Sakae Sushi...

I like Japanese food... but it took this to win Other Half over. And because of this, he was game to join in a one-hour drive for it. LOL!

Mochi... we have our own version called the tang yuan. I am no fan of it having been 'forced' to eat plenty of those after helping mom roll them when I was a young kid. Don't get me wrong, rolling them was fun. It's just the eating them that I didn't seem to relish. But according to Other Half and Son, the mochi in Sakae Sushi is actually quite smooth. Father and Son have the same liking where this is concerned.

Anyway, we've been there twice in a fortnight, the second time with friends. 8) One kid gets to eat for free if you have a credit card from HLB and order their bento set. This is the train set and it's definitely nicer than the bus bento that we had during the second visit.

The bus set... all of us found the noodle (udon??) mixed with some salad sauce and some fish roe rather tasteless. This set lacks the oomph of the first set.

The chicken and mushroom in teriyaki sauce with a few endamame sprinkled on top. It's okay enough. Sakae Sushi, despite it's Japanese sounding and cute frog mascot is actually a Singaporean franchise... but frankly speaking how many truly authentic Japanese restaurants does one expect to find in this part of Malaysia. It'd cost a bomb to get a real Japanese chef! First world coming to third world to cook!

There's a curry that comes with this. And it smells like real Indian curry to me. Scallop is nice enough. Fried chicken tastes just like fried chicken. Can't go very wrong unless you leave them frying in the oil for too long. Bento sets come with a bowl of steamed Japanese rice... but friend who has been to Japan said the rice she had there seemed nicer...

I think this is their Niko Niko Gozen set.... can't quite remember their names. I didn't realize that I had to cook my own duck meat in a slab of butter over the small little stove. The meat is tender enough even though I left it on the stove quite long. But still, duck meat is not something that I like where Japanese food is concerned. The tempura is quite ordinary though. Their bento sets come with potato salad with bits of vegetables in it. Makes it lighter on the stomach in a way.

My personal favourite is the Sakura Bento - came with cod, octopus, duck, tofu, chawanmushi or egg custard. I like their chawanmushi; smooth and soothing to taste. The tofu with the roe and salad sauce was quite nice too.

But their teppanyaki menu is not available. The menu has this plastered on it... 'Temporarily Not Available' but I wonder how long it's been unavailable or it's not meant to be available at this joint. Anyway, we've been to their Sakae Teppanyaki at Auto City. I think Sakae Sushi seems to offer a better fare in terms of taste compared to Sushi King...