While this popular sushi roll is always colorful, the one I had with my friend at Banbu took the rainbow! The addition of a colorful edible orchid flower put it over the top. The roll was filled with creamy crab salad and crunchy cucumber, and it was topped with avocado and five different types of raw seafood, which I think were shrimp, salmon, yellowtail, tuna, and snapper. In the background you can see the Baja Splash roll which was filled with pieces of raw salmon and cucumber wrapped in seaweed. The roll also came with organic cilantro and, apparently, jalapeño pepper and a splash of lemon, but I didn't detect any of those. It did come with a large lemon wedge so that you could splash your own. My friend also ordered seaweed salad, and all together this was a lovely fresh meal for a summer evening.
Location: Banbu Sushi, 8555 Fletcher Pkwy, Ste 106, La Mesa, California. Date: July 14, 2021.
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Calimesa has some serious Christmas credentials: this was the home of a well-known year round Christmas store as well as a noteworthy Christmas display put on year after year by a private citizen. 21 Sushi House is the only sushi bar I know of in Calimesa, and I felt a connection between Calimesa's Christmas traditions and the Christmas Roll on the Sushi House menu. The roll was interesting because it had no rice. Inside the soy paper wrapper was avocado surrounded by crab meat, and there were slices of raw tuna and salmon on top. It was garnished with spicy mayo and eel sauce. It was sweet and savory, and it was spicy only if you used the wasabi. It was a soft roll with Christmas colors, and it's available year round.
Location: 21 Sushi House, 530 Myrtlewood Drive, Calimesa, California. Date: April 29, 2021. When it comes to sushi, I usually don't go for fancy rolls; however, when I find an interesting one with a local name, I often give it a try. The Date Palm Roll is named for the main street that runs north to south through Cathedral City in the desert of Southern California. Edoko Sushi is located in a shopping plaza on the corner of Date Palm and Ramon. On the menu, the Date Palm roll is said to be filled with five kinds of spicy chopped fish, but the waitress only confessed to tuna. I do think there was some other minced fish in the filling, but what really made it good were the little crispy bits in it that I think were probably bits of crispy fried fish skin. The raw fish filling wasn't actually very spicy but the wasabi kicked it up a notch. The topping was slices of fresh raw salmon and some slices of avocado, a very California ingredient. Because of the current pandemic restrictions, this roll was photographed and eaten in my car (on a sunny day with the windows rolled down).
Location: Edoko Sushi, 69-195 Ramon Road, C-5, Cathedral City, California. Date: January 9, 2021. A friend who works at my Smokin' Burgers hangout used to work at Happy Sushi in downtown Palm Springs. He told me about it the other day, and he mentioned that they had outdoor dining and were open. When I looked them up online I saw that they were advertising salmon roe sushi with quail egg yolk. When I got there today, I saw the same picture on their menu board. So that's what I ordered, and not only was it delicious, it made for another sexy sushi photo. Salmon eggs are really succulent; they explode in your mouth. When you add raw quail egg yolk to the experience, you get a creamier explosion. I'll stop here and say no more.
Location: Happy Sushi, 155 S Palm Canyon Drive, Ste B-7, Palm Springs, California. Date: November 21, 2020. This is the second sushi mango roll I've documented, but it's the first one I've had as takeout (due to the pandemic). This mango roll featured shrimp tempura and a julienne of cucumber and apple, all inside the roll, and mango slices topped with seasonal fruit covering the outside of the roll. In my case, the seasonal fruit turned out to be small blue berries, cut in half, that looked like purple grapes inside but had a very floral note. In taste, the shrimp took center stage, and the fruity roll was less sweet than I expected. The taste really shone when I dipped a slice of the roll into soy sauce with wasabi; the salt and spice accentuated the sweetness of the fruit.
Location: Aki Sushi, 57045 29 Palms Hwy, Yucca Valley, California. Date: May 16, 2020. This hybrid between sushi and sashimi was created just for me by Jayden, the Korean sushi master at Zutto. I love the herbal taste of shiso (beefsteak leaf), and I usually have it with Japanese pickled plum in the ume shiso roll, but Zutto was out of plum. So I asked Jayden to make me something with shiso; I told him to surprise me. And he did! There was a cut of salmon on the outside of his creation, and he stuffed it inside with small cuts of snapper, mango, avocado, smelt eggs, secret sauce and, of course, shiso leaf. It looked like a garden! There was ponzu sauce on the bottom (citrus flavored light soy sauce). Jayden spilled the beans on the special sauce by saying yes to each of the ingredients I guessed: mayo, honey, and sesame oil. The creation was savory, sweet, and herbal; a little bit of Hawaii with a familiar Japanese taste.
