Going with the Asian market scenario, look deeply in the freezer section. They hide unusual plant and fish remains there. We have a shop called Lo's Seafood near us. It's my favorite food store. Kevin Hamer, who came to our sushi dinner last night with his fiance Shana, noted that the layout of the Lo's market progresses from Not Scary to Scary. Where Not Scary stuff, located at the front of the store, includes things like candied peanuts, savory snacks, interesting sodas, rice and fruit gums. However, as you penetrate the store, ingredient recognition quickly deteriorates until you encounter the farthest and lowest freezer - not unlike the ocean bottom where you might find creatures that have never seen sunlight or Americans. This is the Scary section.
The sushi related ingredients were almost half way between Not Scary and Scary. I found thinly slice frozen octopus, convenient and reasonably priced frozen chunks of yellow fin tuna, eel already barbecued and filleted, thin sliced cuttle fish (aka squid), and frozen imitation crab. The essential sushi ingredients such as wasabi, toasted nori, diakon pickles, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame seeds were all in the vicinity.
The toppings and fillings category really gets exponential; it's the total number of ingredients assembled in every possible combination divided by degrees of individual squeamishness. So, basically get what you like to eat - or get what you like to make and like what you make to eat. Or, as Troy completed; get what you'd like to watch other people eat.
I've put together a shopping list for the Asian store and the American store. If you see things on the American list at the Asian store, get them at the Asian store. It's politically correct to support these guys in spite of the fact that they are cheaper and better.
SHOPPING LISTS
Asian market shopping list (with wiki links in separate pages):
Sushi basics
Toasted Nori - (Nori is the green seaweed square, check for toasted, it has a nice taste)
Wasabi - ("Japanese horseradish" - the green paste that looks but doesn't taste like green tea ice cream) Powder is cheap and lasts a long time but you end up with a lot of it
Sushi Rice - Kokuho is a common brand
Soy Sauce - Kikoman is my staple (be careful of crappy soy sauce, the better the soy sauce the fewer the ingredients - Kikoman has water, wheat, soybeans, salt, okay and some sodium benzoate).
Takuan - (diakon pickle) these are usually unnaturally yellow
Pickled Ginger or Gari, often unnaturally pink
Rice Vinegar - Plain if you want to follow the recipe for making sushi vinegar, or seasoned which is already sweetened and can be used directly.
Sriracha Chili Sauce - For making spicy mayo and to use in general.
Black sesame seeds - for aesthetics, taste, crunch
Featured below: bag of wasabi powder, mostly empty bag of sesame seeds, kikoman sauce decanter, rice vinegar, toasted nori. Lower photo: mostly empty bottle of Srirachi Sauce
Sushi toppings and fillings - whatever you're willing to eat or can find:
Yellow fin tuna
Eel
Octopus
Squid
Imitation crab
Shrimp
Spring onions
Funny looking mushrooms
etc...
Sushi equipment (you may need to get these in a Kitchen supply store)
Rice paddle - you probably don't need this but it's the cutest thing
Sushi mat - we decided that each guest should have one (see sushi party post-mortem)
Rice cooker - you should own one of these anyway
It seems these cookers are inexpensive and ubiquitous these days. I've owned my rice cooker for 18 years. I saw some at Walmart for $30 which look a lot like mine. Mine is a "National" which I think is synonymous with Panasonic. I went to a web site that sells National brand rice cookers and noticed that they think the Walmart rice cookers suck. In fact, they claim any cookers that look like mine are outdated, dysfunctional and being dumped on the American market. The new ones look like Japanese cartoons. If anyone has any recent experience with rice cookers, please comment. Mine holds about 5 cups of rice which has always turned out to be fine.
American (non-Asian) Supermarket shopping list:
Regular supermarkets with good fish departments will provide you with most of the remaining ingredients for sushi rolls. You may want to tell the fish vendor that you are planning on eating the fish raw. That may cause him or her to come clean on the freshness.
Avocados (this is where you discover you should have started this project four days ago - usually there are no ripe avocados)
Carrots
European type cucumber the thin really long ones that seem always to come shrink wrapped)
Mayo (if you're doing the spicy mayo thing)
Salmon (get a center section, not the tapering end part, with the skin on)
Spring onions if not available at the Asian store
Next step: Sushi Rice
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