I don’t particularly care for the ginger either, though I can’t think now what the flavor reminded me of. Pinesol does not come to mind though.
I’m not a huge sushi fan, though it is good in moderation. The IT guys here could do sushi for lunch every week, and I just cannot (even if the budget allowed it).
Someone upthread mentioned wasabi peas - oh the deliciousness of wasabi peas cannot be overstated. Love 'em by the handful, even if it makes my eyes water!
I put the ginger AND wasabi in the soy sauce. But that must have been some mild wasabi, whoever said it gives just a flash of heat then disappears, cause the last time I had wasabi I could feel it in my sinuses the rest of the day, and I am a person who considers 2 habaneros “average heat” for a meal.
It’s strange that people turn their noses up at eel without ever tasting it. I mean, it’s just a fish. People eat the Patagonian toothfish and the Slimehead with gusto. (Of course, they order them as ‘Chilean seabass’ and ‘orange roughy’ or ‘redfish’) An eel is just a long, skinny fish.
Another thing to try at the sushi bar if they have it: pickled daikon/radish. It’s a sweeter pickle most of the time that I’ve had it, and it’s pretty tasty, IMO. Then again, I eat and enjoy a lot of things that a lot of my fellow Westerners don’t enjoy.
I normally don’t add anything to the sushi rolls, but I do occasionally dip my negiri in a little bit of soy sauce.
Has anyone every actually seen this? I saw Alton Brown mention this on his show and I’ve been eating sushi for years in multiple states/cities, but I don’t think I’ve ever had nigiri or rolls prepared with the wasabi already applied. I’ve seen rolls that contain “wasabi sauce” but never just plain wasabi. Is there a special way to order it to let the chef know you’d like him to apply the wasabi?
I’ve always seen the sushi chef add wasabi. In fact when I go with my nieces, all their rolls and sushi are ordered ‘without wasabi’.
I’ve absolutely seen nigiri with wasabi already applied. They put a smidgen between the rice and the fish so it’s inconspicuous. Rolls? Not sure, I haven’t noticed.
I only occasionally see wasabi already in my nigiri, and almost never if it’s from a plate on the boat line.
It was certainly presented that way when I sat at Yasuda-san’s station at Sushi Yasuda in NYC. (I can’t recommend it highly enough, if you tend towards the purist school of sushi-appreciation.) I’ve also requested it that way here and there–I prefer it to having to futz around with the wasabi myself.
To the original topic: I adore the marinated ginger. Sometimes, it’s as if the sushi is just an excuse for me to eat lots of ginger! It does have… er, slightly peculiar side effects on me the next day, though.
While I never thought Pine-Sol specifically, it certainly does have an industrial cleanser taste for me. Lots love it. I don’t, and that’s okay.
I can see where you’re coming from on the Pine-Sol thing. Ginger, fresh or pickled, has always tasted like soap to me.
See, there’s the hork again!
I always heard it <for decades> as throwing up. Humans, not just cats as seemed predominant in that other hork thread>
Horking DOWN something…sounds painful!
But I like the word so much I’ll have to try to work that into the conversation sometime.
I typically use ‘scarf’ as a verb for when I’m stuffing my face. 
Here’s a YouTube video on Sushi Yasuda New York:
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=MV997iCq4_Y&
You can see the sushi being made at the 0:32 mark. The chef takes a small dab of wasabi (the green stuff from the container by the rice cooker) and smears it on the rice before adding the fish. It may be hard to see because of the camera angle and the chef’s speedy work.
Back to the OP: I like the occasional sliver of pickled ginger, but I usually just eat sushi order after sushi order without it. Yum! 
(Too late for an edit, hence the double post.)
This is from an anime, but see what happens at the 8:20 mark onward:
I think all this talk about the “Pine-Sol” taste when eating GInger is just that while being chewed it gives a hint of lemon and this is what they mean by the “Pine-Sol” effect. I’ve usually found this to come from many of the young Ginger shoots I slice and pickle at home too as well as the ones I’ve purchased in Jars from the local Asian Markets.
I lived in Japan for 7 years, but never got into sushi nor sashimi. But that said, in every other Japanese cuisine that I’ve tried, pickled ginger is a condiment. I severely doubt that it’s intended as a palate cleanser. If American restaurants serve it as such, I’d guess that it’s because silly white people started to eat it like its own dish.
If the OP had a bad experience, I’d venture to guess that it’s for much the same reason as one would get suckling on a bottle of ketchup. It simply isn’t intended to be eaten straight. If you enjoy eating it like that, all the power to you, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to pass the practice on to others.
The smelt eggs have an even better texture for popping between your teeth. I love smelt eggs in various sushi.
Put me in the ‘No Ginger’ column as well. Tastes like soap to me. When I go for sushi with one friend of mine I give her my ginger as she always runs out - she puts a slice on almost everything.
You need to come to my corner of the universe. There’s a sushi place near me that has the condiments on a sidebar and you can have as much of the pickled ginger as you want(they also have wonderful pickled bean sprouts). I have a jar of it in my fridge and snack on it occasionally. Sometimes my six year old wanders through and takes it out and snacks on it too. He loves it because it’s spicy. Then he does his “spicy dance” where he makes a face like the one on warheads candy, assumes a stance like Donkey Kong, then hops from one foot to the other while punching himself in the groin. We’ve tried to convince him not to do that, but we figure he’ll definitely stop sometime during puberty.
Enjoy,
Steven
I thought I was the only one who thought ginger tasted like it had been soaked in cleaning chemicals. I hate the taste of it.
