SanQiaoyiyi

> Location : Shops A & B, G/F, Ivy on Belcher's 26 Belcher's street,
Kennedy Town, Hong Kong
> Cuisine : Japanese
> Tel. # : (852) 2816-7722
> Website : N/A

SanQiaoyiyi is a well rounded Japanese restaurant serving various items in its respective cuisine. From noodles to rice to fried/grilled dishes to sushi/sashimi and various other things. SanQiaoyiyi has three other locations besides the Hong Kong island one. There's one in Yuen Long, N.T., and two in Kowloon (Sham Shui Po and Tai Po). The Hong Kong location, the one I'm reviewing is in Kennedy Town. The restaurant is split into two shops. There's a residential/business building right in between. For one shop, it's designed for rotary sushi style and for the other, it's for tables and traditional sushi bar.

I had the chance to seat on the table side for my review. The environment was bright with lots of lighting. There are quite a number of seats for both shops. Since SanQiaoyiyi has been recently opened here in Kennedy Town, there have been a lot of customers lining up to try the new place. Make sure you go early if you want to try! Not only because the place is new so people are flocking to go, the prices is noticeably below average so it's bang for the buck! But is it still of good quality?

There are two menus I was provided with. One was the table paper menu which shows most of the cooked items. The other was a pictured menu leaflet that has the following sections: salad, warship sushi, snack, sushi, sashimi, grilled sushi, cocktail sushi, roll, ice cream, drinks and liquor.

I got the chance to try a little of everything from SanQiaoyiyi. Their tempura was nice and crispy. Something that is tough to cooked improperly. Their puffer fish smoked skin was chewy, pleasant with a strong BBQ flavor to it. It's similar to the flavoring from Aji Ichiban's dried fish snacks. I also tried their soft shell crab hand roll and found it great until I tasted some mayo in it. To me, I just don't think a soft shell crab hand roll really matches up with mayo in my opinion. To me, the best hand roll for mayo would be scallop. Next, I tried the smoked/grilled salmon head. It was alright and nothing to be crazy over. If you're into grilled fish Japanese style, I always recommend yellow tail collar! I also heard the udon soup was good. Lastly, I had their daily special which was tamago (egg) filled with cheese. As expected, it was that sweet tamago sushi taste with cheese melted within. Interesting indeed. On the side, their presentation of their dishes are nice which makes your experience more special.

So how was the raw stuff? It's actually quite cheap I must say. That's one large reason why there's so many people lining up. The combination sushi plates give quite a lot for a small price. I tried this $150 HKD so combination plate that had about 25-30 pieces of sushi/rolls. It's actually quite a deal. How was the freshness? Well, to see if there's a difference between the fish served in a combination plate compared to individually ordered, I ordered some yellow tail and tasted the quality. It melted in my mouth somewhat but still preserved a bit of the chewiness. Comparing that to the salmons, white fish and other items on the combination plate, there wasn't much of a difference. Which for me concludes the freshness was adequate but not great. However, we must remember the price they give you justifies the quality! So it's not so bad overall.

How about the service? The service was average. Considering the place is brand new, it seems like some of the waiters and waitress' don't know if certain isn't even served. I ordered a certain item and the lady said "okay" but when I noticed it never came, I asked another waiter and he says they don't serve that item. Considering the situation, it was half excusable to me. Most of the waiter's attitude were fine (except for one) and the manager there was friendly. Overall, it's a pass.

For the price you are asked to pay and what's served to you, SanQiaoyiyi does exactly what it's suppose to do. It would be great if the quality, especially the raw stuff, were a bit more fresh. However, please don't look away because if you're just a casual eater, this is definitely a go. Unless you're looking for some better/top notch quality sushi/sashimi, then a close place would be Oonami (also in Kennedy Town), which I did a short review recently for. Also, if you're looking for cooked items only, I don't see much of an issue not going. Just go early because there's quite a line!

< 3.5 out of 5 >