Use the Polygons menu set for creating and editing Polygons and the Surfaces menu set for creating and editing Nurbs. You can also create your own menu set with both if you want and find that easier just choose Customise then New Menu Set and then add the things you want to your menu.
Other differences you will notice is the the Polygons tab is now called Mesh and the Edit Polygons is now called Edit Mesh.The Normals menu used to be under the edit Polygons tab but now has it's own menu.