Services: 4/10
We had visited Sousaku once at the very early starting up of this tiny sushi bar. At the time, we felt that the place was not so ready and were not in place just yet, hence, we decided not to criticise. Our return to Sousaku this time, we did notice both improvement and what to be improved.
Sousaku is located in Soi Ari 2, which is always busy. Thus, we recommend to skip driving. As the place is really small with just a block of commercial building (probably 30 max customers at a time), the place only services Omakase set during lunch time which costs around THB1,500 per person.
Sushi style of Sousaku can be different from other places. Each piece of sushi is rather small but just the right size for a bite. Sushi is served with marinated sauce just like the way many great sushi bars in Japan do, so no need for soy sauce dipping. Nevertheless, this time we once again noticed that the rice was overcooked giving too soft texture. Additionally, rice tasted rather sweet and lack sourness of vinegar. This is sure the area of improvement of Sousaku.
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| Sousaku Sushi @ Soi Ari 2, Bangkok |
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| friendly atmosphere and sushi bar |
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| chef chopping radish |
The first two bites were
Tai with Yama-wasabi (6/10), and
Tsubugai (7/10). Tai was much more tender than I had expected, despite lacking the unique flavour of white fish it should have had. Yama-wasabi, however, help bringing out more flavour to the fish (yama-wasabi is a local Hokkaido wasabi with paler colour but stronger taste). Tsubugai was really good. Firm texture and sweet flavour. Like it a lot.
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| Tai (sea bream) with Yama-wasabi |
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| Tsubugai (whelk) |
Marukoban (6/10) has been one of my favourite sushi due to its fatty and tender texture, yet natural sweetness. However, this piece let me down a bit as the sweetness character was not as expected.
Negi-akami, Ikura, and Quail Gunkan (6/10) was next. The combination was a good idea: sweetness from ikura, fattiness from quail, and texture of akami. This time it took the chef rather long to prepare this dish which made the seaweed soaked. Also, if there were more ikura, it would give better dimension of taste.
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| Marukoban (pomfret) |
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| Negi-akami, ikura, and quail gunkan |
Toros were the best of the meal.
Chu-toro (7/10) was great with minimum fat to offer more texture and sweetness. While
O-toro (8/10) just melted in the mouth with balance of flavour. Good thing was the thickness of fillet that was just right. The let down was the hint of sourness in the background.
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| Chu-toro |
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| O-toro |
After all fatty pieces, we were served with less fatty kind of sashimi:
Salmon Sashimi (6/10). This was fresh and offered nice layers of fat. But the cold touch on the fillet perhaps made the sweet flavour of salmon presented at minimum. Wish the fish was taken out of fridge for longer period before served.
Hotate (4/10) was my least favourite of the meal. It was large in size but it was plain in term of flavour. Texture was just soft and not firm at all.
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| Salmon Sashimi |
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| Hotate |
Engawa with Uni (5/10) was a good idea to combine creamy texture of uni with chewy texture of engawa. This was just enjoyable. Uni was not so fresh but engawa was fabulous. The other piece of engawa was
Engawa Spiral (5/10). This piece also gave similar satisfaction to us. The main idea of this bite was to have rice mixed with quail yolk to bring out savoury taste and fattier mouth feel. But we didn't find it a really good combination though, especially the ikura that sat on top of the spiral.
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| flame grilling engawa |
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| Engawa with Uni |
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| Engawa Spiral |
Mini Salmon Japanese Salad (4/10) was then served. Just a normal bowl of salad with light and sour dressing that combined the character of sesame. Salmon, kani, and zucchini went fine with each other. If the chef did not pour so much dressing into the bowl, it would have been ways better.
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| mini Salmon Japanese Salad |
Unagi (4/10) was one of sushi that I have never expected much in Thailand as they are always from commercial pack, not restaurant own recipe. The good point, however, was the fabulous smell when eel was grilled with torch.
The last of the meal was
Tamagoyaki (5/10). I could say that it was better than many places in Bangkok but still far away from the heavenly texture of custard-like as in Japan. Good thing is it was not too sweet and soft.
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| chef grilling unagi and tamago |
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| Unagi |
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| Tamagoyaki |
Despite being a good cool place for sushi, problem with management can be a disaster for Sousaku. Things here are really slow. For example, we booked at 1pm slot for omakase set and we did arrive right on time. Yet, it took the restaurant 15 minutes before we could be seated. Moreover, our meal lasted almost 2 hours due to only 3 chefs working at the counter which is not enough to service customers in the restaurant. So, good management is probably in an urgent need for this sushi bar.
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