There are some meals for which I expect to pay more, and others for which I expect to pay less. A breakfast sandwich and a drink from McDonalds on an early morning drive back home from college doesn’t break the bank, but too many fancy dinners in downtown Mystic just might. All students occasionally feel the need to eat off campus, whether it’s to take a break from dining hall food or to try something different. Conn students love their Mirch Masala, Jasmine Thai, Golden Wok and the always-there-when-you-need-it Dominos. But in the search for good food at a low cost, sometimes you have to get a little adventurous.
Sushi is the kind of food that is almost always expected to be on the more expensive end. Fresh fish isn’t something you can just pick up at a gas station, and a really good sushi restaurant is the kind of place you only go to once in a while for special occasions (despite wanting to eat it all the time). When I order sushi, I order it in bulk. I want to eat sushi for dinner, and then save the leftovers for lunch the next day, making one of my favorite meals last for as long as possible. I expect to spend a little over $20 whenever I decide to order sushi, and I make up for this blow to my college-student budget by eating on campus for the next couple of weeks after – until I’m dying for off campus food, and then the cycle repeats.
$1 Sushi, located in Groton, is a drive-up restaurant in a strip mall parking lot. If you want to eat right away, there are plastic tables and chairs on the grass next to it – the other option is to take your sushi in a Styrofoam box and eat in your car. The menu promises fresh ingredients at cheap prices, but the name was enough to make me nervous.
Like all good wannabe-food critics, I turned to Yelp in hopes that some of the comments would give me a better idea of what to expect. For the most part, the reviews calmed my fears. People praised the chef’s knowledge of his food and his reasonable prices. On the downside, someone wrote about seeing the chef’s dog in the kitchen, and as much as I love dogs, I don’t want dog hair in my tuna roll. In the end, reading Yelp was enough for me to commit to the trip out to Groton. The fact that it was a beautiful day didn’t hurt.
It’s easy to miss $1 Sushi. If you’ve ever been to the Starbucks in Groton, then you’ll know its general location. Still, there’s only a small sign in the front of the parking lot for $1 Sushi, and it’s all the way in the back of the strip mall parking lot. Unless you’ve been there before, it can be easy to miss. When I finally got there (after getting lost in a different strip mall parking lot), I kept my order simple: a California roll with what they called extra “crunch” (or just extra little fried bits on the outside), priced at $3.45, and three pieces of nigiri, for a dollar each. One of the downsides of such a small restaurant is that it’s likely they won’t always have all the ingredients in stock. I wanted to order a piece of white tuna nigiri, but they were out of white tuna. Feeling pressured by the line beginning to form behind me, I ordered a piece of avocado nigiri (still delicious, but relatively boring). Along with that, I had a tuna nigiri and a shrimp nigiri. Altogether, I spent less than eight dollars.
For true sushi connoisseurs, $1 Sushi might not have the selection you’re used to. However, if you’re craving sushi and don’t want to break your bank, $1 Sushi is a great option. The service is a little slow, because there’s only one chef and he fills the orders one at a time, but the food you get is definitely worth the wait. If you’re looking for something a little outside the box that’s sure to get your friends asking, “Did you get food poisoning?” then $1 Sushi is definitely the place to try. And no, I didn’t get food poisoning. Just the happy feeling you get after a good meal. •
