Sushi Sushi, Garden City Perth

Sushi Sushi opened its very first WA store in Garden City shopping centre in Booragoon late last year.  Sushi Sushi has just below 50 stores in Australia and Singapore, and most of them are located in Eastern states (NSW & VIC).

Since the shop opened in Garden City I’ve seen many people dining-in and taking-away the sushi from there.  I think that the way they sell sushi is easier for customers to just grab and go.  They display whole sticks of sushi rolls with different fillings in the show case, and customers can just pick one (or more) and grab it – it’s just like you are ordering a hotdog.

They also sell other kinds of sushi, including nigiri (hand-molded sushi), gunkan (sushi rice wrapped in nori sheet, and topped with fillings) and inari (sushi rice in a pocket of sweetened fried bean-curd).

I tried tobikko roll (frying fish roe) the other day, and I thought it was ok – nothing special.  I think they are great takeaway food for local shoppers though.

I’m not a big fan of their website (http://www.sushisushi.com.au) – it looks bit messy and difficult to find out some information.  And, some of the information seems to be strange… for example, “nigiri sushi with egg omelet” is called TAMAGO, not TOMAGO (unless they know about it and misspelling it on purpose).  And, the menu on the website calls their roll sushi “futomaki” (太巻き).  I’m not sure if this menu is for the shops in Eastern states only, but the roll sushi sold in Garden City wasn’t futomaki (futo = oversized, wide, big, chubby…).  Futomaki is usually over 5cm in diametre and uses more than 1 piece of nori sheet (or special big nori sheet).  I thought their roll sushi was Chumaki (中巻き) size.

There are so many similar kind of take-away sushi shops across Perth now.  Few years ago, if you say sushi shop people would just think about Jaws Sushi or Taka’s Kitchen.  Now, there is at least one sushi takeaway shop in each major shopping centre across Perth.  The concept of having sushi in the casual style is the reason for being so popular?  I still miss sushi in Japan though.  I wish they have more interesting flavours of sushi here.

Oh, by the way, today (1/Feb ~ 3/Feb) is hatsubun in Japan.  Many people eat futomaki (ehoumaki) facing towards this year’s ehou (lucky direction) – 2011 it’s South-South-East.  This is to pray for happiness, health, business prosperity etc for this year, so you have to eat whole futomaki without talking.  Slicing the futomaki or talking while eating the futomaki is considered to lose the luck.