If you’ve been to Chomp, Riptide, and RA, you’re going to like Crazy Rock’N Sushi in Irvine, which is in the same “Bro-Sushi” genre not only because it utilizes the word “Crazy” and “Rock’N” in its name to attract a certain kind of customer, but because it also has a list of alcoholic drinks as long as the one for its sauced-up sushi rolls.
There’s the usual roster of sake, but also shochu, wines from both grape and plum, and cocktails based on the shochu. There are beers from the Japanese trinity of Sapporo, Asahi, and Kirin, as well as bottles from domestic brands and a few Japanese microbreweries. The Sapporo, though, is on draft and it’s from this that the restaurant builds its inevitable sake bombs, and what seems the specialty of the house: the beer cocktails.
Crazy Rock’N Sushi’s beer cocktails exist in six flavors including strawberry, green apple, grape, lychee and peach. It’s basically the Sapporo flavored with the same syrup with which the restaurant doctors the ice tea and “Japanese-style sodas”. The yuzu flavoring, however, is exclusive to the beer cocktail. And when you order one, you’ll find it doesn’t taste as cloying as you thought. Instead it’s effervescent. Think Martinelli’s with a floral citrus at the finish, but alcoholic and a whole mug of it filled to the brim.
5365 Alton Pkwy, Irvine, CA 92604
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.