Hoping…

It’s the 1st of January today, New Year’s Day, 2019…so let me start off by wishing everybody all the best in the coming year, may God bless us all abundantly with blue skies and everything nice.

And talking about the start of something new, we have this new Japanese franchise place in town…

– it just opened its doors on Christmas Eve and is drawing folks by the droves.

We had a very good Japanese restaurant here once and we would go there quite frequently but the owners closed down the place eventually to concentrate on their other ventures here and also in Kuching. Since then, I had not been to any place Japanese even though there is another Japanese franchise (with two outlets now) here but after a couple of disappointments, I never went back again. We also have our own local one which is quite nice and has been around for a long long time now but somehow, I do not feel inclined to go there. My girl goes to one of their outlets quite often though, not me.

In the meantime, the only Japanese delight that I would get to enjoy would be our own homemade sushi – my girl and the mum would make it quite regularly and yes, with all the special ingredients used, I must say that i rather enjoyed those they have made so far.

Well, we did manage to check out this new one the other day – its opening hours on weekdays was supposed to be from 12 noon onwards and we got there at 11.30 a.m. but it was in full swing…

…and already full except for one small table for 4 by the side, just nice for the 3 of us…so in we went, hoping that this would be very much to our liking and there would, at least, be one really good Japanese joint here for us to frequent.

Here, if it is full, you will have to go to the cashier’s counter to register your name and go and wait outside – there are seats provided but if all of them are filled, you will just have to stand in a queue…and yes, by the time we were leaving, there was quite a crowd outside. One thing’s for sure, you would never catch me doing anything of the sort.

The carousel went round and round non-stop with all the plates of sushi and yes, there was a very wide variety unlike at the other franchise place where when I went there, I noticed that they had all the plates of the same things circulating the whole time we were there.

We took a few of the blue ones (RM3.70 a plate), the raw salmon…

…and the unagi…

…and the red plates (RM2.80 a plate), this one wrapped in seaweed…

…and this one in the tofu pouch…

…and we also had this…

…and this…

…and this…

…and one of the yellow plates (RM1.80 each)…

All in all, they were all right, none that got me all excited – honestly, I do think the ones we make  at home are nicer but my girl enjoyed herself very much. This would be a very convenient stop for her when she comes back from her school in the jungle on Fridays for the weekend as if I am not wrong, they are not so busy at those odd hours, around 2-3.00 p.m. in the afternoon.

We also ordered à la carte from their menu…

…their chawanmushi (RM3.80)…

…which was nice and so was their salmon mentaiyaki (RM15.45)…

…but the chicken teriyaki (RM10.00)…

…did not really impress – it was nice but the thought of easily cooking our own at home, and probably do a much better job of it, kept running through my head.

Everyone I asked on Facebook said the soft shell crabs were good so I ordered the spider tempura (RM15.80)…

…but no, the crustacean was bland, quite tasteless and the batter too. The only think I liked in the basket was the pumpkin simply because the vegetable in itself is sweet so that saved the day.

All in all, inclusive of our drinks, the total came up to RM77.50 but with the 10% service tax, it was RM85.00 altogether.

SUSHI MENTAI, Sibu (2.303279, 111.843161) is located at Wisma Sri Minyak, Lot 3065, S/L4, No. 23&25, Ground Floor, Pedada Lane 7 (Now Jalan Dr. Wong Soon Kai).