Sashimi for Less

It's 6 pm and the last thing you ate was breakfast and that was around 11 am. You're in the mood for healthy Japanese (sushi rolls or sashimi). In effort to save money, time, but not the quality of your dinner, why not swing by the store to pick up some seaweed salad, hamachi, maguro, and salmon? Pop in some rice into the rice cooker and head out to the nearest supermarket that carries blocks of fresh fish cut specifically for sashimi. In our case, we stopped at Ranch 99 and picked up a bag of pork and vegetable dumplings, seaweed salad, maguro and (farm raised) salmon for less than $18.

Nine dumplings were cooked with spicy ginger teriyaki sauce and green onions. The fish blocks were cut into sashimi pieces (about 30 pieces) and served on a platter with seaweed salad and avocado slices. We also had rice and seaweed wraps - all more than enough to feed two people. Kiki's on 9th and Irvine was always the best bang for your buck, but if you're just chowing down on sashimi, try it for less.