Midtown Lunch

As frequent readers may have noticed I don’t often get sushi for lunch, not because I don’t like it, but because getting a bento box or something else at downtown Japanese places nearly always seems like a better value to me. Now that the weather has gotten more hot and humid sushi has started sounding better than a hot bowl of rice and meat. That’s how I ended up at Sushi A La Kawa on Maiden Lane (btw. Nassau & Broadway) because I work nearby and saw they have a pretty great maki lunch special, and better yet, the rolls haven’t been festering in a refrigerated case waiting for someone to buy them.

This is one of the nicer affordable sushi places in the Financial District, although every time I walk by I feel like I’m gazing into a zoo of fish-loving lunchers due to the completely glass front of the restaurant. It’s also not run by Japanese people, which is pretty standard.

They have most of the usual lunch special options comprising noodles, teriyaki/katsu, tempura and don buri. What I had my eye on was the maki special where you get two rolls plus miso soup or salad for $8. Three rolls runs you $11. This is the cheapest lunch deal I’ve found for made-to-order sushi rolls so far. But how do they taste?

Don’t get your hopes up that this is going to be mind-blowing sushi, and you’ll be fine. They didn’t skimp on the fish in my salmon avocado roll and I liked that they didn’t put that weird sweet brown sauce all over the eel cucumber roll. That being said, they could have been rolled a bit tighter and the salad was crappy iceberg lettuce, but hey, it was $8. Next time I’d probably shell out for three rolls because I was a bit hungry later in the afternoon.

THE + (What somebody who likes this place would say)

• Two sushi rolls for $8 counts as rock bottom prices.
• This place is a step up from getting lunch from a refrigerated case.
• The dining room is nicer than most FiDi Japanese places.

THE — (What somebody who doesn’t like this place would say)

• The rolls are not the most well-crafted.
• I’d rather just grab some supermarket sushi.

Sushi A La Kawa, 18 Maiden Lane (btw. Nassau & Broadway), (212) 766-8805