Bento Nouveau

Pre-made, take-out sushi... Sure, that doesn't sound all that appetizing does it? To be honest, that has never been my favourite way of eating sushi. However, for some reason or another, I do my occasional Fujiya run every now and then. Possibly it has something to do with reasonable expectations. Much like the pre-made sandwich or prepackaged Chinese food, there will need to be compromises. Hence, we can't expect too much. At the same time, the food has to be edible, otherwise, it defeats the whole purpose. Now, consider my dilemma. I was approached by Bento Sushi to try some of their takeout products in hopes I blog about it. You see, Bento is almost purely takeout much like Fujiya. Now, with that being said, it is prepared on-site. I decided to give it a try since I've already put myself in harms way by eating at all sorts of Japanese restaurants already.

I was supplied with 3 sushi "club boats" to try starting with the basic California Roll Boat. Uniformly made, the rolls looked pretty standard. Nothing fancy here. As for the sushi rice, it was on the stickier side of things. Can't expect too much from packaged sushi. Not exactly screaming out flavour, there was some vinegar and sweetness. In terms of the roll as a whole, it was pretty textbook, nothing ground-breaking. Best word to describe it is "safe". The next one was the Assorted Maki Roll club boat. In it was more California Roll, Vegetable Roll and a Spicy Surimi Roll. The rolls were once again pretty standard; however, I have to admit that the ingredients were vibrant in colour and fresh. The avocado was ripe with no discoloration while the cucumber and carrots were crisp. Last item was the Salmon Sushi club boat. There were 3 types of salmon sushi consisting of Salmon Maki, Salmon Nigiri and a Salmon & Avocado Roll. Surprisingly, the salmon was actually quite good. It was sweet and fresh. Although, the salmon on the nigiri could've been thicker. I thought this was the best of the boats, partly because I personally like raw fish more than California Rolls. As an aside, the wasabi was
some of the hottest I've had recently. I found that quite interesting.

Now, I'm sure if you are wondering if I actually liked the sushi. Okay, I'll be honest. I have a predisposed biased towards this type of sushi. So I'm generally more critical due to the fact I've had some pretty good sushi in the past. With that being said, I didn't dislike it either. In fact, the salmon boat was quite good. If you compare this to restaurants like Sui Sha Ya (which is not really even Japanese food), the Bento Sushi is better. I'm probably not their target market; yet I have to concede that they do produce a decent product which will satisfy a large number of people. And I'm sure that their intention is to appeal to the masses. It is safe sushi. Not everyone wants things like uni and mirugai in their sushi anyways.