Sushi Making Night!

Tonight the DU Food and Drink Society had a Sushi Making Night at Sushi King on Dawson Street.  I've not yet had sushi out here (oh how I miss my fave sushi spots back home...) and I've always wanted to try making my own sushi, so I figured this would be a good €10 experience.

The owners of this small chain are Irish, which is great but I must say also made me question if I'd walk away with that "real sushi" feel.  I didn't.  This is not a slam on Sushi King, for it was actually decent tasting and the fish (I'm thinking salmon, although i love it, is sadly the only option) was fresh.  It's just not the sushi I'm craving.  (Niko Niko, Mosun, Yen, Yuki's...oh how I miss thee!)  A for effort though.

Anyway, this was apparently a popular event, as the restaurant (which they kindly closed for just our group) was jam-packed.  We were all given plates such as this to start the evening:

Miso soup, eel sushi, veggie roll, seaweed salad. 

Ok, so I was wrong about salmon being the only fish.  At least they have eel - yummy!  Oh yes, and they did offer the exotic "crab with a K".

Miso was good.  (Then again, you really have to try hard to screw up on miso.)

Seaweed salad was quite tasty.

The restaurant owner then spoke with us about making sushi and rolls, then we went up in groups of 3 to test our skills.  I made a salmon and avocado roll, with rice on outside instead of inside.  Here are some pics that DU Food and Drink took of the process:

it's difficult to see here, but they included a bebe soy sauce bottle with each takeaway container!

I think this was my favorite part.  Super cute. 

(Curious now how this bebe bottle idea compares with the foil paks on the "green" scale.  Any thoughts?)

Our gracious host demonstrating how to prepare the salmon.

In all, it was worth the €10.  Apparently, DUFD subsidised the other €10 for each member, as it would normally cost €20 per person.  Thanks, DUFD; I surely would not pay €20 for this, so I'm glad you fronted half!

Tonight's sushi was fresh (duh, we made it); however, I'm told that this chain makes all of their rolls and sushi in the morning, then simply sells the takeaway containers from the refrigerator throughout the day, thus you're not getting that "sushi restaurant" experience in my opinion.  Considering this, I say it's a tad overpriced.  If I can park it at a sushi bar and watch the dude making my delicious sushi, then their price would be more acceptable.  I'm just not keen on paying higher-than-necessary € for refrigerator-sushi, ya know?  However, I might reconsider if they served it with Morry chopsticks! 

Must.find.real.sushi.  Must.find.real.sushi.  At least now I know how to make it.