The last time these were offered in the Aldi ad, I went to my local store three times before giving up. I don’t think it was that they were sold out, but rather that they never got them in (I never even saw a space on the shelf for them on any visit). I was disappointed, because Trader Joe’s has some of my favorite sushi, and with the awkward relationship between TJ’s and Aldi (they’re owned by the same family trust but run as completely separate enterprises, and hate being compared to one another; sometimes, they do carry the same products) I was figuring that it would be the exact same.
Well flash forward a year later, and imagine my excitement when I saw that Aldi would once again be offering “fresh” sushi! I was a little nervous that it would once again skip our store, a feeling that was only heightened after we went the day the ad began and saw none. But on a return trip a few days later, I happened to catch a small square of space designated for this…along with one lone package remaining. I talked with a worker and verified that this was, in fact, the only one left, ruining both my plan to give my wife and I our own package, and to try both flavors offered.
Anyway, upon bringing it home to surprise my wife, she was immediately off-put by the disheveled look of the rolls: They were loose, so that the contents inside spilled out easily. A couple were even ripped, with the inner avocado, carrot, and imitation crab meat out of the roll and inside the package. I can’t say for sure that this is how all of them were put together—maybe that was the reason this was the only one left—but it was a pretty lackadaisical presentation, to be sure.
The taste didn’t fare much better. I’ve had so little sushi in my life that I could honestly say I never had a piece I didn’t like; now I have. It’s not that this was terrible, just completely uninspiring: the pieces were dry and boring, without much in the way of flavor. As expected, the filling did fall out of most of them, thanks to the loose wrapping, so just as much time was spent trying to keep them together as was spent actually eating them. Considering these are supposedly “fresher”, it’s sad that they didn’t taste nearly as flavorful as Fusia’s frozen sushi.
The price is very good at $2.99 for eight decent-sized pieces, but given the disappointing lack of flavor, that doesn’t really mean a whole lot. I tried to get these over the course of several trips spanning over several months; if I’d have known how tasteless these would be, I could have saved that accumulated time and put it toward an endeavor that was actually worthwhile.
Overall: 4/10. The most uninspiring roll of sushi that I’ve ever had; a big disappointment considering I tried several times to get this, dating back to the last time they were offered, to no avail. For starters, the rolls were loosely wrapped, so the carrot, avocado, and crab meat kept falling out all over the place. For finishers, the “crab” (which is made of “natural crab flavor” instead of actual crab) taste is very weak, with the added spices giving a quick blast of heat, but not delivering much in the way of flavor. At $2.99 for eight pieces, the value is pretty solid, but whether or not that’s worth it to you depends on how much you like it. I would never get these again (though I wouldn’t be against trying the other flavor next time).
