Midtown Lunch

I am usually staunchly against eating lunch at your desk, and mostly against bringing your lunch to work (it would be the death of this site), but in these economic times even I admit that it’s tough to eat out every day. If you love sushi, it’s even harder. Lunch’er Jacob comes to the rescue with this awesome suggestion, co-opted from another commenter:

I love Yagura (on 41st btw. Mad+5th). What a treasure. Their curries are awesome. The udon/soba is so cheap and tasty. But, this week, I decided to take Ubu Walker’s advice and I have been making two sushi rolls and a few bite-sized rice balls for under $5 at work. I bought vinegar, soy sauce, a package of roasted sesame seeds, wasabi, and nori. Now each day I just go in and buy some sashimi meat and rice. You can get enough spicy tuna for two rolls for about $2 and rice for $1.50, or enough plain tuna for two rolls for about $4.

Your ideas are intriguing and I’d like to subscribe to your newsletter. Photos please…  

“Put a little vinegar on your hands and then roll a couple rice balls. Add about two tablespoons of vinegar to the remaining rice. Spread half the rice on a piece of nori covering about 1/3 to 1/2 of the nori. Sprinkle sesame seeds (you could add a little wasabi here as well).  I really like the spicy tuna, because it’s cheaper and easy to handle, but they didn’t make any at Yagura today, so I had to settle for regular tuna.”

“Add the meat and roll the whole thing up. Use a little water on your finger tip (or your tongue) to seal the roll. I don’t bother cutting the rolls up, I just dip the whole thing in some soy sauce and eat. The whole thing takes about 5-10 minutes and is pretty darn yummy. I also had an extra piece of tuna, so I put that on top of one of the rice balls with a strip of nori like a piece of nigiri. I just finished off my package of nori, so I actually did this for the past 5 business days in a row. Cheap and healthy.”

Awesome.