What’s really fun here is to run amok through the Wonderful World of Wacky Rolls. Am I offended? I guess I would be - if I wasn’t so busy eating, at exotic roll hotbeds like these…ġ200 Pacific Coast Hwy., Hermosa Beach, 31 3963 Pacific Coast Hwy., Torrance, 31 1150 Morningside Drive, Manhattan Beach, 31 Since opening its first branch in Torrance, Fusion Sushi has evolved from a bargain sushi outlet into, well, a bargain sushi outlet with a big following. This is sushi devoid of subtlety or understatement. They were messy, and they fell apart, and the ingredients all got jumbled together. And once they started arriving, my table went into a feeding frenzy, wolfing down the rolls without rhyme or reason. I ran into the problem I’ve often encountered in exotic roll joints - I couldn’t tell one from the other without a roadmap. Last time I dropped by a casual café called the California Roll Factory in West LA, I counted more than a hundred rolls on the menu, and wouldn’t be surprised if there were more by now.
Add on tempuraed ingredients for crispness, and - yes! - cream cheese, and you have a near infinite number of variations.Īnd an infinite variety isn’t overstating the number of rolls out there. Without the notion of spicy sauce, many of the tsunami of exotic rolls wouldn’t exist. There are no longer boundaries if it can be imagined, with a properly over-the-top name, it can be made.Īnd with some considerable help from the invention of the Spicy Tuna Roll, which is credited specifically to chef Jean Nakayama at Maneki here in Los Angeles, who came up with the concept of mixing bits of tuna (scraps if you wish) with chili sauce, and rolling them with rice, the mix then wrapped in the inevitable sheet of nori. And it can be daunting and nutty at the same time. At many roll-heavy sushi bars, it’s listed under “standard rolls.” Exotica has its own section.
But when it comes to the madcap, near lunatic world of exotic sushi rolls, we’ve gone far beyond the modest California Roll. In Japan, it’s known as Kashu Maki - and yes, it does exist over there. I’ve also seen it credited to chef Ken Seusa at Kin Jo in Hollywood. Culinary origin stories are rarely simple.Īs a local, I’ve long been happy to credit the California Roll to sushi chef Ichiro Mashita, who created the roll at Tokyo Kaikan in Little Tokyo. The California Roll first appeared on the burgeoning sushi scene back in the late 1970s. It stands in contrast to the more traditional nigiri sushi - the lozenge of rice with a slice of fresh fish layered on top, held in place with a strip of seaweed. The first “exotic” sushi roll I encountered was the iconic California Roll - technically a makisushi containing cucumber, crab (real or otherwise) and avocado, sesame seeds and flying fish roe, often rolled inside out.
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