U-G-L-Y. You ain’t got no alibi. You’re..nasty. :(
I don’t know. Maybe it’s cuz it’s located in the far end of an empty plaza. Maybe because it’s called Ugly Roll. Maybe because it was completely empty during lunch hours. Lack of customers = low turnaround of fish. Maybe because it’s so damn cheap. I don’t know.
Whatever the reason. My first instinct was DO NOT eat fish. Do not eat anything that was once alive.
Come on Ronnie. Stay positive. Cup half full. Let’s do this.
I ordered the ugly roll combo (2 rolls, tempura, salad, fruit.) For my rolls, I picked the shrimp tempura and went against all instincts and chose the rainbow roll. Yes. Meaning all sorts of different raw fishes on top of CA roll. If I’m gonna get salmonella, I’m going all out.
As you wait for your food, there’s all sorts of manga on the walls that you can read and markers on the tables so you can draw on the wall so you can be a real-life buddha and write something profound like, “Stay high when the river runs dry” or “Ouch. ouch. i have the runs”.
The waiter awkwardly snapped me out of my daydaze and presented me with a sad looking combo. 10 pieces of rolls, random greens with feta cheese, half a orange, two shrimp tempura pieces and three veggie tempura pieces. I went straight for the shrimp tempura roll - shrimp = fried. Fried = safe. It was meh. I rather get packaged sushi from Nijiya or Mitsuwa. The rainbow roll looked more questionable. All the fish look muted, like it’s been left out the fridge. For days.
Nonetheless, I paid for it so I’m going for it. I believe the fish used was yellowtail, white fish, salmon and tuna. Not that I could tell since everything was nearly the same color. Everything was very mushy. From the seaweed to the fish. The fish melted in my mouth in a bad way. The avocado ratio was completely off and dominated the whole roll.
To be fair, the tempura was ok and so was the orange. You can’t mess up orange.
I wouldn’t go as far to say that eating here was like bracing myself through a Fear Factor challenge. But it was damn close.
11128 Palms Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 837-8500
