Not only the rice, but the freshness of the fish. Supermarket sushi has been sitting around for cod-knows how long. Many supermarkets only get fish in once a week.
Are there any conveyor-belt sushi restaurants in your area? If so, I’d recommend stopping by one if you want to try several different types of sushi without paying for a whole roll. You sit at a counter in front of a conveyor belt carrying an endless chain of covered plates with 2-3 pieces each of different kinds of sushi on them. The chefs are on the other side of the bar constantly preparing new plates to go on the belt. The plates are color-coded by price (at the one near me, the prices range from $1.50 to $4.00), and once you’re finished eating the waitress tallies up your plates to compute your bill.
It’s what YOU do at a restaurant. 
I don’t like anything added to my sushi. No ginger, “wasabi”, or soy, and I tend to avoid the restaurants near me that use that tan colored mayonaise that the OP was talking about.
I have just discovered sushi myself a couple years ago. I’m sure the Kroger stuff is okay, there is a Giant Eagle grocery store somewhat near me that has a sushi chef counter and I’ve bought freshly made rolls from her that were pretty good. But if you find a decent restaurant that serves higher quality and fresher sushi you will taste a difference. It doesn’t have to be super expensive either. Around here I can get great rolls 6 for $7 or a couple places where its slightly cheaper but not quite as good, and a Hokkaido buffet where I can eat as much as I want (and try a couple other things beside rolls).
Look for a small little Japanese restaurant in your area. Maybe ask other people you see buying sushi in the Kroger for recommendations just to get an idea whats out there. A lot of them have platters with multiple types of rolls or rolls and other types of sushi so you can sample. Once you find a place that has things you like and you’re feeling a little more adventurous ask if you can sit somewhere where you can talk to the Chef. He’ll give you tons of information and guide you to some new things.
Basically don’t be afraid to ask questions from people. Your circle might mock you (none of my friends or family like sushi either), but if you can find a few others that like it you’lll get tons of ideas and recommendations.
I prefer a sushi restaurant, but several of the grocery stores have a sushi counter with a fellow making sushi. He’ll make something special if you ask. It’s an outside company, Bento, that has counters in several groceries. I can spend $35 for great sushi at lunch, or pick up a box with a roll and 4 nigari for $11 and take it home after my shopping done.
Good idea. Where I live some of these are called Sushi Boat restaurants, where the conveyor belt is a small river of water (about 6" wide) circling the sushi bar where you sit around that and the different sushi choices float by on little boats. Just look for something interesting as it floats by and pick it up by its little plate.
The little plates are color-coded and priced by those colors.
NIGIRI — just sayin’
It’s not kimchi (I say it “kim-CHEE”). Kimchi is Korean, while Sushi is Japanese. What you’re asking about is Japanese gari ginger, described here:
That’s just Nigiri. And convey-belt sushi (usually boats in a kind of moat circling the bar) is only one step up from super-market sushi. You don’t want to eat someone else’s leftovers.
I’m Japanese (originally) and I’ll defend supermarket sushi. Yes, it’s an Americanized imitation of sushi, but I still buy and enjoy it for what it is.
Also, in many small cities in America, the sushi at a “Japanese” restaurant isn’t any better, and more expensive.
Well, sure, but if you read the OP, he repeats how bland he finds it, and wants to put that gross sauce on it. I’m just checking the basics here, if he’s not been to a restaurant for sushi, he might not know to put the wasabi and soy together. If he finds it bland plain, that’s the next step. He needs to try with the salty horseradish heat before slathering it in other stuff. And he has the means right there in the grocery store tray without having to find a decent restaurant.
I get sushi at my supermarket sometimes. It’s okay, but pretty meh compared to a real sushi bar. It’s my experience that supermarket nigiri is always flavorless. You’re okay if you get something like a spicy tuna roll where the seasoning covers the blandness of the fish, but if you want straight-up tuna on a pad of rice, you need to find a restaurant that buys high-quality fresh fish and has a chef who knows how to prepare it.
Just to kind of piggyback on this. Recently I ordered Beef Negimaki Teriyaki at the local Japanese restaurant and it came with a little cup of a pink sauce kind of like watered down mayonnaise. I had no idea what to do with it. What was I supposed to do with it?
Dip
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Well, sure, but if you read the OP, he repeats how bland he finds it, and wants to put that gross sauce on it.
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Yum Yum sauce? If they use Kewpie mayo and Sriracha (aka Rooster) hot sauce, it’s not irredeemably bad. I once saw a very clueless person using American mayo and Tabasco, which is way off the mark.
Not really to my taste either, BTW, but it’s their lunch, so who am I to argue?
There’s all sorts of etiquette surrounding sushi, and real sushi chefs sound like dicks.
http://www.bonappetit.com/uncategorized/article/allow-us-to-lay-down-the-rules-of-eating-sushi
I prefer sushi restaurants, in part because I’ve had some great experiences in them. I recall one where, after a very satisfying lunch with a friend the chefs sent us a small plate of new creations they had based solely on what they saw the two of us eating and enjoying.
I will sometimes purchase grocery store sushi, but for that I usually stick to the vegetarian options which is basically fancy salad.
Yes, there are dicks that impose all sorts of rules on sushi. If I was at a formal dinner in Japan I’d worry about it. In the US, generally if you can get all the food into your mouth without making a major mess you’re OK. I tend to eat sushi in two bites because so many places make something like the rolls so large I have trouble handling it all in one bite. I figure two bites is more polite that trying to do it in one, choking, and spewing it all over the table. When pieces are small enough to actually be bite size I’ll do them in one.
When I bring a newbie into a sushi bar or restaurant I usually mention they’re a newbie so if they gaff people know its from ignorance rather than being a jerk. In my experience, chefs are very interested in giving a newbie a good experience/introduction to sushi.
This X 10. Squared.
I don’t think the “etiquette” associated with eating sushi at better restaurants is about being dickish, it’s more about providing guidelines to enjoy the (expensive, subtly flavored) food to maximum effect - mixing up a soy/wasabi sludge and dunking a quality piece of nigiri rice-down in it is like pouring ketchup over a prime dry-aged steak.
In the West, sushi is somehow considered a cold dish but traditionally, sushi is meant to be served warm. Sushi rice is considered ideal when at body temperature and the fish should be cool but not frozen. The contrast between the fish and rice temperature is one of the joys of sushi and only lasts for about 5 minutes or so (which is why traditionally sushi is served in a bar format vs kitchen and tables like most food).
Imagine if you traveled to some foreign country and people were buying hamburgers from refrigerated cases in supermarkets and eating them cold, then proclaiming they didn’t get what the big deal about hamburgers was.
I agree to an extent, but the parts about no smoke or phone breaks, or how to do your chopsticks, or drinking is a bit much. Maybe if you’re going for the entire sushi ritual in a super-Japanese place, but at your average American sushi place, it doesn’t really matter, and any chef that’s ending someone’s meal because of a smoke or phone break won’t stay in business very long.