We Tested Grocery Store Sushi at 9 Portland Stores. The Winner Surprised Us All

You're rushing to an appointment, and you don't have much time for lunch. Luckily, there's a grocery store near where you're going, and they offer plenty of quick grab-and-go meal options. You want something that won't leave you feeling heavy, so you opt for the sushi. But wait — is that sushi any good?

Not all sushi is made equal. We can't expect grocery store sushi to rival Nodoguro, the multi-award-winning omakase restaurant that's called Portland home since 2014 — but we also shouldn't expect it to all be decent. 

At Stumptown Savings, my goal isn't only to help you save money; it's to help you shop smarter. So I wanted to find out which Portland-area grocery store sushi is worth your money, and which you're better off skipping. We put nine stores to the test. One clearly took the crown.

Finding the stores that actually sold sushi was a journey. It involved calling numerous places (like three Costcos, two WinCos, two Safeways, two Fred Meyers, and more) and running into misleading info from staff. For instance, an H Mart employee initially said they didn't sell sushi. Luckily, a quick check at the Belmont location the day before the test revealed a big, impressive display of sushi right by the checkouts. That wasn't the only detour. 

After calling various Portland-area Costcos, a worker at the Hillsboro store assured me they sold sushi rolls. I drove all the way from East Portland to discover that no Oregon Costcos sell sushi rolls — only poke, which is definitely not sushi. (I don't eat either, and somehow I'm now an authority on the distinction.)

For fairness, we bought a spicy tuna roll and a California roll (or the closest equivalents) from each store on the day of the test. Jesse, Ricardo, and I split up to hit different parts of the Portland area to grab all the sushi. Once we had everything, I set up the tasting board, assigning each store's rolls a random number so the judges had no idea what they were eating.

They sampled a piece from every store’s roll, using Kikkoman soy sauce and sushi ginger to cleanse the palate. Judges rated each store out of 15 points (5 points each for taste and texture). Fractional scores and zeros were permitted. We only revealed the store and price after all the rolls had been tasted. Finally, judges graded the overall value based on price and their previous quality scores. The results ultimately sorted the contenders into three simple categories: Avoid at all costs, OK in a pinch, and pretty good.

Since I don't eat sushi (can't stand raw fish!), I couldn't be a fair judge. I organized the test instead, assembling and tracking the rolls to ensure the judges tasted everything completely blind. My wife, Monique, took my place on the panel.

Before the taste test, we asked Stumptown Savings readers which Portland-area grocery store they thought made the best sushi. A total of 185 of you weighed in.

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Fred Meyer (21)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ H Mart (29)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Market of Choice (10)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ New Seasons Market (16)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Safeway (8)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Trader Joe's (3)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Uwajimaya (79)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Whole Foods (7)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ WinCo Foods (12)

Nearly half of you — 43% — picked Uwajimaya. H Mart came in second at 16%. Fred Meyer got 11% of the vote.

One reader summed up the prevailing sentiment: "Almost feel like this has to be a trick question because you'd think Uwajimaya will win."

It was not a trick question. But it was, as it turns out, a very wrong assumption.

In hindsight, the Trader Joe’s rolls weren’t exactly entering a fair fight, as they were the only ones that didn’t contain any fish. The judges suspected that because TJ’s sushi isn’t made locally, it likely sits on the shelf much longer than at other grocery stores. While the flavor was poor, the texture was the real dealbreaker.

Since they don’t sell a spicy tuna roll, we tested their vegetable roll filled with carrots, avocado, and cucumber. But instead of the crisp crunch you’d hope for, Jesse described the experience as simply “mush.”

The rice was mushy and the avocado tasted off in both varieties. Their California roll, featuring imitation crab and avocado, even had a slightly sour note.

“By the time I tried the California roll, I was done,” Monique said. “I actually spat it out.”

At $0.67 a piece, it was the cheapest option, but you certainly get what you pay for. It earned zero points from Katy, Monique, and Ricardo, with Jesse being the only one to grant it any score at all. No matter how hungry you are, we can’t honestly recommend these rolls.

This one was a shocker to almost everyone. New Seasons has a great reputation for quality, but that didn't apply to their sushi, which is supplied by Origami Catering. Most judges, Katy, Monique, and Ricardo, hit it with a zero, and even Jesse — who gave it a generous 5 points overall — called the rolls “mild, boring, and stale.” It was all downhill from there. 

The rice was dry, chalky, and hard, making the rolls fall apart right in their chopsticks. Ricardo pointed out the avocado in the California roll was brown and tasted old, and he suspected the spicy tuna was slathered in sauce to mask the flavor of the subpar fish and rice. 

“The rice was disgusting,” he said. “It was gross, there's nothing good for me.”

Monique noted these rolls were the least appealing, visually, and the smallest of all the stores’ sushi.

While Safeway's rolls, made onsite by ZENSHI Handcrafted Sushi, weren't the worst, the judges found plenty to criticize — from structural problems to an overly sweet flavor profile and some genuinely bizarre textures.

Ricardo noted the rice tasted "way too sugary" with not enough vinegar to balance it out, and found the tuna equally cloying. Monique was thrown off by the sauce on the spicy tuna roll, which she described as looking synthetic, with a weirdly bright orange color. Jesse had the most visceral reaction: he called the spicy tuna "terrible, weird and gooey," and said it stuck to his mouth "like peanut butter." Monique, meanwhile, found the imitation crab "rubbery" and the rice "hard." Katy was the only one who enjoyed the rice texture, though she even complained about a "sad ratio of filling" that left her with too much plain rice.

