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 >

Itamae-Sushi

> Location : Shop 1-3, G/F., Excelsior Plaza, Yee On Bldg.,
24-26 East Point Rd., Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
> Cuisine : Japanese Sushi
> Tel. # : (852) 2110-8504
> Website : N/A

Have you ever been to a restaurant where it's so hard to get table even for 1 or 2 people? Well, I'm not talkin' about like booking a table that is available a few months later like in the movie "lake house." Gosh, if there's a place like that, tell me where! haha. So what exactly am i talkin' about? Itamae-Sushi. There's is no reservations for this place and it's first come first serve base on available seating. For dinner time, it opens around 5:30 PM and there is already a hand full of people waiting to get in. In about another 30 min., expect a whole bunch of people outside getting tickets to wait to get a seat! Base on my multiple experiences, if you want an easier time getting in, go early!

Itamae-Sushi has three locations. The first One is the one I'm reviewing at Causeway Bay and the other two are at Tsim Sha Tsui and Mongkok, Kowloon. The environment of this place isn't very big but used efficiently. The sushi bar is 360 degrees with multiple sushi chefs at your service. Along with the chefs, there's rotory sushi going around 360 degrees also. Besides the bar, there's also some regular seating on the side. The lighting is somewhat dim and again the space is well used.

What truly makes Itamae-Sushi special isn't just the location (it's right by Sogo and some of the most crowded streets of Causeway Bay), but it is the variety. Besides your usual salmon, tuna, eel, mackerel, yellowtail and so on, you have even more special choices such as striped jack, Japanese jack mackerel, fatty yellowtail, fatty salmon, fatty tuna of two types, rudder fish, salty saury, Japanese flounder and so much more. In addition to fishes, there's also different types of semi-raw japanese beef, horse flesh (yes, horse meat, haha), different types of shell seafood, roasted items, sashimi, handrolls, cut rolls, desserts and so much other stuff I can't list them all! Each table contains four different types of paper menu for you to mark on and some are both sides. They even list the items that are shipped fresh daily from japan! Of course, each table has a regular colored booklet menu to see the pictures and choose some additional items not listed in the paper menus. That truly tells you how much choices you have!

For my outing, i ordered some rudder fish, tuna, Japanese flounder, the fatty tuna with more fat and tendons, fatty yellowtail, Japanese jack mackerel, itamae roll, roasted eel and the 5A Japanese beef. Let me describe as much specific details as I can from each item. The Japanese jack mackerel is somewhat thin, nice and soft like regular mackerel or spanish mackerel. The fatty tuna was nice and fat! I can feel the oily sensation. Fatty yellowtail is a first for me. It was nice and thick with some minor tendons. The rudder fish has some tendons too. None of the fishes simply melted in my mouth which proves its freshness except for the tuna which slightly did but certainly a lot better than a lot of places I had in Southern California! 5A Japanese beef? I believe 5A stands for the quality level of the beef (I didn't get a chance to ask). The beef wasn't completely raw, a nice size not too thin, semi-roasted and had a very juicy, beefy taste to it. It certainly was great! The roasted eel tasted just like what eel should taste like in most Japanese restaurants. As for the Itamae roll, it contained scallop, salmon, salmon roe, and sea urchin (uni). It was one of those thiner, round and bigger type of rolls. Well decorated and tasted good. As for dessert, the pumpkin ice cream! The ice cream literally comes in a pumpkin. The ice cream was nice, cold and not too soft. It holds a milky pumpkin flavor to it. Quality wise, it was an alright amount yet definitely worth it because it isn't expensive and its taste. Most of the fishes served contain at least some nice minor garnish on the side if not some taste complements/garnish ontop of the fish such as wasabi, fried rice flour bits, green onions, specific types of sauces, turnip strips, onion trips, and other things.

Price wise, it is reasonable and for people from the states, you will find it cheap! As low as $9 HKD to $45 HKD for each order for sushi (it's more like $20-30 per order to start out with in the states), handrolls, cut rolls, drinks, desserts, and noodles. For sashimi and other special items, it can go as high as a hundred to a few hundred HKD per order. Some are simply 2 pieces and some are more. Overall, the quantity and extra quality (because it is sashimi) justifies the cost.

Price, variety, quality and location. What more can you ask for? I am certain if you pay a bit to a grip more, you can find even better quality but not too much better (where a typical eater can't tell the difference) in Hong Kong. Yet, the price and quality ratio is very good along with the variety and location. The only negative thing is the waiting if you go late but that is normal because of its popularity. I've been to some well-decorated high class looking Japanese restaurants in Hong Kong and base on its freshness, price, choices, it's just horrible. I don't need to go any further because I am sure you get my point about this place! Itamae-Sushi is a great place if you consider all these factors I just listed. A must visit for anybody in Hong Kong!

