new Things I Ate in Cambodia: Hana: Sushi with a Side of Meh

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Hana: Sushi with a Side of Meh

Hana Sushi
8116 Hampson St
New Orleans, LA 70118
(504) 865-1634


Hana is your classic College Sushi joint, the sort of place where freshmen on dates, graduate students on budgets, and the general public who just don't know any better end up. The menu is comprised of classic entry level standbys: shrimp tempura, chicken teriyaki, gyoza, egg rolls, udon noodles, and so on and so forth. Most Hana goers roll with one of the economical and ginormous rolls or sushi plates and don't much bother how things actually taste.



On this visit, I tried the sunonomo salad. Gigantic, vinegary, and served with faux crab. Not bad but it's not exactly a difficult dish to nail.



The No Name role looks kinda like a surrealist painting, don't it? This riceless soy bean paper roll was interesting concept but inferior in execution. There were tiny tiny bits of unagi and salmon amid a humongo amount of mayo drenched faux crab. Admittedly this is what keeps prices down. I hate being poor.

Sad to say, Hana has consistently disappointed me. The first time I visited, I had a tremendous and overwhelming salmon and mango roll that seemed to comprise an entire unfortunate fish, a boatload of mayo, and some stone-cold chopped up tempura. The supposedly "famous" noodle salad seems to be composed of glass noodles and vaguely sesame flavored mayo - the kind of thing most college kids will scarf up and I, bourgeoise princess that I am, will regard with a raised and incredulous eyebrow. The one bright spot was the seaweed salad: tasty as it oughta be and served in a startlingly large portion. Then again it is rather difficult to screw up seaweed salad.

Hana is best suited for poor college kids and even poorer graduate students, and should be avoided otherwise. Unless all you really want is a big ol' bowl of seaweed salad.

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