Location: Sushi Zutto, 347 Orange Street, Redlands, California. Date: February 9, 2020. I was chatting with the Korean owner of Sachi Sushi, and I mentioned the mango sushi I'd had at a Mexican sushi bar in my desert valley. He asked me if I liked spicy tuna, and I said yes. It didn't take long for him to present me with a custom made sushi that consisted of a filling of finely chopped spicy tuna with green onion wrapped in a minty shiso leaf that was wrapped in fresh thinly sliced cucumber, topped with a mango slice, and garnished with a piece of seaweed, a dollop of masago (flying fish roe), and shaved bonita (fish flakes). It was doused with ponzu sauce (soy sauce with citrus). This interesting piece of sushi was crunchy and fresh from the cucumber, sweet from the mango, spicy from the tuna, herbal from the shiso leaf, and salty and sour from the sauce. I asked the sushi master if this preparation had a name, and he said no. I then asked him if he served these frequently, and he replied that he had just invented it. He'd thought of it on the spot and made it specially for me. I love it when this sort of thing happens!
Location: Sachi Sushi, 474 Orange Street, Redlands, California. Date: October 18, 2019. I've eaten lots of yellowtail at sushi bars, but I don't recall having had yellowtail belly; well, that changed this evening, and oh my, what a delicious and fresh experience this was! I was at tiny SoCal Sushi in San Diego where the fish is known to be particularly fresh. This was also my first experience with a Lao sushi chef, and he is good; in fact, his name is Goody! Now back to the yellowtail belly: it was a firm piece of fish, but Chef Goody scored it so that it felt like a soft fish in your mouth. It was buttery like yellowtail is, but the belly has a cleaner taste. It was so fresh there was just a faint sea breeze in my mouth as I enjoyed the buttery texture of the fish. The fellow next to me at the sushi bar was also ordering yellowtail belly, and when I placed my second order, that was the last one; Chef Goody had to 86 it. My last two pieces (that's what you see here) were a bit smaller, so Chef charged me less for them. I hope to eat this outstanding sushi again before I leave San Diego.
Location: SoCal Sushi, 3454 Adams Avenue, San Diego, California. Date: August 5, 2019. Cabo San Lucas at the Southern tip of Baja California, where fresh fish abound, is the inspiration behind this Mexican style of sushi. At Joe's sushi, not far from where I live, they use avocado, sliced mango, citrus, and spicy ingredients like fresh jalapeño, sriracha, and chili oil. They also use a creamy cilantro sauce that was so good that I drank it off the plate! I went in specifically to experience sushi “the Cabo way”, and so I asked the two Mexican sushi masters, Memo and Alonzo, to make me whatever they wanted as long as it showcased the Cabo style. I got tuna sushi on top of cilantro sauce accented with ponzu (Japanese citrus sauce). The sauce was creamy and luscious, and there was lots of it. The most photogenic dish was eight strips of tuna, each one rolled around some crab, avocado, and shrimp. The little rolls were bathing in a soy style sauce with lemon juice, olive oil, chili oil, and black sesame seeds. This pretty dish was garnished with julienne of cucumber. My last dish (not shown) was salmon sushi in ponzu sauce and topped with a thin lemon slice. It was very lemony, but in a sweet way. All the dishes were served with a beautiful edible orchid flower; they don't taste like much, but they add a little unexpected crunch. All the sushi's were mildly spicy. The sauces were so good that I didn't need the soy sauce with wasabi that one normally uses with sushi. When I told Memo, he said, “That's the Cabo way.” I went back four days later specifically to try the Alexa roll, which is a roll I saw them make using the mango slices to top the rice instead of fish. Inside the mango topped roll was crab, cucumber, cream cheese, and avocado. It was served with two sauces, a creamy mayo sauce and a sweet soy sauce, and the mango was garnished with slices of jalapeňo. There was a crispy fried shrimp protruding from each end of the cut roll. This roll was creamy, sweet, a little spicy, and I could taste the black sesame seeds. I don't eat many sushi rolls, but of all the ones I've had, I can't think of a better one than this. Location: Joe's Sushi, 68545 Ramon Road, Cathedral City, California. Date: June 22 and 26, 2019. The Thai waitress at Sushi Zutto told me that the sushi master was Korean, so after having some good classic Japanese sushi, I asked him to make me a spicy sushi Korean style. He told me that sushi wasn't spicy, so I asked him what the fresh jalapeňos were doing in the case, and he said they were for rolls. I spoke with him some more, and it turned out that he was trained and had worked in Japan before coming to the U.S. I understood that the spicy rolls were for the U.S. market, but the sushi master quickly recovered himself and assured me that he would make me a spicy sushi. What he made was albacore sushi topped with a jalapeňo slice with fish roe and a garnish of green onion. I watched him add three different sauces to my sushi, but when I asked him what they were, he said it was a secret. My custom sushi looked and tasted great, but the pepper he used turned out not to be spicy.
Location: Sushi Zutto, 347 Orange Street, Redlands, California. Date: March 23, 2019. |
AuthorChef Roland has been a legal resident of seven countries and has travelled in over thirty, documenting food along the way. He currently resides in the desert in Southern California. Categories
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