Springfield's best sushi rolls

Oh My God roll at Haruno

This is as close to an onomatopoeia as a sushi roll is going to get. Without a shred of irony, I think I actually said, "Oh my god," when this thing appeared. Live fire will do that to a person. When broaching the mission with the Haruno staff, they handily endorsed the Oh My God roll, their show-stopper. Not only is it one of their most popular rolls, it also has the fun, novelty thing going.

Haruno is the de facto king in the court of Springfield sushi. Routinely lauded, both formally and informally, as being the best in town, I had high expectations of their submission. They were met. And then some.

I'm a bit of a rube in situations where food arrives on fire. Always at a loss of what to do, I yearn to douse the flames and start eating. In a group setting, you clap and ooh and ah and resume chitchat while the flames die down. When you're alone at a bar at the end of the lunch rush, you look awkward and pretend to check your voicemail. I recalled the instance I ordered some sort of crepe flambee thing in France and got impatient and blew the flames out. After one booze-soaked bite, I actually borrowed a friend's lighter to see if I could set it aflame again. It didn't work. Lesson learned. This time I talked to the server and let the fire work its magic.

He said that they aren't just fledgling arsonists, but the fire caramelizes the sauce's sugars in this nifty foil boat. The result is a richer, more flavorful realization of the original spicy-sesame brew. The roll is shrimp tempura and crab wrapped in rice and nori and topped with more shrimp, avocado and Japanese mayo. They set it in the boat with the sauce and then spark that thing up.

The OMG roll pulled ahead as an early favorite based solely on flavor -- style points alone can't win over this judge (oh, who am I kidding. Sure they can). The ingredients were remarkably fresh and each layer of flavor elevated the experience exponentially. The girth of the roll was smaller, which made the pieces easier to handle. Even with its thinner size, the ingredients are power-packed, so they skimp on nothing. And the sauce. Oh, the sauce. Salty, sweet with a quiet, creeper of a kick, it rendered shoyu completely redundant.

Grade: A
Price: $13.95