寿司オタク Sushi Otaku

The Sushi Neta Encyclopedia

Every neta (sushi topping), decoded the way a nerd wants it: real names and kanji, taste and texture, peak season, sustainability, mercury, and how often it's faked. 54 entries and counting.

Red-flesh fish (akami)Shrimp & crab (ebi / kani)Roe & uni (gunkanmaki)Silver / shiny fish (hikarimono)Shellfish & clams (kai)Simmered & cooked (nimono)Other & modern netaWhite-flesh fish (shiromi)Octopus & squid (tako / ika)Egg (tamago)

Aji

Aji is Japanese horse mackerel — a silver hikarimono served fresh (not cured), bright and clean with a little ginger and scallion. Summer's quintessential shiny fish.

Akagai

Akagai is ark shell — prized for deep-red, crunchy flesh and a clean briny sweetness. Slap a fresh one on the board and it visibly flinches.

Akami

Akami is the lean, deep-red back muscle of tuna — the most traditional cut, all clean iron and umami, and the one with the most mercury per bite.

Albacore

Albacore is the only fish that is legitimately 'white tuna' — a real tuna with pale-pink, mild flesh. If your 'white tuna' is opaque white, it isn't this.

Amaebi

Amaebi is raw 'sweet shrimp' — served uncooked for a soft, slippery, almost creamy texture and a pronounced sweetness. The heads are often grilled and served alongside.

Anago

Anago is saltwater conger eel — the lighter, more delicate eel of true edomae sushi, simmered soft and brushed with sweet tsume. Not unagi.

Ankimo

Ankimo is monkfish liver — steamed, sliced and served with ponzu and grated daikon. Rich, creamy and umami-deep, it's earned the nickname 'foie gras of the sea'.

Aoyagi

Aoyagi is the round (hen) clam — sweet orange clam-foot with a briny snap. Its proper name is bakagai, 'the fool clam'; its little adductor muscles are the prized kobashira.

Awabi

Awabi is abalone — a large marine snail prized for firm, briny flesh, served raw for a crisp snap or steamed until tender. A luxury neta with a serious conservation backstory.

Buri

Buri is mature, usually wild Japanese amberjack — the same fish as hamachi, but older, richer and at its melting best as winter 'kanburi'.

Chutoro

Chutoro is the medium-fatty cut between lean akami and rich otoro — marbled like good beef but balanced, and for many the best-value sweet spot of the tuna.

Ebi

Ebi is the butterflied, cooked shrimp draped over nigiri — sweet, firm and snappy, and one of the most beginner-friendly things on the menu.

Engawa

Engawa is the chewy, fatty fin muscle of flatfish — the frilly strip that powers a flounder's fin. Rich and gelatinous, it's a connoisseur's cut, usually served raw or lightly seared.

Escolar

Escolar is a snake mackerel — not tuna at all — routinely sold as 'white tuna'. Buttery and delicious, but its wax esters can cause digestive distress, and it's banned in Japan.

Hamachi

Hamachi is young, usually farmed Japanese amberjack — the soft, buttery, mild 'yellowtail' you meet most often at the sushi bar.

Hamaguri

Hamaguri is the common orient clam — the classic edomae clam, simmered until plump and tender and glazed with sweet sauce. A symbol of marital harmony at Girls' Day.

Hirame

Hirame is olive flounder (fluke) — a lean, delicate white fish at its best in winter. Its thin fin muscle, engawa, is a prized chewy delicacy.

Hokkigai

Hokkigai is surf clam — sweet and crunchy, with a signature blanched tip that blushes from beige to a vivid red-pink. A cold-water Hokkaido staple.

Hoshigarei

Hoshigarei is spotted halibut — the aristocrat of the flounder family, a winter white fish so prized it can outprice hirame, with firm, sweet flesh and superb engawa.

Hotate

Hotate is scallop — the adductor muscle served raw for a sweet, creamy, melting bite. Hokkaido's are the gold standard for sashimi.

Ika

Ika is squid — served raw for a dense, slippery, subtly sweet bite, often finely scored with knife cuts to tenderize it and catch the soy.

Ikura

Ikura is salmon roe — large, glossy orange pearls that burst with briny richness, served as gunkanmaki. The name is borrowed from the Russian word for roe.

Isaki

Isaki is the chicken grunt — an early-summer white fish that turns rich and fatty just as the rains arrive, with firm flesh and a savory depth uncommon in shiromi.

Kani

Kani is real crab — snow crab (zuwaigani) or king crab (tarabagani) — sweet, delicate and a world apart from the imitation 'krab' in most rolls.

Kanikama

Kanikama is imitation crab — surimi (usually pollock) shaped and dyed to mimic crab legs. It's what's in most 'crab' rolls, including the California roll. Not crab.

Kanpachi

Kanpachi is greater amberjack — a leaner, firmer, crisper cousin of hamachi, and a genuinely different species despite sharing the 'yellowtail' label.

