Why We Built a Handroll Bar Instead of a Sushi Program

Omakase places are opening everywhere right now, and it's the craze.

I can appreciate the experience. The skill is real and the theater is fun. But most of the time, what I actually want is simple, fresh sushi.

We Talked About Doing a Sushi Program

We debated it seriously, and then we didn't do it.

A full sushi program is a different restaurant. It's another set of specialists, another purchasing operation, another daily routine, and a lot of headaches attached to it. I didn't want that. I wanted to add something good to the menu without turning Juraku into something else.

The Real Constraint Is the Kitchen

Our kitchen is small. It always has been, and so is our equipment.

That means a lot of what I do here isn't only about making the food I want to make. It's about designing a menu we can actually execute, at the quality I demand, whether we're dead quiet or completely slammed.

That second part is the hard one. Plenty of dishes are great when you have time. The question I have to ask is whether it's still great on a Friday at 9pm with every seat full.

What the Handrolls Solve

I designed this section so we could serve a small but genuinely good selection with the manpower we already have.

I also built it so we can guarantee a constantly fresh offering. A short list turns over faster. Fewer items, ordered more often, means what you get is what came in, which matters more with raw fish than with anything else on our menu.

And there's a second benefit I didn't expect to value as much as I do: it gives the hot kitchen a little breathing room.

A handroll doesn't touch the fryer, the ramen station or the grill. So every handroll order is one fewer ticket in the hot line during a rush. Guests get more choice, the kitchen gets some slack, and the food comes out faster for everyone. That's a win on both sides of the pass.

What's On It

Six handrolls: spicy tuna, salmon avocado, yellowtail and scallion, California bear, inaka mushroom, and unagi.

If you want to try more than one, there's a 3-piece set and a 5-piece set.

Alongside them, the crispy rice and bowls: spicy tuna crispy rice, yellowtail crispy rice, salmon ikura don and unagi don.

Try It at Juraku

The handroll bar is on the menu at Izakaya Juraku, Lower East Side. It isn't an omakase and it isn't trying to be. It's simple, fresh sushi, made properly, in a place that can actually keep it that way.

We hope you enjoy the handrolls and the crispy rice.

See the rest of the menu.