People unaccustomed to eating raw fish can have a nasty disposition towards it. Granted, the phrase "eating raw fish" can conjure up images of a person savagely consuming a dripping aquatic life form, but the popular Japanese cuisine can be a refined and delicious dining experience.

Sliced raw fish on vinegared rice is called "sushi," and it's endured through Asian generations as a low fat, high protein, highly nutritional food source. In the olden days, sushi was a way of preserving fish with lactic acid from fermented rice that it was packed in. While records show that sushi was eaten in China as early as the second century A.D., it was probably exported to Japan 500 years later and bloomed in the rice and fish-based economy.

Today, as more people are flipping fast food out of their diets and turning to more healthy cuisines, a lot of attention has been centered on Japanese food, one of the factors that's helped Japan take leading positions in world health and longevity charts . Sushi, prepared carefully, is a nutritious and tasty alternative to hamburgers and hot dogs.

On the other hand, there's an ancient Japanese myth that the five basic tastes of sour, bitter, sweet, hot, and salty correspond with five major organs: the liver, heart, spleen, kidneys, and lungs. If one of these organs ceases to function properly, it's believed that a person can eat a lot of its corresponding taste and compensate for the deficiency. While the notion probably has nothing to do with scientific fact, it's fun to think the plate of food in front of you might heal your innards.

As with many Japanese dishes, a large part of the "sushi experience" is its presentation, arranged in aesthetically pleasing combinations of color and form. Thin slices of fish are placed on top of oval rice balls with spicy green horseradish sauce (or "w asabi") layered in the middle. Raw fish (or "sashimi") comes in an array of colors, from deep red tuna to golden yellowtail, and often tastes milder than cooked fish. An assortment of seafood can be served in similar fashion, with calamari, clams, scallop s, or eel taking the place of fish. The meal is finally garnished with "gari," which is thinly-sliced pickled ginger.

Aside from sashimi sushi, restaurants also serve various rice and vegetable rolls wrapped in dried "nori" seaweed. The most famous of these is the California Roll, a combination of avocado, cucumber, imitation crab, and wasabi. These rolls are a good intr oduction to sushi for people intimidated with the thought of eating uncooked fish.

Okay, but why, you might ask, are we discussing Japanese cuisine here in dusty Tucson? As it turns out, there are several good Japanese restaurants in the Tucson area, and nothing's better on a blistering hot day than a plate of fresh, cool sushi. Yakitor i Restaurant (820 E. University Blvd.) and Sushi-Cho (1830 E. Broadway) are right around the corner from the UA campus and a third eatery, Takamatsu Restaurant (5532 E. Speedway Blvd.), is a short drive east but well worth the trip. For those addicted to sushi, there are several other restaurants scattered throughout the city.

• Yakitori Restaurant

  This little spot is on the south side of University Blvd. between Baskin Robbins and Two Pesos. They have two things going for them: proximity and price. A platter of six sashimis and a six-piece California Roll is $8. Like most Japanese restaurants, miso soup is included.

  The restaurant is decorated in traditional Japanese trimmings and lamps, with wood furnishings and a dark interior. There are two televisions mounted on the wall to amuse the casual college diners, too many of which loudly pound tables daring each other t o try sake bombs. But what do you expect from a campus eatery?

  Yakitori has a sushi bar where individual pieces of sushi can be ordered, and the service is congenial and efficient.

• Sushi Cho

  Sushi Cho, while slightly more expensive than Yakitori, is a definite step up in quality. The sashimi pieces are thick and large enough to drape over the edges of the rice balls in sushi gluttony. There's a sushi bar here as well, and a large platter of s ushi can be ordered for about $13, including a salad and miso soup. It's pricey enough to make frequent visits a difficulty, but it's good enough to warrant as many visits as possible.

  Sushi Cho also offers a variety of lunch specials which are substantially cheaper than their dinner counterparts. The dinnerware is elegant and traditional and on one particular occasion, the restaurant even set me and some friends up in a separate dining room. The restaurant is bereft of Yakitori's college-style atmosphere, and is a nice alternative for an elegant meal.

• Takamatsu Restaurant

  Sushi Cho is indeed very good. But if you're ready to have some out of this world sushi, pull up your pants and head down Speedway to Takamatsu. On a recent visit to Takamatsu with some friends, we ordered our usual kappa maki rolls (just cucumber here fo lks), but accented them with a wonderfully broad selection recommended by our sushi preparer. Two of us were slightly timid about delving deeper (to be fair, one of these people is one of them vegetarians), but my other friend and I let ourselves be taken on a culinary excursion. We started off with an unbelievable octopus salad, had our requisite miso soup, and started in on the kappa maki. As we were eating, our sushi preparer kept bringing us new dishes to try... gratis. Some of these seemed to be jus t the guy messing around like a kid in the kitchen (i.e. "teriyaki octopus") but he also brought us some rolls that were out of this world. I only wish I could remember the names of these so I can order them again. Takamatsu takes sushi to a higher level - just sitting at the sushi bar one realizes he's probably going to pay a little more than he would at Sushi Cho. Indeed, we ended up paying a little more than $20 per person, but it was well worth it. If I have a criticism (and admittedly this is a littl e immature) it is that Takamatsu doesn't have the typical hot damp towels to wash your hands with at the beginning of the meal. Instead they have sort of a hot damp paper towel that comes wrapped in plastic. If you want to impress a date, hit Takamatsu. -Noah Lopez

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