Archived Article By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published September 24, 2007 The New Sushi Sushi bars seem to be obsessed with building ever more complicated rolls, and making them ever harder to eat. This is not a new trend, but it's only lately that it seems to have really taken over. Not that they don't taste good. Some of them do. The rainbow roll, which usually involves two or three kinds of fish girdling the outside of the roll of rice, and whose center is stuffed with a few things, is a good one. But I find that a one-in-twenty. The advent of the super-rolls means a few things: 1. You have to ask what all of them are. Unless you've had the roll before, you have no idea what--well, this cha-cha roll here is. What about the Dancing Tuna roll? You know it has tuna, but what else? This is not a big problem when things are slow, but when the sushi chef is busy, you feel bad about asking for the contents of more than two of the oddballs. I get around this by asking one question only. "Which of the rolls are made without shredded fake crabmeat?" I want to know. I hate that stuff, and won't order anything with that as an ingredient. (I usually wind up getting some, anyway.) 2. You'll spend a little more. The super-rolls are rarely less than about $8, and often go into double digits. That's not a ripoff. My objection is that you get perhaps more of one complement of flavors than you might want, since these things are big. 3. Flavor clashes. Contrast is critical to my palate, and when you have, say, tuna and salmon on top of one another, they either blend into one another or fight it out. That's what happens when two items with similar tastes or textures come together. 4. Super-rolls are a mouthful. Even the skilled sushi chefs cut these into pieces a bit too thick. You will not succeed in taking a bite out of a piece without having it disintegrate. Anyway, the standard way of eating sushi is to put an entire piece in your mouth at once. This makes for an uncomfortable wad. 5. Inevitable Mayo. The super-rolls inevitably have mayonnaise-based sauces. These have, for some reason, become staples of sushi bars. Where did that come from, anyway? Recently I had an asparagus roll that was topped with a blob of pure mayonnaise. This is like something out of the worst cafeteria or supermarket deli. Of course, all of this is here because it boosts the check average, and gives sushi chefs the opportunity to do something original. Unless they're just copying their "new" rolls from other restaurants or the internet. As happens. How else to explain that, suddenly, every sushi bart in town has a FEMA roll? © 2007 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com