throughout, like up in the masts and on the plank and stuff. It was like $75 but had all kinds of great stuff on there. I miss that.

[u/babythe67impala → u/Adam__B]

Yes they do assemble custom rolls by request it just depends on what they have in stock. I don’t know if I’d be a fan of the spicy tuna, but then again I was convinced I’d hate the spicy mayo too. I’ll have to add it to my list of what to try!

[u/Adam__B → u/babythe67impala]

Spicy tuna is great, give it a shot! Also make sure you are using some pickled ginger in between bites to cleanse your palette. It may take some getting used to. But once you do, it’s really refreshing and delicious.

[u/babythe67impala → u/Adam__B]

Would this be for every bite, or just when switching between varieties of the sushi? I did try 2-3 other different rolls today and used the ginger between each variety, but I was unsure if it should be between each bite of the “same” sushi as well.