Sushi Taro

You get excited when a new place opens up in your hood, especially if its sushi. I've been eagerly awaiting the opening of this place every since I saw the construction for it begin below my massage haunt and I saw that it finally opened!

Its a very small place and I actually never had time to take a photo of the inside. Since there were so many people around eating. Its a very oddly shaped sushi train layout/bar. It looks like the stylised F shape you get on a violin, I guess its designed to take up the maximum space possible since its such a narrow space.

There's a counter at the front where you stand until seated, there are loyalty cards there too, a little tipping jar and a waving cat. The sushi chefs had a kitchen in the back that you couldn't see which was odd, they didn't stand in the centre probably because there was none. Directly opposite it, are two brightly lit drink cabinets where you can help yourself to whatever. 

Beer and serving cards!

We picked up a Kirks brewed ginger beer and my Boyfriend grabbed an Appletiser, which I didn't take a photo of. The ginger beer was really good, with a sharp gingery zing and excellent bubbles, but not so much you choked. I don't like the Appletiser drinks, they taste like carbonated apple juice or something. You can also see some little cards on the right, all the menu items can be ordered on here, just put down the menu number and a quantity as well as any specific requests as well. Hand it over to your waitress and boom, easy service.

Sushi!

More sushi!

Here is the rather large menu of food you can get here. Since this is a sushi train, I can only hazard a guess to what these items could be, since I picked most of them off the train.

Its like a colourful bird of paradise or something

Crumbed chicken maki. The crumb wasn't very crunchy and quite plain, there was a blob of avocado encased in there and some shredded carrot, daikon and cucumber that did nothing for the roll.

Deliciously messy

Eel hand roll. This was really tasty, messy, but tasty. The eel was a lovely melting texture and the sweet sauce was perfect. This is one the few places that actually have hand rolls on their sushi train going around in circles constantly. Most places in Brisbane have hand rolls on their menus, but you normally have to order them as you want them. I always like the fillings of hand rolls and their appearance but I really dislike the nori sheets used for them since they tend to be a poorer quality and quite dry?

What is that red thing?

Spicy chicken maki. This was not that spicy at all, in fact the only thing different about this roll to the crumbed chicken is that there no avocado, and it is instead covered with a dry chilli powder? Some mayo is there and these red threads, I'm not sure what they are but they don't taste like anything. I asked JGirl and Shishi about it, JGirl's mum says they could be sliced beetroot or dyed red ginger, for appearance only. There is also some lettuce in there.

Two lonely ships in the night

Seaweed salad ships! A good seaweed salad, the seaweed was crunchy, it wasn't overly salty, sweet or dripping wet. It was a well balanced dressing and in addition to that, there was a lot of salad present.

Cloudy miso!

Miso soup! I thought it was quite tasty, super hot and literally just miso soup, tofu and green onions. We got it free cause we picked the membership card when we got to the front to pay! So when the waitress saw us pick up the card, she instantly deducted the price of the miso soup and told us it was free! Hahaha, its part of their membership deal, get a stamp with every $10 spent, and a free miso soup every meal. Once you hit a ridiculous $300 aka 30 stamps, you get $20 off your next meal.

The Italian roll! It was an oddly tasty fusion roll consisting of smoked salmon, cream cheese, some type of lettuce, sun dried tomatoes and basil sauce, which tasted like pesto. It was odd, but it worked. Even my Boyfriend who thinks of cream cheese in sushi as an abomination liked it.

DUN DUN DUN!

Unfortunately the salmon wasn't pinboned properly and I got little shards of bone in my sushi! Le gasp.

Its very uneven looking.

Crumbed prawn nigiri with homemade tartare sauce. This was actually really good, and I normally don't order prawns at a sushi place. The tempura was light and crunchy and the texture of the prawns was still crisp and bursty. It was a very sweet and large prawn, with the tail still attached for convenience sake.

Gross.

 Fish tempura nigiri with mayo and a weird sweet sauce? It looks like honey and tasted quite sweet. The fish itself was very soft, I was a bit weirded out by it. I can't describe it. I love cooked fish, I love smoked fish and I love raw fish. The texture was gross and cloyingly sweet sauce was not a good match. I had another discussion with JGirl and we had no idea what it could be, but she suggested several different fish sauces. She suggested I ask the server next time, NEVER.

What I disliked was that all the nigiri pieces weren't secured with anything and the rice wasn't firmly compacted down. So when you went to pick a piece, the rice would scatter and the topping would lift off, so were left with a mess. I think it would've been good if they had tied a little strip of nori or omelet to keep the topping and rice together. Or even with a sneaky dab of mayo or something to keep it on.

Bleh.

Chicken karaage with spicy mayo. This came with a few different choices of sauce but this sounded the tastiest. The spicy mayo comes with the spice on the bottom, like a tablespoon of spice and then a blob of mayo. Its not really well incorporated and we didn't think to mix it. We dipped straight down the middle and then there was a slight hint of some mild burning, it wasn't to be fussed over.  The little paper pattie was cute but impractical, it stuck to the mayo and required two hands, one to hold onto the chicken, the other to the pattie to remove it.

The chicken karaage itself was terrible. It wasn't super crunchy, you couldn't taste anything, no soy sauce, no ginger, no garlic, no sake or mirin, nothing. It was just deep fried chicken and that was it. Not worth it.

Weird but tasty.

I'm not sure what this is, salmon, cucumber and fish roe maki? A dab of mayo too from the looks of it. It was really good! I like the pop of fish roe and this was no exception. I always love the crunch of cucumber in sushi as well, it provides good textural balance against the softness of fish. The fish was a bit on the cool side for some reason, like noticeably cooler but it wasn't bad.

Sushi Taro:
Atmosphere: 7, its clean and plain. No frills dining.
Service: 8, she gave free miso soup! They quietly accepted our order and stuck it onto our table when least intrusive, like ninjas.
Food: 6, hit and miss. Some things were good and some things were average at best. The presentation wasn't very consistent and quite messy which I found unusual.