UPDATE: A SACRAMENTO VEGAN READER HAS BEEN INFORMED BY THE STAFF AT LOU'S SUSHI THAT THE TEMPURA IS NOT VEGAN, EVEN THOUGH IT'S INCLUDED IN SOME OF THE SUPPOSEDLY VEGAN MENU ITEMS. PLEASE SEE THE COMMENT BELOW. THANKS TO MATT FOR THE INFORMATION.
I have to admit, I'm not much of a sushi eater. In the first place, it usually contains fish, which I don't eat, or seaweed, which I don't like. But a friend told me recently that Lou's Sushi had vegetarian options on the menu, and since I thought some of you might be interested, and since I'm running out of restaurants to blog about, I decided to try it out.
The menu on the Lou's Sushi website (not the menu in the restaurant) indicates which items are vegetarian, but if you're vegan, questions still need to be asked. For example, there are a couple of tofu dishes on the menu, but they're not necessarily vegan, or even vegetarian. The fried tofu in the Secret Tofu and the Agedashi Tofu is cooked in the same oil as all the non-vegan items. In addition, the Agedashi Tofu is served in a fish broth.
Even so, there are several options for vegans at Lou's Sushi. The picture above shows what I ate during my first visit. On the right is the delicious Avocado Roll, with the rice on the outside. On the left is the Kappa Maki, a cucumber roll which I ordered with a soy wrap instead of seaweed.
On my next visit, I had the Sunomono, sliced cucumbers served in a vinegar dressing and topped with sesame seeds. It was light and refreshing, and it was a nice accompaniment to the roll I ordered.
The Veggie #1 is an inside out roll filled with asparagus, cucumber, and avocado, then topped with spinach and sesame seeds. It was very good, and I enjoyed alternating the taste of the roll with the pungent bits of ginger that garnished the plate.
I'm glad to know that if friends want to go out for sushi, I'll now have a restaurant to suggest where there's actually something I can eat!
Lou's Sushi is located at 2801 P Street, and their phone number is 916-451-4700. Their website address is http://www.lousushi.com/ and their Facebook page can be found at https://www.facebook.com/lousushi. The restaurant is open Tuesday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., Saturday from 3:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., and Sunday from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
VEGANS BEWARE
ReplyDeleteI first went to Lou's Sushi about 1 year ago for the Vegan Chef Challenge and have been there about a dozen times since. I have been a vegan for about 17 years and was very excited that a local sushi spot had a vegan menu. Today, I found out that several of their "vegan rolls" are, in fact, not vegan!
This is how it transpired. We ordered the tempura vegetables and asked the server to double-check that they were really vegan since they are listed in the vegetarian menu and not in the vegan menu. Our server, after speaking with the chef, informed us that they used egg whites in the tempura batter. This was a little disheartening since we have ordered those every time we had been there in the past. We had asked our previous servers to double check this as well and they assured us they were vegan. Obviously, the servers were not informed correctly in the past. Of course, we were not very happy about this, but totally understand these types of mistakes happen when you are a vegan - caveat emptor.
After about eating half of the "vegan" rolls we ordered, I realized that there was tempura vegetables in the rolls. We asked our server to check if this was the same batter with the egg whites in it. The server spoke with the chef again and came back to tell us that their are egg whites in the tempura for the vegan rolls. At this point, I was not very happy at all so I asked to speak to Lou about this. He did not seem very concerned about this in the least. All he said was he wasn't aware there were in egg whites in the tempura. I found this very hard to believe that he didn't know what was in the tempura batter at his restaurant. Lou didn't even have the courtesy to apologize!
Hopefully, Lou will remedy this at once and not keep serving un-vegan food to vegans.
This is very worrisome, Matt -- thanks for bringing it to my attention. I'm not big on sushi myself, so I rarely go to Lou's, but I know it's popular with other vegans. Very disappointing that they would claim items are vegan if they're not.
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