Got a hankering for some Japanese finger foods, but don’t want to leave campus? Sodexo has recently started to offer sushi at Sidelines Pub and Nagel Hall’s dining area, made fresh daily.
Unfortunately, Sodexo’s first stab at fresh sushi is anything but phenomenal, and the fact that there’s no meal-swipe option for a pack hardly makes it a good choice for a DU student with a fixed meal budget.
The cream cheese roll features crab, cream cheese and cucumber as its neta, while the spicy roll has three different types of fish (including yellow fin and tilapia), as well as cucumber and avocado.
Both packs cost $5.75, contain 12 small pieces of sushi and include a small serving of wasabi and a packet of soy sauce. In terms of eating purely for fullness’s sake, getting a decent amount of sushi for under $6 might seem like a steal. In terms of taste, however, Sodexo’s sushi is underwhelming.
The inside of the cream cheese roll tastes decent enough. However, the thick-rubber texture of the rice itself completely overwhelms the subtle ways in which the crab and cream cheese play off one another.
Mixing in a bit of soy sauce or wasabi can indeed add some interesting variety, but it fails to add any meaningful flavor to the sushi, instead making the roll taste like a sloppy amalgam of competing tastes and textures.
The spicy roll, despite its name, is anything but spicy. Upon first taste, the various flavors of fish fail to combine in any notable way, instead tasting like a soggy mix of generic seafood.
However, adding a bit of soy sauce and wasabi seems to unlock the myriad flavors present in the piece and makes each piece a truly enjoyable eating experience.
Sodexo’s sushi in no way competes with any of the various sushi restaurants around campus or in Denver, such as Sushi Den on Pearl Street.
Additionally, while both of these rolls are far from horrible, after eating 12 pieces of one kind, the overall experience can get rather monotonous.
Perhaps, if Sodexo begins to offer a variety pack with three or four different kinds in each pack, then it will be a better option for the sushi-loving student.
As it stands right now, however, it’s a far better idea to save your $6 and wait for the weekend.
