Okay, so you can't really do lunch at Sushi Roku at The W Scottsdale for less than $10, but you can get a lot of bang for your buck with a $10 Express Bento Box, which is nearly a square-foot of Japanese food.
The Express Bento Box features a garden salad, miso soup, a spicy tuna roll, chicken teriyaki, and steamed rice. We were stoked to try it, swapping out the tuna and chicken for vegetarian options, but we had been misinformed: There is no vegetarian $10 box.
If you want to deviate from the preselected items it'll cost you $5 more to build a custom box, but you can choose two from beef, salmon, or chicken teriyaki, miso eggplant or cod, chicken Kara-age, mixed tempura, mixed sushi, mixed sashimi, or spicy tuna and California rolls. Plus the standard salad-soup-rice sides and your choice of ice cream for dessert.
Not being meat eaters, we missed out on the best deal, but the veggie tempura more than made up for it: Asparagus, eggplant, sweet potatoes, broccoli, and carrots lightly breaded on the outside, rich and warm on the inside.
The mixed green salad has a great ginger dressing that makes you overlook the lack of any other fixings.
The miso soup tastes like a cross between egg drop and chicken broth, but is made with soy-derived miso paste, tofu, and scallions. It's a sipping soup, which means you can drink it right out of its miniature bowl, but the wait staff kindly provides a spoon just in case. It, along with the miso eggplant, is a little bland.
The miso eggplant was a little slimy and hit-and-miss on flavor, alternating between slightly sweet and tasteless eggplant.
You can choose between red bean, green tea or vanilla ice cream for dessert included in the Custom Bento Box but extra with the $10 Express, that is if you have any room left over.
The ambience is classic W style: sleek, modern, and sophisticated with edgy twists, like the multitude of black panels and lightbulbs suspended from the ceiling above the sushi bar. It was the last place we'd expect to see a newborn or an elderly couple, but we saw both during our lunch hour. Guess the see-and-be-seen scene is limited to after hours.
This and happy hour are the only times to get in and out of Sushi Roku for less than $20, tax and tip included, so put on your fancy pants and hipster attitude and head over.
Sushi Roku at The W Scottsdale
7277 East Camelback Road
Scottsdale
480-970-2121
