Discovering a unique food item after weeks spent pouring over online menus (which eventually all start to look the same if you're like me and have been ordering an abundance of takeout because you aren't blessed with a good cooking gene) is truly a gift. When I saw the sushi taco offered on South Side Asian restaurant Mad Noodles' menu, I clicked immediately. As a huge fish taco fan, I figured it would either replicate the flavors from one of those or at least lead to a good story. (I've tried — and enjoyed — a sushi burrito, after all, so why not move through every available Mexican-Asian fusion cuisine?)
The $13 order came with two tacos served on a bed of lettuce. Unlike the large amount of fish tacos I've consumed over the years, in which the fish is generally grilled, baked, or fried, the generous pieces of tuna and salmon in Mad Noodles' dish were thick and raw, paired with slices of avocado and lettuce, topped with a sweet cream sauce. (Disclosure: There's also what I thought were jalapeños, but they were not spicy, so now I'm wondering if they were pickled cucumbers after looking at my photographs. The tacos were so delicious that I ate too quickly to inspect that detail; friends, I'm just a food loving editor, not the brilliant food writer Maggie Weaver who normally fills this page. Please forgive me.) The result of this fusion dish is nothing short of a treat and, to my surprise, quite unlike any fish taco I've tried in the past. Leaving the fish raw allows the taste of sashimi to come through, and paired with the salt on the crispy gluten-free corn taco shells, which held up firmly during every bite, the order of tacos are the perfect appetizer for two. (Except whoops, I ate both.)
There's no heat in this taco — the flavor of the avocados and the sashimi came through stronger than those green things, whatever they were — so if you require your tastebuds to burn while consuming a taco, grab the hot sauce. But I found the sauce provided sufficed, and once the tacos were gone, the lettuce underneath makes for a nice side salad, as the drippings from the taco sauce drizzles down, creating a nice dressing.
Someone holler if you discover a sushi tamale.
Mad Noodles. 2017 E. Carson St., South Side. Available for takeout orders online madnoodles-pa.com, and delivery through UberEats.
The $13 order came with two tacos served on a bed of lettuce. Unlike the large amount of fish tacos I've consumed over the years, in which the fish is generally grilled, baked, or fried, the generous pieces of tuna and salmon in Mad Noodles' dish were thick and raw, paired with slices of avocado and lettuce, topped with a sweet cream sauce. (Disclosure: There's also what I thought were jalapeños, but they were not spicy, so now I'm wondering if they were pickled cucumbers after looking at my photographs. The tacos were so delicious that I ate too quickly to inspect that detail; friends, I'm just a food loving editor, not the brilliant food writer Maggie Weaver who normally fills this page. Please forgive me.) The result of this fusion dish is nothing short of a treat and, to my surprise, quite unlike any fish taco I've tried in the past. Leaving the fish raw allows the taste of sashimi to come through, and paired with the salt on the crispy gluten-free corn taco shells, which held up firmly during every bite, the order of tacos are the perfect appetizer for two. (Except whoops, I ate both.)
There's no heat in this taco — the flavor of the avocados and the sashimi came through stronger than those green things, whatever they were — so if you require your tastebuds to burn while consuming a taco, grab the hot sauce. But I found the sauce provided sufficed, and once the tacos were gone, the lettuce underneath makes for a nice side salad, as the drippings from the taco sauce drizzles down, creating a nice dressing.
Someone holler if you discover a sushi tamale.
Mad Noodles. 2017 E. Carson St., South Side. Available for takeout orders online madnoodles-pa.com, and delivery through UberEats.
