Is Vegan Sushi A Thing?

Prior to becoming a vegan, I went through sushi phases. When I was a teenage girl reading romance novels and dreaming of practicing law in New York City, a big part of the dream was eating sushi with my girlfriends. And I did enjoy it.

For about two weeks.

There was something about the blend of seaweed (nori), soy sauce and raw fish that absolutely did NOT agree with my taste buds. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to actually like the taste of sushi, which went a long way in re-crafting my vision of the future. As you can imagine, when I went vegan a few years ago, I stopped thinking about sushi altogether, assuming that it would no longer have a place in my life.

So imagine my surprise when we happened upon a sushi restaurant that had two all important words for any traveling vegan, vegan options.

I really wanted edamame and miso soup because miso is one of my top 5 all time favorite soups, but there were three different vegan sushi rolls so I knew I’d get to try them because my husband used to love sushi.

I’ll admit that this miso had a lot more ingredients than I was accustomed to, including mushrooms and sesame seeds. It was still delicious, if different, but I can usually count on miso soup being a satisfying, low calorie food option. Not so much with at least a full tablespoon of sesame seeds.

I didn’t need to add anything to the soup, not even soy sauce, which in my book is considered a win.

The edamame beans were…fantastic. Perfectly steamed (I guess) and served with pink Himalaya sea salt, they were tasty and fun to eat.

They were warm this time, which is the first time I’ve ever eaten them warm. There’s a nice restaurant in Culver City, CA that serves the most amazing chilled edamame. It was the first place I’d ever had them and by far, my favorite way to eat them. But Sushi Han in Ploiesti, came in a distant second.

So what exactly does vegan sushi contain?

Good question.

The red you see in the photo above is tomato and bell pepper. It’s a “Vega Roll” with cucumber, tomato and lettuce sushi roll, with some red bell peppers thrown in for texture and flavor. It wasn’t my favorite because there was also avocado on it, but the Hubs liked it. My favorite was the little green topped ones you see in the left corner of the photo–Hosomaki Hiashi–made with rice, seaweed and something called chuka which was slightly sweet, very green and damn tasty.

The other was avocado and rice which I didn’t even bother to try because…avocado.

The options were underwhelming for me but the chuka roll was delicious as was the soup and the edamame.

There was a noodle dish because we can’t forget my love of Asian noodles, but it was greasy and the Udon noodles were actually spaghetti. Overall it wasn’t worth a photo or mentioning, which is something that was never true before when it comes to sushi. Usually the hubs and I have to compromise when he’d want sushi. We’d have to find a place that did a good teriyaki or udon too, so we’d both be happy.

Now, thanks to a vegan lifestyle, we can both enjoy sushi.