Austin just scored another culinary gem, and this one comes from the crew behind Sazan Ramen. Rollies is a limited time pop up hand roll and ramen bar serving a five course menu for thirty nine dollars. The experience includes four chef crafted hand rolls and a bowl of seasonal Rollies Ramen with optional add ons like snow crab rolls with garlic butter or scallops dressed with pear and lemon.
The set menu leans into creative flavors that play with both tradition and surprise. Highlights include bluefin tuna with kizami wasabi, ocean trout with fresno chili and avocado, hamachi with pear and scallion, and unagi with cucumber namasu and eel sauce. It is finished with a rotating bowl of ramen that reminds you why Sazan built its reputation in the first place.
Drinks are not an afterthought here. A sake specialist from Genji Sake has put together pairings that actually elevate each roll, from Dassai Blue 35 alongside the tuna to Kiku Masamune Taru matched with the unagi and ramen. Flights are twenty dollars and just enough to make you feel like you know what you are talking about.
The real flex is the whisky. Rollies is one of only two places in Austin with bottles of Nikka Nine Decades, a rare Japanese release blended from barrels across the distillery’s ninety year history. It is the kind of pour that gets whispered about in collector circles and bragged about loudly on Instagram.
Rollies is located inside Sazan Ramen at 6929 Airport Boulevard in Austin. Seatings run Tuesday through Sunday at 5, 6:30, and 8 pm and reservations are required through OpenTable. The menu is forty bucks, the whisky is priceless, and the bragging rights are forever.