Sushi from the Evil Empire

The streets near where I work are lined with purveyors of lunchtime sushi:  Itsu, with their strange but wonderful Hip and Healthy salad; Wasabi with their technological seaweed onigini and green tea ice cream (see Guilty Pleasures); and the groovy Abokado with their schwaps and noddle soup.   I'd tried all these and they're each as good as the other in their way. 

Only today, in search of some fresh mint to make tea, I thought I'd economise and try The Evil Empire supermarket.  The sushi was indeed cheap (£2) but not, unfortunately, good value.  It was so bad that a shoplifter would have felt ripped-off.  No one seemed to have explained that sushi rice is not made by waiting till rice goes cold and sticks together, nor that sushi needs wasabi and pickled ginger along with a little plastic fish of watery soy.  Perhaps most confusing of all though was the fact that the filling chosen for one of the pieces of sushi was coleslaw.   Coleslaw I tell you.  Never again. 

Sushi, but not as we know it.

If you are in search of the real deal, Dean's blog has a step-by-step guide to making sushi.