Salmon is one of the most common fish in the sushi world.   Its prominence is extremely high in all Japanese restaurants and it can’t really be called a Japanese restaurant if salmon does not exist in that restaurant at all.   Know for its very fishy taste, salmon has a buttery texture and looks radically orange at all times.   In my experience, salmon usually taste pretty good to people who have just started sushi. (Given that they like the complete rawness taste of sashimi)    One extra fact, salmon is considered a cheap(er) sushi fish in Japan.

However, it is easier to fool an amateur eater over the quality of salmon.  It is often hard to see how fresh the piece of fish is, due to salmon’s fresh appearance at all times.   Even though the salmon has not been fresh for a long time, it will still appear to be bright orange most of the time.   Sometimes it doesn’t even taste very stale when it’s not fresh.  Unfresh salmon taste quite bland instead.    Good salmon melts in your mouth.     Stale salmon stays in your mouth like a rubbery gummy-bear, leaving you no choice but to choke it down with some (second tier) soy-sauce.

There are actually things that you can see about how good the fish quality is.  At the very least you should look at how equally distributed the fat veins of the salmons are.   Top-tier wild-caught salmon has fat deposited evenly throughout the whole body and the white stripes should not look very wide.  They should look very dense and thin instead.    And in terms of color, you should be careful if you see the bright orange color on the fish.   In US, since all the sashimi fish are flash frozen, some salmon are extra treated with chemicals to preserve it’s appearance.   The best salmon looked naturally pinkish orange without the glossy texture.