Sushi Rama

My boyfriend introduced me to Bikkuri Sushi two years ago. And my life hasn't been the same since.

OK, so that might be a bit more melodramatic than it needed to be but I had to get you to read this post somehow. What I will say is that my sushi intake has increased significantly since I started going there and I haven't put too much of a dent in my dwindling funds.

Bikkuri, a small sushi take out/dine in eatery off of East Colonial, offers some of the best and cheapest vegetarian-friendly sushi you can fine in this town. I got to meet the owner, Sam Chang, while interning at the Orlando Business Journal last summer. He's a quiet guy but very hospitable and he stops bustling for a chat or, at the very least wave, every time I come by Bikkuri (with the occassional free sake plopped in there...hey, what can I say?).

Chang has thrown himself and thousands of dollars into his restaurant and turned it from a small take-out sushi hole-in-the-wall, to an eat-in restaurant and sake lounge in the upper portion of the building. The lounge has the sort of urban feel and technicolor lighting akin to the Tokyo karaoke bar Murray finds himself sitting in in Lost in Translation. Minus the pink-wigged Scarlett. While the take-out sushi operation still pumps out rolls downstairs the dine-in restaurant upstairs offers the full sushi menu plus fare like soba noodle dishes, dumplings, you name it. The best part of it all is that Chang, a Taiwan native trained as a sushi chef for close to a decade in Japan, serves only fresh ingredients, no browned avocado or frozen veggies here (if you are looking for that, however, I'll direct you to the Publix seafood department).

My long-time vegetarian favorite has been the Garlic Roll ($3.99 for 8 pieces the last time I checked) that sidles fried garlic bits right up with slices of cucumber and avocado and a creamy dollop of fresh cream cheese. Though not the best eats for your first date crowd, the play of the crunchy bite of the garlic over the slightly-cooled cream cheese is, well, awesome. An eight piece roll can fill me up.

I'm also a fan of the Asparagus Tempura Roll (fried asparagus, cream cheese), which intertwines the nutty crunch of the asparagus with that familiar cream cheese, as well as the Seaweed Salad Roll, the salty salad toned down by jasmine rice cooked just right. Other vegetarian options are available though you will have to sift through a menu decked out with every variation of sushi you can possibly think of.

I was a bit bummed when I dropped by last Thursday to pick up my order (a 12-piece Garlic Roll for me and 12-piece Philidephia Roll for my flesh eating boyfriend that totalled to about $15) and found that some of the prices had been bumped up by a dollar or so. I guess that's what you're going to find pretty much everywhere now, though. Still, when it comes to good and affordable sushi in Orlando, Bikkuri pulls some serious weight on my list.