The only real redemption was price — the California roll was on sale for just $5 that day — and Jesse's mild appreciation for it. Not enough to make these rolls worth seeking out.

I'd heard good things about the WinCo Foods sushi, which the 102nd Avenue store proudly advertises via a sandwich board outside the main entrance. The reality was more complicated.

The rolls, made onsite by FujiSan Sushi, were uneven. The California roll landed poorly, with judges calling out the imitation crab for a rubbery texture and flat flavor. The spicy tuna roll fared better — most judges agreed the sauce had a decent kick. In both cases, though, the rice was tough and bland, and the overall presentation didn't do them any favors.

Monique put it plainly: "The only thing I got out of these rolls was value — so if you can't afford sushi, sure. But why would you want to eat it?" At roughly $0.80 a piece, that value argument holds, barely. Just don't go in expecting much else.

The panel had high hopes for this Korean supermarket's sushi, given H Mart's well-earned reputation for its hot bar and prepared foods. Those hopes didn't survive the blind taste.

The flavor was uneven across the board. Monique found the rolls exceptionally sweet, which she disliked. Ricardo theorized that the heavy spice on the spicy tuna roll was there to mask what he called the "terrible flavor" of the fish. Katy and Jesse were more forgiving on taste, but texture is where H Mart really fell apart — the rice came across dry and hard across both rolls.

"I thought they had the worst rice out of all these," Jesse said. "The fact that H Mart was the place with the worst rice is absolutely criminal."

Value was the one bright spot, with reasonable prices and a generous amount of tuna on the spicy tuna roll. But with rice that bad, it's hard to make the case.

Market of Choice's rolls, made in house by Hissho Sushi, arrived looking the part. The California roll was topped with a Sichuan chili crisp, and the spicy tuna roll came crowned with a small piece of tuna poke — flourishes that immediately set them apart visually. Whether they delivered on that promise depended entirely on who you asked.

Katy appreciated being able to taste an actual chunk of tuna on the spicy tuna roll, and Jesse found the flavor decent overall, though he noted it read more like a "sweet roll" than a spicy one. Ricardo actively disliked both, singling out a "weird sweet aftertaste" on the spicy tuna. Texture split the panel just as sharply: Katy and Jesse appreciated the crunchy topping on the California roll, while Ricardo felt it came out soggy, and Monique found the whole effect "unnecessary."

Pretty to look at, genuinely divisive to eat. If you like a little extra texture and sweetness in your rolls, Market of Choice might be your store. If you prefer a more classic profile, you may find these overwrought.

Tying with Market of Choice, Whole Foods delivered what might be the most inoffensive sushi in the test — which is both a compliment and a mild criticism.

One genuine distinction: Whole Foods uses shrimp instead of the usual imitation crab in its California roll, something Monique appreciated. The avocado also stood out for its freshness, a detail that sounds minor until you've eaten the brown, oxidized avocado that showed up in several other stores' rolls. Rice quality was solid, and Jesse noted a satisfying firmness to the fish.

What hurt Whole Foods was simple math. At $1.50 or more per piece, it was the most expensive sushi in the test — and it wasn't the best. Several judges who'd scored it reasonably on taste and texture revised their assessments downward once prices were revealed. Good sushi isn't cheap, but at this price point, you'd expect it to win.

The only Japanese grocery store in the Portland metro region put in a strong showing — strong enough to narrowly break what would have been a three-way tie for second place. It also generated more internal debate than almost any other entry.

Katy felt there was too much rice vinegar in the rice. Her husband, Ricardo, felt there wasn't enough. On the spicy tuna, Ricardo said there was "way too much mayo," and Jesse agreed the "mayo to spice ratio was a little off." Despite the disagreements, judges gave the rice high marks overall for its texture — firm without being dry — and noted the rolls were visually appealing and slightly larger than most of the competition.

At $7.99 to $9.99 per roll, the value helped seal the runner-up spot. The sushi here won't leave everyone happy, but it'll leave most of them satisfied.

This was the shocker of the taste test. Fred Meyer also uses ZENSHI Handcrafted Sushi to make its sushi in house, but there was something different about the Fred Meyer sushi that set it way above its Safeway counterpart. Judges were blown away by perfectly balanced flavors, excellent texture, and an affordable price per roll.  

Ricardo gave it a massive score of 13 (out of 15), praising the sweetness of the rice perfectly balancing against the rice vinegar, and calling the spiciness of the tuna "spot on." While Jesse felt the spicy sauce could have been spicier, and Katy thought the rice was a bit too sweet, no one had anything overly critical to say about the flavor.

Fred Meyer’s sushi also received high praise for texture, with Katy praising the rice, and the crunch of the cucumber in the California roll. Everyone agreed these rolls felt fresh, with high-quality ingredients and a nice presentation. Combined with a reasonable price at about $0.75 per piece, it took the crown as the only sushi everyone agreed they’d get again. 

Next time you're rushing past a grocery store deli case, you'll know exactly what to grab — and what to walk right past. But we want to know if your experience matches ours. Which Portland grocery store sushi do you swear by? Tell us in the comments.