Adding Stars and Stripes to the Rising Sun

It took Japan centuries to open up to the West, but once they did... well, they produced a band called Guitar Wolf who had a song called "Midnight Violence Rock and Roll", so... Awesome! Opening up Japanese fare to perniciously tasty American influence: Roll On Sushi Diner, coming this Thursday.

In the base of the AMLI condos on Burnet, Roll On is a brick-walled sushi bar/roadside diner hybrid whose red Formica counter wraps around an open kitchen helmed by a Wolfgang Puck protege, whose last gig was at the shipping-container trailer Sushi Box, which, judging by his anything-but-traditional creations here, he was presumably tired of thinking inside. Marked up by customers who hand them directly to the chefs, the paper menus contain TX-loaded rolls like the rice-less Cholesta (chicken-fried steak, cream gravy, mashed potatoes, peas), The Beefy Texan (brisket, wasabi cole slaw, avo, spicy BBQ mayo, nori), and The Grouch, with roasted chicken, green chile, jack cheese, caramelized onion, chipotle aioli, and the eating-enabler named after the way Chingo Bling introduces himself: soy wrapper. Further culture-mashing comes via the tempura-fried Count (country ham, turkey, Swiss, powdered sugar, strawberry chili jam), the Rasta (blackened shrimp, mango, roasted red pepper, scallion, curry, jicama, cilantro), and the crispy egg roll-wrapped peanut butter/bacon/banana Elvis, to be dipped in either savory mayo or sweet chocolate sauce, so there's Something For Everybody.

For those not enthused by the fusion, they've also got classic numbers like the crab/ tempura shrimp/ cuke/ 'cado/ cream cheese/ scallion Dy-no-mite -- once that blows up the old, insulated order, you know Good Times are on the way.