Deadly Bunny & Chubby Penguin: Sushi Hana @ Bangkok Square, Rama 3 Road, Bangkok - ซูชิฮานะ @ บางกอกสแควร์ ถนนพระราม 3 กรุงเทพฯ

Cuisine: Japanese (sushi)

Map: Sushi Hana @ Bangkok Square, Rama 3 Road, Bangkok - ซูชิฮานะ @ บางกอกสแควร์ ถนนพระราม 3 กรุงเทพฯ

Price: THB700 per person without alcohol (what we paid for)

Visited: 22 February 2014

Food: 4/10

Atmosphere: 5/10

Value for money: 3/10

Services: 4/10
Scale: [ 1=poor ----- 5=average/standard ----- 10=outstanding/exceptional ]

At the time of writing, it was around the end of 1st quarter of 2014. Sushi Hana was recently launched in early February. By chance, it is located near where we live so we decided to give it a try immediately upon having heard of its presence (there was also 20% off for launching period). The community where it is sited is called "Bangkok Square" which is on Rama 3 Road. The place is not large which is probably capable of accommodating around 40 guests. The sushi counter is, however, rather spacious for its size, with around 12 seats. There are a number of sushi chef working at the counter.

Sushi Hana @ Bangkok Square, Rama 3 Road, Bangkok

sushi counter

the place is rather small

The place is of course specialise in sushi. What interesting was the wasabi thing. Here they give you a fresh wasabi to grate yourself instead of using packed wasabi like in many other places. Nevertheless, we could not find how it was more special. Anyway, we started out dinner with akami sashimi - ปลาทูน่าสด (4/10). Well, this was not that good quality tuna. It lacked off firm texture that should balanced with natural fattiness. At least, it was acceptable and not icy like not quite well defrosted. For tuna tartufo sauce salad - สลัดปลาทูน่าซอสเห็ดทัฟเฟอร์ (4/10), it was simply akami sashimi with the sauce that tasted like ponzu. Despite the sauce was called tartufo sauce, we could not tell the presence of any sort of mushroom at all.

complementary appetiser

freshly grated wasabi

akami sashimi - ปลาทูน่าสด (THB310)

tuna tartufo sauce salad - สลัดปลาทูน่าซอสเห็ดทัฟเฟอร์ (THB280)

Moving on to sushi, we ordered a la carte this time instead of set menu. Our selections for the night was: itoyori nigiri - ข้าวปั้นปลาอิโตโยริ (3/10), aji nigiri - ข้าวปั้นปลาทู (5/10), salmon toro aburi nigiri - ข้าวปั้นปลาแซลมอนช่วงท้องเผา (3/10), chutoro nigiri - ข้าวปั้นปลาทูน่าช่วงท้องมันน้อย (2/10), and negi tuna - ข้าวปั้นหน้าทูน่าสับ (3/10).

Honestly, I could not see great quality of ingredients from Sushi Hana. It was simply just ok. Chefs' skill was as well still far from being called highly regarded. For rice, the texture was not bad but still lacked of sour from vinegar. The overall impression of sushi here, I would say aji was simply better than the others. It was fresh and had the tenderness but some chewy texture. Just the natural sweetness that could not be found. Itoyori was a weird one for us, so we gave it a try. I do not prefer it that much. It was somewhat plain and flat. By the way, itoyori is threadfin bream.

The not so pleasant part was salmon toro aburi, chutoro, and negi tuna. The chutoro was surely not the chutoro. Where was the fattiness and melt in mouth kind of thing. I simply thought it was akami. Negi tuna, on the other hand, was not well flavoured and the seaweed was not at all crisp. For salmon, I never quite get the way some restaurant put mayonnaise on top of aburi sushi like salmon aburi. It is just overwhelming and break the balance of flavour.

Well, I don't think I would go back again to Sushi Hana. They need to be more professional on what they are doing perhaps: ingredients, technique, and etc. I am not saying it is bad but it is just ok to have for a meal that is simply just a meal. Confuse eh?