< 4 1/2 out of 5 >

Genki Sushi

> Location : G/F Far East Finance Centre, 16 Harcourt Rd.,
Admiralty, Hong Kong
> Cuisine : Japanese rotary sushi
> Tel. # : (check website)
> Website : http://www.genkisushi.com.sg/

So what exactly is rotary sushi? i remember the first time i saw a rotary sushi restaurant was in japan. i thought it was the coolest thing in the world, haha. okay okay, i still haven't explained what it is yet. rotary sushi is a type of restaurant where different sushi and dishes are put on top of a conveyor belt which goes along where the customers are sitting so they can reach out and pick and choose what kind of sushi they want to eat!

the place i went to in hong kong is at admiralty (technically central but it's like on the boarder i believe). it's walking distance to pacific place plaza and also there are other locations too. the place is called genki sushi. as you noticed from the plates, they are different colors and seem tacky. but they are actually color coded to indicate the different prices of the plates. yellow ($9 hkd), green ($12 hkd), purple ($15 hkd), red ($20 hkd), blue ($25 hkd), mix ($35 hkd). when you get the check, they just count how many plates you ate in respective of the colors and calculate your bill that way! you can also order your sushi through the waiters especially items that aren't usually on the conveyor belt such as hand rolls.

within your reach in every seat is ginger, wasabi, green tea powder, hot water dispenser, and soy sauce. to be a little more specific, you don't order your green tea through the waiter. as you can probably figure it out by now, there's a built in hot water dispenser at your seat, you just take a scoop of green tea powder and put some water in it! very easy to use and you don't need to always wait for your waiter to get water refills.

variety wise, genki sushi isn't the greatest but still most of the fish you could typically want you can get. built to be more of a come and go type restaurant and economical for people's pockets. yet for the price you pay compared to the quality you recieve, it is a pretty fair trade. comparing to some of the regular sit down japanese places, fish quality wise, genki will lose for sure. but like i said, the business isn't design to compete that way. lets just say, compared to a good amount of sit down's in southern california, the quality of genki sushi is on par if not a bit better! which says a lot about the freshness of the fish here in hong kong compared to the states.

this actually is my second experience at genki sushi. anyways, this time, the following fish is what i had and most of them are pictured in this entry (btw, i will name it in japanese first and english after so you can tell the difference when you go to a place that only lists in japanese): sake = salmon, hamachi = yellow tail, kohada = gizzard shad, kajiki toro = swordfish, aji = spanish mackerel, amaebi = sweet shrimp, shiro ebi = white shrimp, gyu tataki = half done beef, hotategai = scallop. the quality of all the items are very consistent to each other. when i bite into all the fishes, they didn't melt in my mouth nor was it chewy. i say it was about right in the middle or about a bit above the middle. as i said before in my previous entries, when raw fish melts in your mouth (besides toro = fatty tuna), it indicates the fish is not fresh / has been frozen for awhile. therefore, fresher fish is more chewy. average to be about $15 hkd for two pieces of sushi, that's about $2 US. usually, in the states, you have to pay on average $3.50 to $5.50 for every two pieces. now if you do the calculation, it isn't that bad of a deal!

lets talk about some of the less common fishes in the states that i mentioned about. kohada or shad, is actually from the same category as saba (mackerel). it's a silver skin fish that is very high in calcium. the taste of it is similar to saba but lighter in taste. gyu tataki is basically half cooked beef. seemingly raw, it's fresh enough and cooked just enough to be eatable. a very unique tasting experience. a smoky sensation when you taste it. lastly, kajiki toro is sword fish. it looks very similar to yellow tail at first but you could tell there's a slightly darker appearance.

the last three photos right next to this is the water dispenser i talked about earlier along with the green tea powder and other things, the photo of the side of the restaurant, and lastly some items on the conveyor belt you can choose from.

besides sushi/sashimi, you can also get temaki (hand rolls), maki (rolls), various appetizers, drinks, and party sets to make ordering easier. it's a fun and unique experience to visit to a rotary sushi restaurant. that in itself makes it up for the lack of top-notch quality. however like i said multiple times, the business isn't designed to work that way, the quality is already better than most sushi restaurants in the states and even some sit downs in hong kong (sadly and these places are more expensive too), and comparing to the price you pay, it equates the quality which is definitely fair. in the end, if you ever get a chance, go try genki or other similar types of places! hope this helps / was entertaining. take care and good luck ~

< 3 1/2 out of 5 >

Kappo Utsuki

> Location : G/F 19 Lan Fong Road, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
> Cuisine : Japanese
> Tel. # : N/A
> Website : N/A

