OK, so I've delved in and tried a few times to prepare homemade sushi
and would love to get better at it. I've got fairly simple sushi
tastes - salmon rolls, tuna rollls, sometimes spicy, sometimes not. I
encountered problems when preparing these rolls at home, though, in
that the taste didn't come out right. After the first failure I
thought it was my rice preparation technique, but I've altered the
rice recipe several times and no luck - basically it comes out tasting
really bland. I know tuna and salmon aren't the inherently tastiest
fish in and of themselves, but at a sushi bar I always have been
pleased at the taste and most times don't even need wasabi or ginger
unless I want it. At home, however, it was like eating... nothing.

I bought sashimi-grade salmon and tuna from a local Japanese
supermarket, and even tried a different market so that wasn't it. Its
almost as if the sushi bars prepare the fish in some way (in some sort
of brine? vinegar?) to bring out the taste a bit more. Is there some
secret to this? I would have thought these would be the easiest
things to prepare at home, but I'm not having any luck and am
stumped.

Thanks in advance for any help.