February 2019 – Weird Food NJ

For this week, I decided to take a trip to a place close to home for me. In Caldwell, New Jersey, only a 20 minute drive from Seton Hall, there’s a small restaurant known for two things, ramen bowls and sushi burritos. Inspiration Roll, on Bloomfield ave, is a small Japanese food shop that seems to be constantly overlooked. I’ve been in the restaurant a handful of times and never see more than one or two people eating there. This surprises me because I feel like they have such an interesting concept, especially for this area. This isn’t the only restaurant they have, though. They have locations in Caldwell, Morristown, Summit, Wayne, and Westfield.

Sushi Burrito Menu. This is the only one I saw. Need to clean it a little.

You think with such an interesting concept, that they would be more well known for their burritos than anything else on the menu, but most people, including myself, only saw the place for its traditional ramen bowls. The sushi burritos are on a completely different menu if you want to order one. Since I had never tried one before, I decided to build my own. I went with white rice, fresh salmon, cucumber, carrots, seaweed salad, teriyaki sauce, and wasabi mayo.

The sushi burrito was amazing. A little overwhelming at times, but that is to be expected I feel. This is a very weird concept for food and I’ve never eaten mouthfuls of raw fish before so despite it being delicious, the texture is what got me. This is entirely customizable though, and I had to take that into account while I was eating it. Is this just a weird food or did I just make it weird with the combination? Needless to say, I feel with all the options that the restaurant has to offer, there is a sushi burrito out there for everyone to enjoy. Perhaps stop by the closest Inspiration Roll and try one soon?

For the first week, I didn’t travel far. I kept it local, with Tito’s Burritos and Wings in South Orange, New Jersey. The Seton Hall favorite is only a 5 minute drive from campus and luckily took my Pirates Gold so that was a plus. Tito’s is well known for their burritos, but recently a certain taco had been hitting social media timelines so much that I had to try it. It’s called the Fat Amy.

The Fat Amy is a 12 inch FRIED tortilla shell packed with french fries, chicken tenders, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, and their chipotle sauce. The thing is huge. I took my friend, who hadn’t tried Tito’s before and she got a regular taco, which was MAYBE a quarter of the size. Considering this taco is only six or so more dollars than a regular taco there, I say it’s a good deal.

The Fat Amy was both great and terrible. The idea of this giant taco is great on paper, but not really well done in execution. With the size comes the problem that in one bite you get fries and chicken and in the other, you get lettuce and tomatoes. No in-between. Also, the shell is so brittle that with every bite, the shell fell apart more and more. Soon enough, I just grabbed a fork and ate it like a glorified taco salad or something. Don’t let the bad execution turn you away, though. The taco is delicious. The chicken was hot and fresh, but the lettuce was cold and crisp, lowkey important factors in a taco, I mean who wants a lukewarm taco with warm lettuce and cold chicken?

All in all, the taco might have been a mess but it was a delicious mess.

Month: February 2019

Inspiration Roll- Sushi Burrito

Tito’s Burritos & Wings – The Fat Amy