Sushi Ren

Ren Sushi is my go to sushi place, if I can't be bothered to drive all the way to Sunnybank. It's located just a zip down the high way from my house. It's located in that weird strip between Bunnings and Big Gun butchers, right near the MacDonalds if you know where that is. Parking is okay but quite limited.

The beauty of this place is that everything on the train is $3.50, nothing better than fixed price sushi. You just go crazy trying new things!

This is their menu!

+_+

It looks like every sushi train in Australia really. Sit at the train or sit in a booth. At least on their train its kinda organised? VGirl was all over that Veggie Love.

VGirl says aw yiss

Noice

This VGirl's go to, a giant veggie tempura sushi roll. I actually have no idea what veggies are in here, carrot maybe? Whatever, she seemed happy. You'll notice that all the sushi here is jumbo sized, which is a bit difficult to finish in one bite. The sushi chefs perked up a bit and made quite a few of these for VGirl to eat once they saw that was all she ate.

Veggie tempura

I love that basic bitch combo of canned tuna, mayo and rice, but they spiced it up with a little sprinkle of furikake! This one can be a bit dry at times, not helpful when you're starving and wolfing down food. Despite my shit talking, I'll order this every time.

<3

This lump is chicken katsu with avocado topped with a spicy mayonnaise. Its pretty good despite how awful the presentation is.

Yas.

Here is their crispy chicken and avocado. Once again, a beast of a sushi piece! I envy how sushi places get picture perfect avocado every time, never a smudgy grey or stony bit in them! Just pure creamy green deliciousness.

#skills

This is their lobster roll. I literally have no memory of consuming this.

Wat.

This is their deep fried tuna and avocado roll, I order this all the time and I have no idea why. My soul cringes at the idea of deep fried and crumbed rice, but my mouth is like, yeah I'll have it.

This is another of their deep fried abominations, bulgogi beef on top of a strip of deep fried rice. It's messy but damn, worth a try.

!?!?

Crab claws. They come out super hot, full of dubious meat but still fun to eat!

Blurry

Sushi Ren
Atmosphere: 5, your standard sushi train.
Service: 5, nothing fancy.
Food: 6, nothing fancy, nothing flash. Its cheap sushi if you can't be bothered going all the way to Sushi Edo. The flavour combinations are a bit bizarre and the serving style would make a traditionalist blanch, but its not bad!

Sushi Edo - Sunnybank

I love Edo Sushi, cause its priced cheap, has a large selection and super high turn over rate. There is never a bad time for Edo Sushi, cause there are so many people there, the food is snapped up immediately. Parking is ample, just beware of Asian drivers. That's speaking as an Asian driver, everyone believes in right of way.

Here is the menu in picture form! Everything is $3.50 barring larger plates of sashimi and meals so you can easily work your way through the menu very quickly!

I've been here quite a few times with VGirl, N., and W., so I'm not really sure what I got each time I went. Mostly because I ate nearly the same thing every time. I got this torched salmon and mentaiko nigiri, the mentaiko added a lovely salty, creamy element to the salmon. I was surprised at how tasty this was, considering I love mentaiko spaghetti so much haha.

Well worth a try

I really like their tuna salad and avocado inside out roll. I prefer cucumber inside these usually but their avocado was perfect!

<3

I always get a serving of seaweed salad, I love that stuff. Crunchy little strips of sweet and sour wakame on a bed of mixed leaves, topped with a little sprinkling of sesame seeds.

Well worth trying

We did get a serving of salmon sashimi, the slices were a bit thin but they were evenly sliced, uniform in shape and size and melted on the tongue just as well as any other sashimi I've had.

Not bad!

Ahh chicken karaage, another staple favourite of mine. These were freshly fried and came with a little blob of kewpie mayo for dipping. I think they also have a spicy version but I'm happy enough with this one.

