Most of the case at Lin's Poke & Sushi is fish. The inari isn't, and that's exactly why Alex Regules wants to talk about it.
"This one is very special," he says, sitting at the counter inside St. Roch Market. "What it is is a very simple tofu pocket. It's very soft, and also a little sweet, so it's a nice surprise, a nice complement to the sushi rice."
The pocket is fried tofu, simmered until it takes on a light sweetness, then folded around a scoop of seasoned rice. It reads plain on a menu and eats like something closer to a treat.
Alex has a theory about why that pairing works, and it starts with the word itself.
"'Sushi,' which is a Japanese word, translates to 'sour rice,'" he says. "We use rice vinegar to make the sushi, and rice vinegar is the softest and the sweetest of all the different kinds of vinegars out in the marketplace. Combine these two together, you have a gentle but sweet meal."
He's right about the translation. The word traces back to an old Japanese adjective for sour-tasting, tied to su, vinegar. The rice does the sour half, the pocket does the sweet half, and neither one shouts.
The plain version is inari with rice and nothing else, and it's about as low as a check goes at Lin's. "It's an option, it's probably the cheapest option we offer," Alex says.
It does not have to stay plain. Every dressing behind that counter is free, on the inari and on everything else he makes.
"I can dress it for you like all my sushi rolls. I don't charge for dressings, so you can be creative and, honestly, make it into something more special as if it was just bare," he says.
The one he reaches for here is Nori Goma, normally a rice dressing but happy to go anywhere you want it. "Our Nori Goma has crushed-up nori, it also has sesame seeds, so I do think it's very nice for texture," he says. On a rice-only inari it lands like a finishing salt: dark flecks of seaweed, a little sesame crunch, no extra charge.
If you want it to be a full lunch, he'll lay salmon across the top, and the Nori Goma can go on the fish instead of the rice. That's the version worth ordering if you've never had inari before, a thick slab of salmon over a sweet pocket with seaweed and sesame scattered across it.
You'll find Lin's Poke & Sushi inside St. Roch Market at 2381 St. Claude Ave, open daily alongside build-your-own poke bowls, sushiritos, hand rolls, and the full roll menu.