Bwog’s Japanese Culture in Small, Enclosed Units Specialist Liz Naiden has evaluated the sushi of Morningside, and she has some surprising results.

Pre-made sushi is the best food from a box (though only the second best thing that can be in a box) there ever could be. It’s refreshing, healthy, readily available, and you can get it for pretty cheap if you are willing to venture outside of Columbia Dining. Pretty much every food spot with a fridge sells box sushi these days–Westside, Morton, M2M–the list goes on. So where do you head for the freshest, cheapest, most perfectly succulent California roll?

Bwog’s pick is undoubtedly M2M. Not only do lots of Asian people shop there (always a good sign), but M2M has got the goods for a damn good price. The California rolls are $3.50 for white rice and $4.00 for brown, and they are fresh, plump, juicy, and tightly rolled. This may be partly due to the nice big serving of avocado, an ingredient on which M2M’s competitors tend to skimp.

Morton is a close second with California rolls of brown and white rice going for $4.95 each. These are pretty good–a good hand put them tightly together–and the ingredients taste fresh all around. The only exception was the slightly stale, sesame seed-coated brown rice, which our official taste testers found “a little tiresome.” Admittedly, not all taste testers understand the brown rice “heath nutty whatever” craze.

Westside, though farthest from Butler, is generally a favorite for price, freshness, variety and jovial atmosphere. Unfortunately, not where sushi is concerned. You can tell from the minute you find yourself wandering the depths of the store to find the sushi that Westside is not a good idea. Westside’s sushi tends to be stale, square, and thinly cut. There is a healthy serving of roe on top, but the sushi is still an inferior pariah, relegated to second class status in the back of the market. No view of the sushi from the front of the store means no impulse buyers (yeah, that’s why the desserts are there) and stale sushi. You’d think they’d be offering a fine little deal to sell the stuff from back there. But alas, $6.50 a pop, when you’ve walked that far, is no deal.

-LN