Beyond Sushi

Whenever I go to a Japenese restaurant, I always struggle with which sushi roll to order because I love cucumber avocado rolls and sweet potato tempura rolls, but it would be too much food for me to get both (since I also always get chicken yakitori and salad).  Ultimately, my love of avocado pretty much wins every time and I order the cucumber avocado roll.  One of the last times that my sister and I went for sushi, I told her I had found a solution to my problem: order one roll with sweet potato tempura and avocado inside!  It sounded like a genius idea, but I felt too weird asking for it so I chickened out and got the cucumber avocado.  Then, when we were walking through Chelsea Market, we passed a place called Beyond Sushi, The Green Roll.  Intrigued, we stopped and looked at the menu only to see that one of their rolls, the Sweet Tree, has sweet potato and avocado inside!  It was close to dinner time so we had to pass it up, but I made it my mission to give Beyond Sushi a try.

So, today I braved the scorching heat outside and made my way to Beyond Sushi by Union Square.  They only make vegetarian sushi rolls, pieces, and rice paper wraps, which is perfect for me because the only sushi I eat is vegetarian.  They also use either six grain rice or black rice for their rolls, which is really unique, and they have a wide array of special sauces that are paired with each roll.  A lot of the menu items peaked my interest, but I of course had to get the Sweet Tree.  It has sweet potato and avocado on the inside, and six grain rice with alfalfa sprouts on the outside.  It also comes with their toasted cayenne sauce, but I chose to swap that our for the sweet soy mirin sauce.

I got there early so there were seats available, but I decided to take it to go.  If you are planning to go during the peak lunch hour, you should plan on taking it to go because the seating is extremely limited. Also, there was only one person making the rolls when I went so you should also factor in some wait time.  Each roll comes with 8 pieces, and when you get it to go the sauce is in a really cool tube on the side (if you stay, the sauce is on top).   

This roll was really delicious, and just what I had been craving.  The rice is really nice and there is not too much of it, which I appreciated. The combination of sweet potato and avocado on the inside was perfect, and the alfalfa sprouts added a nice crunch.  I highly recommend getting this with the sweet soy mirin sauce instead of the toasted cayenne that usually comes with it.  It kind of reminded me of an eel sauce, which I always pair with sweet potato rolls.  This roll is even better than what I would've gotten in a regular sushi restaurant because the sweet potato is not tempura, so it is much healthier.  

Some of the other rolls that they have here are the Mighty Mushroom, which is six grain rice, enoki, tofu, shitake, micro arugula and shitake teriyaki, the Spicy Mang, which is black rice, avocado, mango, english cucumber, spicy veggies and toasted cayenne sauce, and the Nutty Buddy, which is buckwheat noodles, cashews, carrots, cilantro, jalapeno peanut butter, avocado, sesame oil, tofu, romaine, and sweet soy mirin.  They also have individual pieces like Mango, Carrot, and Baked Tofu, so they really have a great range of options.  Of course you have to be open to strictly vegetable sushi to truly enjoy the food here, but if you are like me and love vegetable sushi rolls you should definitely give Beyond Sushi a try.