If you’re looking for a sushi meal to eat at home, this is a great option!

The other day we were hankering for a sushi dinner, but we didn’t feel like eating in a restaurant. After doing some research, we discovered a sushi restaurant in our neighborhood with rave reviews from customers called Yataizushi. Even customers from Hokkaido, who have access to some of the best sushi in the country, recommend this restaurant…and they offer a temakizushi (hand roll sushi) set specially for takeout. Naturally, we had to buy it to give it a try, and boy were we impressed.

Yataizushi’s “Temakizushi Set” comes in a nami (regular) version for 3,239 yen (US$27.94) and a jou (fancy) version for 4,319 yen. They’re only available for takeout and meant to be enough food for three people. You can order them on the same day you want to take them home, but apparently ordering ahead of time makes the process smoother, so we ordered our nami version the day before. When we went to pick it up the next day…

We were impressed by how heavy it was!

According to the staff, it comes with 600 grams (1.3 pounds) of sushi rice, 15 slices of roasted seaweed, and 12 different kinds of seafood and other fillings (each with three servings). It was enough to get our hearts racing in anticipation, especially knowing that Yataizushi’s flavors come highly recommended. We rushed home to open it up.

Inside was a Ziploc bag full of seaweed…

600 grams of sushi rice….

And 12 kinds of fillings.

So much variety!!! It was a little expensive compared to a conveyer belt sushi chain, but the visual appeal of the plate was something we could get behind. It was full of color and each and every filling looked absolutely delicious.

The plate contained young amberjack, squid, flying fish roe, tuna salad, sea bream, tuna, salmon, shrimp, crab salad, cucumber, and pickled vegetables. The Jou version, by the way, includes luxury seafood varieties like otoro (fatty tuna), eel, sea urchin, and salmon roe.

But what caught our eye the most was…

The ridiculously huge ball of wasabi! It was almost lost amongst the many different ingredients, but once we noticed it we couldn’t help our eyes bugging out a little. We’d heard that Yataizushi’s wasabi is really good, so perhaps such a huge amount is normal for them. It just seemed a little extreme.

After our initial shock abated, we then started to build our temakizushi, which is made by wrapping the vinegared rice and fillings in seaweed. We aren’t exactly experts and didn’t know what the best combinations would be, so we just did whatever felt right.

They were insanely delicious. Even though we wrapped them ourselves, they had the taste of temaki carefully made by a professional sushi chef. What’s more, the rice was still faintly warm, since Yataizushi prepares your set just in time for your pickup, and the contrast added to the fantastic flavor. It seems , and not a moment too soon.

Apparently, the trick to making good temakizushi is not to overload your seaweed with too much rice. That was hard to do when Yataizushi’s sushi rice was the perfect level of firmness and had the right amount of vinegar. Still, knowing that tidbit made our makizushi even better (and made the pictures look great)!

▼ Well, some of our rolls looked great. We still weren’t that good at making them. But they were delicious nonetheless!

In the end, Yataizushi’s Temaki-zushi Set costs more than your average visit to a conveyer belt sushi restaurant, but we believe it’s well worth the price. It comes with enough food for two or three people to be fully satisfied, and that’s not including the wasabi, which could easily be enough for about 15 people.

Yataizushi is also a chain restaurant, so if you have one near you, definitely check out their Temakizushi Takeout Set if the fancy strikes you! And if you’re looking for other inexpensive ways to enjoy sushi at home, try this tip for elevating supermarket sushi.

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