Last year, the Benson Food Court added a new option to its list of restaurants, an Asian fusion place called Take Two. The restaurant featured a combination of burgers and Americanized Asian dishes like sriracha tofu and lemon chicken. While the burgers were always a hit, many students felt as though the Asian food was unappetizing.
Throughout the year, Take Two had multiple renovations to improve the food, and during second semester, the food was bearable. However, many students still felt unhappy with the establishment.
On Aug. 15, Deacon Dining took to Instagram to announce that they would be replacing Take Two with a new restaurant called Hissho Sushi. Hissho Sushi’s headquarters is in Charlotte, NC and they claim to make sushi fresh everyday.
At first I was unenthusiastic about the change, but with more thought I decided it would be worth a shot to try it. The first week of classes went by and I had heard several positive reviews of the place. I considered this to be a good sign and decided it was time to try it for myself.
I studied the menu and inspected the sushi they offered until I decided to try the orange chicken with a side of lo mein noodles. The packaging looked like I had ordered Chinese takeout from a local restaurant in Winston-Salem, which I also considered to be a good sign.
I opened up the lid and dug in to the food. The chicken had a good flavor that nicely combined the tanginess and the sweetness of the citrus. The noodles tasted a little bland and were sort of tough but overall I was impressed.
Naturally, I went back one more time this week and decided I would try the sushi. They have a wide variety of rolls and boxes, ranging from nigiri bento boxes to crunchy rolls to vegetable rolls. After looking at all of the ingredients in each roll, I settled on a classic crunchy roll. It tasted pretty good but I would prefer to go out to a sit-down sushi restaurant.
After I received my box, something felt all too familiar and I realized the sushi in the P.O.D. and the new sushi restaurant came from the same manufacturer. However, Hissho Sushi has one thing on P.O.D. sushi. I have walked by multiple times and saw them rolling up fresh sushi. This makes me feel better about its freshness than P.O.D. sushi does.
In addition to sushi, orange chicken and noodles, the restaurant offers other items such as vegetable spring rolls, white and fried rice and many other entrees.
All in all, Hissho Sushi has commendable food and I would recommend the place to any student who had an Asian food craving and didn’t want to pay or wait for Chinese takeout from off-campus. However, Hissho Sushi can get a little pricey because they have yet to establish Old Gold options on their menu. If they add Old Gold meals and cook their lo mein noodles an extra minute, I would consider it to be on par with other places in Benson.