I prefer marinated ones

I got these deep fried school prawns! Tiny little things that you can eat shell, head and all! Always fried to a deep crispy crunch and give you a boost of calcium from the shell. These could've done with a dipping sauce and a squeeze of lemon but I know where to go now if I need some.

Maintain eye contact, establish dominance

I got these chicken teriyaki and avocado inside out rolls and a small tube of kewpie mayo squeezed on top as you can see. Hahaha, I always find that much mayo a bit of overkill, but it is ridiculously delicious stuff so I don't complain too much. The chicken was a little dry here and I remember thinking the teriyaki flavour could have been a bit stronger.

Yum~

This is the oddly named Mango Love roll, its just salmon wrapped around sushi rice and salmon roe. No mango whatsoever! Its a tasty blob of sushi that's for sure, the salty pops of the roe add some extra seasoning to the rice and salmon.

Salmon blob

I cannot for the life of me remember what this is.

Theres mayo and rice?

TEMPURA OCTOPUS. Holy crap this is delicious, little bite sized pieces of octopus that are just a little bit chewy and piping hot. Finish them off quick because they continue to cook and toughen as they cool down. The batter is really light and crispy on these!

<3!!!

I got this miso eggplant nigiri, just a strip of soft, melting, miso covered eggplant on top of rice. Ahh miso eggplant, I love you so much. I'm not really sure when I started liking eggplant but miso eggplant was definitely a big factor!

Eggplant is magic

I got a soft shell crab hand roll, this is one of the few bits of sushi that automatically comes with cucumber! It helps to offset the crunchy sweetness of the crab with its own cool crunch. $3.50 can you believe it! I always find hand roll seaweed to be super crispy, does anyone else get that vibe?

Yum!

We got some torched scallops on rice. No comment! I don't often have it this way.

Just briefly cooked

We got some edamame to share between us! This is a pretty large serve, served cool too! I find hot edamame so weird.

:)

We got this odd deep fried corn nigiri. I hated it, I found it to be a really weird taste that didn't go well with the rice.

?_?

I got deep fried camembert bites, these were unbelievably hot as cheese conducts heat excellently. Do not bite into these immediately, you will get mouth burns. This is such a deliciously, disgusting fat laden indulgence, you will find yourself condemning it while simultaneously reaching for another one.

Probably best for there to only be three pieces

I got pan fried gyoza as well, these had a nice crunchy bottom to them. The filling was nothing spectacular however.

Ehh

I also love salt and pepper calamari, I love many things haha. These were tender and had a decent coating of salt and pepper to spice things up. I always order this, they've never given me a bad batch!

More!

Sushi Edo
Food: 7, solid sushi train. A great place to try new things because its so cheap!
Service: 5, polite, efficient service. The ease of ordering with touch screens makes life easier too!
Food: 8, a great place to first get introduced to sushi! Cheap prices so you can go wild tasting new things!

The Sushi Train and Buffet

I feel like VGirl and I have been going out to eat a lot recently! This time we decided to go out for Japanese food and I remembered that there was a sushi train in Buranda that did a buffet for dinner for about $20. VGirl agreed to go as long as I paid, which I always do being the big sister, and so we were off! Parking is easy at that time of night, just street park or park across the road at the Buranda shopping centre.

It's a simple place, just rock up and pick anything off their menu or train and its included on the buffet pricing. Just pay extra for drinks and set meals like their karaage dons.

The first thing I grabbed was the crab claws. These were a bit cold but they had a great crunch and a sweet interior that tasted vaguely of crab. It thought they were awesomely, terribly delicious in the way that fake food can be, like chicken nuggets and that kind of food.

The craw.

VGirl didn't have many options but she honed in on the avocado rolls as soon as she saw them. I think she had two or three of them. She likes their simplicity.

She's quick when shes hungry

I got the tuna and avocado roll and it was probably the best thing of the night for me. The tuna was moist, well seasoned and holds up quite well considering the length of time it would have been sitting there.

