Sushi Hiroba @Holborn, London

Hello to my fellow readers! Firstly I have to apologise for not updating my food blog since like ages ago, reason is that my summer holidays ended and I am back in the UK for my final year studies. There’s a few times in which I did take pictures of food but I wasn’t confident about blogging those food because either the pictures weren’t good enough or I lack of information for them.

This time I am going to Sushi Hiroba near my place in Holborn area, and it is my very first time because the price of food there is considered slightly expensive compared to other Japanese restaurants. However, I have always heard of it’s good reputation from my friends so I have decided to give it a try.

As the name suggests, it is a fusion Japanese restaurant which serves different kinds of fusion sushi with a revolving sushi bar in the middle as shown in the picture below.
As there were many patrons, we have waited quite a while for tables and decided to take the sushi bar side instead of waiting even longer for a proper independent table. After taking our seats, we decided just to take whatever sushi which looked nice on the conveyor belt without even taking much of a glance at the menu. However, I still needed to check out the menu specifically for what I was eating so I would be able to blog it here.

Spicy Salmon Roll – £3.50
There were only 2 pieces of  Salmon roll in this, filled with salmon sashimi, avocado, tamago, tobiko on top as well as house mayonnaise and spicy sauce. It was either I was hungry or it was a very tasty salmon roll. Both the salmon sashimi and avocado were very fresh and the addition tobiko always adds that extra taste to any sushi. The sushi rice used was of above average.

Ebi (Prawn) Sushi with Cheese – £3.50
This tasted just average although I love cheese, the prawns used weren’t as fresh I hoped they were and definitely not worthed the price for just 2 pieces.

Unagi (Eel) Sushi – £3.50
Compared to the previous Ebi Sushi, this Unagi Sushi was so much better considering the price was the same. The unagi was sweet, having a soft texture to it and besides that, this unagi doesn’t have a bad smell like some places do.

Soft Shell Crab Roll – £3.00
As some of you might know, soft shell crab is one of my favourite dishes. This is a combination of crispy soft shell crab and squid ink tobiko, together with the house mayonnaise and sweet teriyaki sauce, this sushi roll taste quite fine.

Alaska – £4.00
This is certainly something I haven’t seen before, according to the menu this is a fried roll with salmon, crab stick, avocado and cheese, also house mayonnaise and teriyaki sauce. The condiments on top is called furikake, typically consists of a mixture of dried and ground fish, sesame seeds, chopped seaweed, sugar, salt, and MSG. Normally furikake is spinkled on white rice and eaten just like that, that is why in my opinion the fusion was too much of a combination, without being able to have a specific taste to it. I would say it tasted average as it wasn’t too bad either.

Spicy Holborn – £4.00
Named after the area the restaurant was situated in, Spicy Holborn is another one of the special fusion dishes like Alaska. There were crab stick, cucumber with chopped eel, mixed vegetable, house mayonnaise, teriyaki, spicy sauce, furikake and fish roe on top in Spicy Holborn. Again, this is like Alaska in which the mass amount of ingredients inside this sushi roll had mixed up the whole taste.

Tamago Sushi – £2.50
A lot of you might know one of the many ways to test the skills of a Japanese chef is the Tamago dish, that is why I have decided to try this particular sushi. The texture of the tamago was quite good however it was sweetened too much which covered the taste of the egg greatly.

Crunchy – £3.00
Thinking that some of the sushis on the conveyor belt might have been left for a long time, I have decided to order a handroll as it would be freshly made. Crunchy hand roll, mainly named after the crispy prawn tempura inside, it consisted of salmon sashimi, avocado and tobiko on top also. The handroll tasted quite nice but there was a particular thing that didn’t felt right in which the tempura prawn was hot while the other ingredients were cold.

Tempura Prawn Soba – £8.50
Worrying that we might not be full just from eating sushi, we ordered the above dish in a way I wanted to taste dishes other than their sushi as well. Though I am not a fan of soup noodles, the clear soup base was really tasteful. The fact that I took some time to take this picture, resulted in the non-crispy tempura prawns and slightly soggy soba. A common knowledge is that soba should be eaten as soon as it is immersed in the soup to get the best taste out of it, due to my fault I wouldn’t be able to comment on the soba. Taste wise, the tempura prawn was still tasty and goes well with the soup.

Green Tea Ice cream – £3.00
A bit disappointed with the green tea ice cream, the texture was quite rough and taste wise, there was too much dairy to my liking and there weren’t much green tea taste.

Overall, it was a satisfying meal although some of the dishes might just be average. I have ordered a hot and a cold green tea respectively for £1.50 each.

Total Bill including service charges = around £45 for 2 persons

Personally, I give the ratings for this restaurant as follows:-
Food – 8/10
Value – 7/10

Details of the restaurant:
Sushi Hiroba
50-54 Kingsway
Holborn
London
WC2B 6EP
Telephone: +44(0)20 7430 1888Opening hours:
Monday – Friday: 12pm-3pm, 6pm-11pm
Saturday: 6pm – 11pm
Sunday & Bank Holiday: 6pm – 10:30pm

More information could be found at their official website.
http://www.sushihiroba.co.uk/

On a last note, I would like to say that this restaurant is definitely not for people with budget. However, it is one of the few and cheaper Japanese restaurants in Holborn area, and if you want to have a quick grab of decent sushi, this should be the place to go as most of the sushi’s on the conveyor belt are considered quite fresh also.