Karei

Karei is the right-eye flounder family — hirame's close cousin, leaner and often at its best in summer (the seasons are flipped). Telling them apart is a classic test.

Katsuo

Katsuo (skipjack bonito) is a deep-red, lean relative of tuna with a bold, irony flavor — classically seared as tataki. It marks two seasons: spring's first catch and autumn's fatty return.

Kazunoko

Kazunoko is herring roe — a firm golden block of tiny eggs with a signature crackling crunch, salt-cured then steeped in dashi. An auspicious New Year's delicacy.

Kinmedai

Kinmedai (splendid alfonsino) is a red-skinned deep-water fish with fatty, gently sweet white flesh — usually served seared skin-on to render the fat beneath.

Kohada

Kohada is gizzard shad — the quintessential edomae hikarimono, always vinegar-cured, with beautiful silver-patterned skin. It's a benchmark of a chef's curing skill.

Maguro

Maguro is tuna — the emblem of edomae sushi. At a serious counter it means bluefin, graded by fat from lean akami to rich otoro, and it carries real mercury and sustainability baggage.

Masago

Masago is capelin (smelt) roe — smaller, softer and cheaper than tobiko, and the roe most often substituted for it. Mild, faintly bitter, usually dyed orange.

Mirugai

Mirugai is giant gaper clam — the crunchy, briny siphon prized for deep oceanic sweetness and an emphatic snap. Frequently confused with (and faked as) geoduck.

Negitoro

Negitoro is minced fatty tuna blended with scallion (negi) — silky and rich, served as gunkanmaki or in rolls. Buyer beware: 'negitoro' is often trim, not true toro.

Nodoguro

Nodoguro is blackthroat seaperch — a luxury white fish so rich it's nicknamed 'white toro'. Intensely fatty, it's usually flame-seared to melt the fat.

Otoro

Otoro is the fattiest cut of the tuna belly — densely marbled, pale pink, and rich enough to dissolve on the tongue. The prized luxury slice of edomae sushi.

Saba

Saba is mackerel — a rich, oily hikarimono almost always cured in salt and vinegar (shime-saba) for flavor and safety. Bold and a little funky, in the best way.

Salmon

Salmon (sake) is one of the world's most popular sushi fish — and one of the least traditional. Raw salmon sushi is a 1980s Norwegian invention, not edomae.

Sanma

Sanma is Pacific saury — the iconic oily fish of Japanese autumn. As sushi it's rich and bright; lately, warming seas have made it scarce and pricey.

Sawara

Sawara is Japanese Spanish mackerel — a large, pale-fleshed mackerel that's soft, mild and richest in winter, usually lightly seared or cured. Its kanji hides the word for spring.

Sayori

Sayori is the Japanese halfbeak — a slender, silver spring fish with a long needle-like lower jaw, prized for clean, lightly sweet, translucent flesh. Beautiful and delicate.

Shako

Shako is mantis shrimp — always boiled, with soft faintly sweet flesh and a flavor all its own. A vanishing Tokyo Bay classic, and not actually a shrimp.

Shirako

Shirako is fish milt — the sperm sac, usually of cod — custardy, creamy and frankly divisive. A prized winter delicacy for the adventurous.

Shirauo

Shirauo is the Japanese icefish — a tiny, translucent whole fish eaten in early spring, often as gunkanmaki or, for the bold, alive. Not to be confused with shirasu.

Suzuki

Suzuki is Japanese sea bass — a light, firm summer white fish with a clean, refreshing flavor, sometimes served arai (ice-shocked) for extra snap.

Tachiuo

Tachiuo is the largehead hairtail — a long, ribbon-shaped fish sheathed in brilliant silver, with soft, rich white flesh. The edible silver skin is the whole point.

Tai

Tai (madai) is red sea bream — Japan's celebratory white fish: firm, clean, subtly sweet, best in spring. Often called 'red snapper' on menus, but it's a different fish.

Tako

Tako is octopus — usually pre-boiled for a firm, springy bite and clean, mildly sweet flavor. Getting it tender instead of rubbery is a quiet test of the kitchen.

Tamago

Tamago is tamagoyaki — a sweet, layered egg omelet, often enriched with dashi and ground shrimp or fish. Traditionally the piece by which you judge a sushi chef.

Tobiko

Tobiko is flying-fish roe — the tiny, crunchy orange beads on the outside of rolls. Mild and smoky-sweet, and often tinted: wasabi green, squid-ink black, yuzu gold.

Torigai

Torigai is the Japanese cockle — its glossy blue-black foot blanched to a sweet, springy bite. Named 'bird shell' for a shape (and a flavor) that recall poultry.

Unagi

Unagi is freshwater eel — always served cooked and lacquered with sweet kabayaki tare. Rich, tender, beloved — and, as an endangered species, ethically loaded.

Uni

Uni is sea urchin — the sweet, briny, custard-rich gonad served raw as gunkanmaki. Quality ranges wildly, and that gap is the whole game.