Sushi Date Night #2

I'm not too worried about being able to find good sushi in Los Angeles. It may not be Shiro's, and it may not be cheap, but we will find good sushi in our new city. However, I think being able to make our own sushi might become a thing of the past (at least raw sushi). I have no idea how easy it will be to find sushi-grade fish in our grocery stores and markets. As a result I'd like to do it several times before we leave.

We wanted to stick with pretty simple rolls this time around. First, we thought we'd do a variation on a California roll. Neither of us care for imitation crab (why give it that name as if it's some kind of synthetic crab...so unappetizing), but we both love real crab. We thought about getting some Dungeness crab to put inside along with the standard cucumber and avocado, but instead stumbled upon a lobster salad at Uwajimaya (the awesome Asian grocery store around the corner from us that sells sushi-grade fish). We also bought some cooked shrimp to put on the top to give it a little extra pizzazz. It probably would have been better (but a bajillion times more costly with fresh Dungeness crab), but nonetheless, way better than your standard California roll.

We also saw scallops at Uwajimaya, which if you know me, means that we had to buy them. Not feeling super creative (and never being able to top 'The Erin' from our first sushi date night), we settled on making a spicy scallop roll. Dustin chopped the scallops, and I mixed them with Japanese-style mayonnaise and a dash of sriacha. Easy-peasy and definitely the winner of the night.

Finally we thought we'd focus on a variety of fresh fish, what sushi is really all about. We simply bought yellowtail, red fin tuna, and salmon, put it with a little avocado and wrapped it all in rice and nori. The salmon looked so great and fresh, we decided to throw it on top.

While I think our first sushi night was a little more successful than this time around, we did spend a lot more time thinking up and planning those rolls. For this dinner, we just went to the store with a wing-it attitude and were still pleased with our results. It may not be as good as Shiro's, but with such fresh fish, it was easily a comparable dinner to any other sushi joint around (and a heck of a lot more fun).

For more information on making sushi rice and everything, see our first post on making sushi.