The Green Roll at Chelsea Market, NYC: Sushi for Sushi Lovers

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    Before becoming a vegan, I fancied myself a sushi connoisseur. In high school, my brother and I would challenge each other to eat the craziest of the crazy rolls on offer at sushi restaurants. Once I went vegan, I didn’t really expect awesome sushi to be on my radar anymore. And for the first few years, I was right: My sushi travails always led to cucumber roll after cucumber roll after avocado roll after, if I was lucky, cucumber-avocado roll. 
    But lately, things seem to be changing for the better in the vegan sushi arena. I had the most incredible raw sushi ever in Croatia, and now every time I go to NYC, I get to eat at least once a day at The Green Roll. (Yes, I have gotten both lunch and dinner from here before.) This little sushi counter rivals The Cinnamon Snail truck for the food I’m most guaranteed to eat on my NYC weekends. 
   The Green Roll counter in Chelsea Market is an outpost of Beyond Sushi restaurant in the East Village. I’ve not been to the sit-down restaurant yet, but I’ve eaten everything on offer at The Green Roll at least twice. The only bad part about the sushi is, it’s so delicious that I rarely wait long enough to take pictures, let alone plate the food. 

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    I think this roll is the Spicy Mang, but who knows. It doesn’t even matter what you order. Everything is great and fresh and sometimes spicy and sometimes creamy and just man alive I want some now. 
   The two individual pieces are the enoki, long-stemmed and tiny-capped white mushrooms that kind of look like sprouts. I’m obsessed with mushrooms, and this fun-looking kind is now one of my favorites. The enoki individual pieces come with a dollop of mushroomy paste on top. As you can see, the extra sauces accompanying the sushi come in little plastic tubes, instead of the always messy little plastic tubs with click-lids that always get all over the place. Suffice it to say, these tubes are ingenious! You just squeeze the thick, creamy sauces out and they don’t spill out when you put them down. 
    The sauces really are the best part. Pictured above is a spicy mayo, reminiscent of the standard spicy orange mayo that comes with spicy tuna rolls in regular sushi places. But this is so much deeper a flavor, and the quality of all the ingredients comes through even in this simple sauce. 


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Individual seaweed piece

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Spicy Mang roll (I think)
    One of the many great things about The Green Roll is that they offer 7 individual pieces for only $1 each, an affordable way to try a bunch of different things. The seaweed roll, at left, was refreshing and light. I love seaweed so much. This piece came with a thickened kind of dark sauce (in the tube) that was so much more than soy sauce. The piece at right I think is another Spicy Mang, with mango, cucumber, avocado, spicy veggies, and black rice. All I know is that orange-y topping is superb. (My usual restaurant reviews are much more detailed, but 1) this isn’t a restaurant and B) the sushi is too fantastic to allow for the time it takes to photograph or take notes.)

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    My favorite part of The Green Roll’s menu is the assortment of rice paper wraps. I love rice paper wraps, any kind, anytime, anywhere, but these are beyond anything I can get elsewhere. Pictured is the spicy mushroom filled wrap, with spicy cashews, buckwheat noodles, romaine lettuce, sriracha (so spicy!), and three different kinds of braised, grilled, or spicy mushrooms. The sauce for this wrap is the best one – it’s a thick, creamy mushroom goop that is half raw foodie soup and half Thanksgiving mushroom gravy.
     Also on offer are the nutty buddy, full of peanuts, noodles, cilantro, jalapeno peanut butter, tofu and more, and the sweet angel, filled with sweet potato, asparagus, chili flakes, noodles, and alfalfa. All of these wraps are fantastic. Everything at The Green Roll is fantastic. I go to NYC all the time for various reasons, and getting a quick and delicious bite from The Green Roll is now high on my list of reasons. 

No bathroom/water review for this one because it’s a to-go counter! However, you can usually find a table in the main part of the market. Also, be warned that it can take a short while for the few people working to finish your order. It’s fast, but not ‘fast-food’ fast. Just be patient. It’s amazing! 


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