My twin mei-yee (like almost literally she is! she has the same birth year, month, day, country and maybe the same hospital but i gotta check up on that one, heh), took me to one of her favorite sushi restaurant in hong kong a few days ago. use to be more near sogo but now moved and somewhat hidden in the back streets, kappo utsuki in causeway bay is where we went to.

usually at a sushi place, i tend to just order sushi/sashimi and critique the freshness of the fish and the style and presentation of how they serve it. this time for a change, we went with a lunch set and see how it is. i went with mei-yee's favorite set which is the toro-don set. toro again as mentioned before means fatty tuna or to be more specific, the belly area of tuna. don meaning rice bowl.

the toro-don set comes with the toro-don itself (seaweed strips under the chopped up toro and wasabi/sesame over it), some soy sauce for the rice bowl, a bowl of udon, some sweet pickles, green beans and a chawanmushi (steamed egg custard cup). can't wait, i tackle the toro-don first. using my chopsticks, i mixed the wasabi in with the seaweed strips, rice and pour the soy sauce in also. after mixing it up pretty well, i begin tasting. the toro was nice and soft. mixed in with the flavor of the soy sauce and the seaweed, give it a crispy, head rushing spicy flavor. back tracking a little bit, when you order any sushi rice bowls, they will ask you if you want sushi rice or regular rice. for the inexperienced, sushi rice isn't just rice and water, it's rice (japanese style preffered), water, rice wine vinegar, sugar and some salt. in the end, it tastes a little sweet yet a bit sour from the vinegar. it's very good! so of course i chose sushi rice. if you think about it, your tongue is accepting a lot of flavors at the same time. sweet, sour, salty and head rushing spicy. so it's a very neat experience and very hard to explain. great overall.

as for the other parts of the lunch set, we have the udon which is a very typical udon soup base with green onions and tempura skin. nothing much to explain here. the noodles weren't overcooked or anything. a very plain dish but done right. good overall. the sweet pickles and the green beans were all very simple, fresh and done right. the chawanmushi was nice and soft, a little saltiness flavor to it. in a typical chawanmushi, a few eggs, some salt, soy sauce, sake, chicken, some type of mushroom (shitake usually) and some type of greens like green onions or trefoil for taste/decoration.

in the end, it was a very simple yet satisfying experience. the toro was very good and from what i heard from mei-yee, the toro they use during dinner is even better ($70 hkd difference but same size). therefore this experience is just the first step to greater things! thanks again to mei-yee for showing me this place! assuming the dinner fish is even better, i will definitely give 1/2 a point more if this review is base on it. since it's only lunch...

< 3 1/2 out of 5 >

Mosun Sushi Sake Bar

> Location : 680 S Coast Hwy, Laguna Beach,
California 92651, U.S.A.
> Cuisine : Japanese
> Tel. # : (check website)
> Website : http://www.mosunclubm.com/

Lets forget about the night club portion of mosun because the highlight of this place is still the food.

i've tried dozens of japanese places in so cal and if you want to talk about freshness / quality of the fish, this has to be the best out of all places i've been to period. at least i can say for certain around the o.c. area.

mosun's environment is very dim with very neat decorations. there's a water decoration thingy which is kinda neat with lcd tv's around the place. it's a nice environment for friends and even on a date.

the fish as i was talkin' about earlier is very fresh. just stay away from wednesday since it's half price day (usually when there are specials and discounts for sushi joints, they don't serve you the best quality stuff. so if you want to get the best, stay away from those. but if quatity is in your mood, then go right ahead!). the tuna, yellowtail, salmon, toro, white fish, mackeral and every type of fish you could imagine is all good. their rolls are very unique especially the lobster roll if i recall correctly. when eating sashimi, pay attention to the fish's chewiness. if it melts in your mouth really easily or even if you see the fish's color on the rice, then it's definitely not fresh/frozen/they added food coloring. fresh sashimi is always a bit chewy. kinda feeling the tendon's of the fish. the only exception to this fact is toro (fatty tuna). this is the only fish i know for a fact that should melt in your mouth for the most part. but of course for mosun, i highly highly doubt this will ever happen.

mosun even have a line of dessert. the one i remember having last time is the cream brule. it's very good if i recall correctly. anyhow, to end this, i gotta say again, it's the best place for sushi. it's a very young/hip place so it's hard to fit a family mood into a place like this. but with friends or on dates, it's definitely great. laguna beach wise, i heard there is another place supposedly better than mosun. but until i find out, this has to be the best in so cal i have ever had.

* these short reviews by me can also be found on www.yelp.com

< 4 out of 5 >