Restaurant Review: Sushi House

We love sushi. We've been craving good sushi since we got here and the local sushi places did not look very good. Most of them sell pre-packaged boxes of california roll, unagi and salmon. I read a good review of Sushi House (5 Bank, Nelson, 03-546-6665). We decided that we'd get takeaway for our friday night sushi dinner. Maya was obviously very excited and thrilled hear this.

On thursday, I walked by this place at 5:00 pm or so and it was already closed since it was out of stuff. They did not have a takeaway menu either, and seemed like the other sushi places we've seen in Nelson. They also had a sign asking people to call before 2:00 pm if they wanted to order a sushi dinner. Mari called them Friday morning. Since we did not have a menu, we asked them to make a dinner platter to feed 4 adults (we consider Maya an adult when it comes to eating sushi). We also added some salmon sashimi to the dinner platter

I picked up the food at 4:00 pm or so on Friday. Instead of a takeway box, the owner Masao, gives me the sushi in a beautiful japanese wooden tray covered with saran wrap. He takes down my name and number and checks when I would be able to written the tray back. For NZD $50, there is a fair amount of sushi and sashimi in it ( approx 36 pieces sushi and 5 slices salmon sashimi). The platter was made up of: inari, unagi, sake, tomago, sake / egg / cucumber roll, salmon avocado sushi and roll, amaebi, cooked shrimp, beef / cucumber roll, ebi, and a seaweed / salmon / avocado tiny roll.

The quality of the sushi was excellent. The rice was soft and sweet (much tastier than sushi rice i've had in the past). Maya gorged herself silly on everything and even tried a bit of wasabi. PJ amazed us by eating inari, tomago, unagi and a sake.

Overall, this was a great find for us, and I suspect it will make it into our regular takeaway schedule. My only complaint was it had too much salmon in it. Next time, we'll ask Masao for more variety and to include other types of raw fish. I'd give it a 7/10 and am hoping with more variety their rating will increase. We'll also try a few more rolls the next time. Mari was very pleased with the food and glad she found a place to get her protein fix :)