Ichiro Sushi Bar @ Isetan Eat Paradise, 1 Utama

June 18, 2013

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Never thought I would find a decent Japanese restaurant in 1 Utama but I did, so I am highly recommending Ichiro Sushi Bar to you all. This is one of the most enjoyable meal I have had recently and more importantly the food here does not cost a bomb. I always find shopping malls’ restaurants tend to be chain restaurants and I usually avoid them mainly because of their erratic food quality. Well, fast food and kopitiams excluded.

Ichiro Sushi Bar is located at Isetan’s Eat Paradise just diagonally behind the noisy Menya Musashi. The setting is true to its name, where a relaxed sushi bar occupies most of the restaurant’s space and a few tables are laid out at the side for group dining and better conversation. And like many newer Japanese restaurants, iPads are used as menus here – although not as impressive as Ishin‘s.

The iPad menu lets you order your food without bothering the staff and you can check the items’ statuses too while waiting, pretty cool.

For RM20, there’s nothing to complain about the Mini Salmon Sashimi Don. Thick slices of fresh and smooth salmon? Check. Well-cooked short grain Japanese rice? Check. Delicious? You bet. It’s amazing how two seemingly simple ingredients could taste so good together. I’d return to Ichiro again and again just for this dish alone.

Dragon Roll @ RM18 – Unagi, tamago, cucumber and cream cheese. We felt the roll could and should have larger pieces of unagi since it is the main topping. But overall it was still very good nonetheless and offered a burst of flavor in every bite.

If you are not a fan of the normal miso soup because of its saltiness, maybe you could try the Special Kaisen Soup @ RM12 instead. Prepared with white miso (shorter fermentation, using more rice than soybeans), this warmingly sweet soup is clearer than the usual and brims with seafood such as scallop, prawn and chunks of salmon meat.

Besides the a la carte menu there is also a number of affordable set meals. One of them is the Hana Set @ RM30 that includes a small platter of sashimi, any sushi roll from the menu (we chose the Prawn and Avocado Roll), miso soup and chawanmushi. Everything that came was great and we were pleasantly surprised to find that the chawanmushi was loaded with various seafood too.

There was a promotion when we went there so we received free miso soup and chawanmushi for the Dragon Roll we ordered. Do note that the free chawanmushi is plain without any seafood, so you could expect the flavor to be inferior compared to the one served in the set meal. I am pretty sure the promotion is still on-going since we were only there about a week ago. But please, do not take my word for it and check it out yourself.