Well dear readers, sorry it's been a while! Today I will delight you with my thoughts on How Do You Roll?
Friday evening Patrick and I ventured to the Second Street location (there is also one at The Domain). How Do You Roll's concept is really neat. I compared it to a Subway for sushi; however, the employee corrected me as it is the "Chipotle" of sushi. I suppose Chipotle is classier? Whatever. I think it's Subway. You can't get the best sandwich at Subway, but it's fast, cheap and decent. How Do You Roll is just that. Well maybe a little less than decent ...
Upon arriving, the guy behind the counter explained to us how it works:
1. Pick your wrap - Seaweed or Soy
2. Pick 3 veggies
3. Pick your fish
4. Pick your topper sauces
Patrick and I opted for two of How Do You Roll's custom rolls and one create your own roll.
The first roll we picked was the Slammin' Salmon Roll. This roll included a seaweed wrap, salmon, cream cheese, jalepeno, mango, masago, spicy mayo, sesame chili oil and unagi sauce.
The second roll we opted for was the 3 Alarm Roll. This roll is also a seaweed warp with tuna, avocado, cucumber, jalapeno, crunch, spicy mayo, sweet chili, sesame chili oil and and chili powder.
Our create our roll was kind of a hodgepodge of items. I picked a seaweed wrap with mushrooms, avocado and asparagus as my veggies. Patrick picked crawfish for the meat, and we topped it with creamy miso sauce.
We also ordered some miso soup, so let's start there. The miso was standard. I'm pretty positive they just buy the little packets from H.E.B and add water. There's nothing wrong with that I suppose, but I can do that at home. It was little more watery than I like, but you can't really mess up soup.
Now the rolls.
Let's start with the Slammin' Salmon Roll. Let's just say there wasn't anything too "slammin'" about this roll. I'm not really sure what exactly it tasted like as it was so spicy I only ate two, and had to guzzle water after each one. The spice was so overwhelming that's all you could taste. Patrick disagreed and said it was his favorite of the rolls we ordered. He thought the 3 Alarm Roll was spicier. I, however, disagree. Furthermore, there was no varying texture of the roll. It was just kind of mush ...
The 3 Alarm Roll was my favorite of the three rolls; however, it was still pretty bland. I didn't think it was spicy at all, but Patrick did so I guess that could be debated. It lacked texture. The roll had "crunch" on top of it, but I'm sad to report there was no crunch. I can't really think of anything to say about the roll besides it was incredibly blah.
I won't bore you with my thoughts on our create your own roll. Let's just say I shouldn't be a sushi chef anytime soon. The flavors were random, and didn't really pair well.
Overall.
How Do You Roll has a great concept, but the food is just all right. The fish didn't seem as fresh as it could be, and I had a terrible stomach ache the next morning. It could have been from the intense explosion of spice I experienced or bad fish or too many beers at the bar. Who knows? But the overall fish quality leaves a lot to be desired and I worried that Patrick and me would get food poisoning.
Patrick gave the rolls a "resounding ehh". I'm inclined to agree. There was nothing special about the rolls, and I probably won't go back. However, the price was right as I had groupon. I spent $10 for $20 worth of food at How Do You Roll. We spent $6.95 on dinner so that would have been $26.95 for three rolls and two soups with out the groupon. That's pretty affordable, but Patrick and I agreed that we would have been pretty peeved if we had spent $26.95 on that dinner since it wasn't delicious. But for $6.95 ($16.95 really if you include the cost of the groupon), we thought it was OK. So if you could get all that for $6.95 all the time, I suppose it might be worth it? Wait. Nevermind. It's not.
We dined outside at the Second Street location, and with the weather being a cool 80-s0mething-degrees, our walk downtown and eating outside was probably the highlight of our dining experience. That doesn't say much for the restaurant.
And the mouthgasms?
Slammin' Salmon - 2
3 Alarm Roll - 2.3
Create your own - 5 for concept, 1 for deliciousness
Furthermore, the name of the restaurant is stupid. How Do You Roll? Um, how original ...
Until next time readers ...
And remember keep it sexy, Austin.
