Handroll Hawker Brings Melbourne-Style Sushi Rolls to Polk Street
Owner Romi Trower, a former Melbourne filmmaker, built the Russian Hill shop around the grab-and-go sushi rolls sold all over Australia, with chef Tai Trinh on the menu.
By the Bay Area Brief staff · Edited by Seamus McKenna · · 3 min read
San Francisco skyline and Market Street at dusk, seen from Twin Peaks. Photo: King of Hearts / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped, resized and color-graded). Archive photo of the area; not a photo of the events in this story.
A new shop on Polk Street is selling a sushi format that is everywhere in Australia but rare in San Francisco. Handroll Hawker opened Sept. 29 at 2360 Polk St. in Russian Hill, 7x7 reports.
What's on the menu
The shop sells Australian-style handrolls: thick, cylindrical rolls meant to be eaten on the go, unlike the cone-shaped temaki common at local sushi bars. There are nine styles, including cooked options such as cooked tuna and crispy chicken. One roll costs $7, and three cost $18, according to 7x7.
The shop sells more than 800 rolls on a busy Saturday, 7x7 reports.
Who is behind it
Owner Romi Trower is a former filmmaker from Melbourne who moved to San Francisco in 2018 and trained at a culinary school in Tokyo. Chef Tai Trinh runs the kitchen. Murals inside are by San Francisco artist Serge Gay Jr.
Handroll Hawker is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. For a sit-down take on hand rolls nearby, see our story on Kaiyo Handroll Bar.
Sources
This article is an original summary based on the following reporting. We encourage readers to visit the original sources for full coverage.
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