Ye old faithful

I got this soggy tempura prawn roll with avocado and tobiko roe on the outside. It had been sitting there for a while since it was getting a bit on the warm side but it wasn't anything too bad I guess.

Meh

We got a complimentary miso soup as part of our buffet. It had wakame and soft tofu pieces in it. I don't think I finished mine but VGirl drank all of hers.

Miso soup

Kakiage roll! Aka vegetable fritter roll, VGirl pounced on this once we finished puzzling over whether or not this was vegetarian at all. She ate about three of these in total and said it was pretty good.

Aw yiss

This was a particularly thickly riced piece of salmon nigiri. The salmon was quite thinly sliced and I found it to be nothing spectacular.

Its not the prettiest piece of salmon either

I got scorching hot takoyaki ordered, it was absolutely drowned in Japanese mayonnaise! I quite liked this, I suspected it was a frozen takoyaki but it was a good brand as the octopus pieces were still quite tender in the middle.

Classic Aussie sushi train appearance

This was their spicy chicken and avocado roll. The spicy part was literally the drizzle of sriracha sauce on the top of the roll. I don't even think it was the top of the line Cock sauce Sriraicha either but some random knock off brand due to its profound fruity and sweet flavours to the sauce.

Bruh

We got edamame ordered as well and it came out oddly warm.

What did they do to you?

This is their chicken and egg roll, a large piece of chicken, avocado and a very, very thin piece of tamago. I know tamago is a slightly sweetened egg omelet, but this was ridiculously sweet, like I fried off cake batter and ate it. The tamago here has a very odd appearance, rather than the thick, spongey block it usually comes in, this looks like a super thin fried egg.

What

Tamago nigiri, even VGirl with her inability to taste major flavours looked at me questioningly at the sweetness of this dish.

Blergh

You don't need to know where this place is. Seriously.

Wara Sushi

I went to Wara Sushi when they opened up at the new Woolies shopping centre in Meadowbrook. It was super popular with their special of everything being $3.50 on the first week of sales so I decided to join in. Even now, its super popular what with being so close to the Logan Hospital/Tafe/Griffith University and all. It's the sushi train called Wara Sushi, just find a super easy car park and saunter in.

I couldn't get any photos of the interior due to the sheer amount of people but there are lots of little booths to sit in a group with as well as the usual seating along the sushi train conveyor belt. You can grab whatever you want off the sushi train OR order via the iPads scattered everywhere. I didn't grab a photo of their menu as I thought since they had iPad ordering systems, they would have an online menu. I was obviously wrong.

I always get pretty full at sushi trains and usually stop after 3-4 plates, plus I always tend to get the same thing haha. Useless as a food blogger! One of my favourite things to order is always the deep fried soft shell crab roll, this one was covered in a thin layer of avocado and blobs of Japanese mayonnaise. It wasn't anything fancy but it was a good combination of flavours.

The next thing I grabbed was the chicken katsu and avocado roll with lots of Japanese mayonnaise, cereal flakes and tonkatsu sauce for decoration. The chicken was moist with a golden brown crumb and super cream avocado. Once again, nothing spectacular but simple and well tried combination of flavours. My only complaint was there was no graceful or humanly way you could fit an entire slice of this sushi into your mouth with one bite.

Also the size of a small childs fist

Oh delicious salmon and avocado inside out roll, I have nothing bad to say about you! Creamy, perfectly ripe avocado and fresh, melting salmon, what isn't there to love!

Aw yiss

I also got the classic chicken teriyaki roll, I was amused by the random selection of meats used, an assortment of different slices of breast and thigh pieces but it was pretty tasty, not too dry at all!

Wara Sushi:
Atmosphere: 7, a clean, large and nearly always bustling supermarket sushi train!
Service: 8, impeccable Japanese service as always. 
Food: 7, nothing beyond your standard fare but you can guarantee everything is always freshly made! The turnover is incredible considering its so close to the Logan Hospital/Tafe/Griffith University and train line!