Sushi Kotobuki - South Brisbane

After multiple recommendations from a close friend, I ventured to Sushi Kotobuki in South Brisbane last Friday, as a sort of reward for finishing the week.

Needless to say, I was very excited ☆*･゜ﾟ･*\(^O^)/*･゜ﾟ･*☆.

Initially we were skeptical with their offerings, but were both pleasantly surprised. Usually, prior to going to a restaurant for the first time, I have a practice of finding the menu online and perusing it to ascertain whether I like what they offer, in addition to affordability of the food. Normally for long established places it isnt that hard to find a menu, but I was unsuccessful in my quest. So for my dear readers, I have taken the liberty of taking a snap of the menu if any of you are interested:

Between the two of us, we ordered the following:

Lion King Roll

Salmon Sashimi ヽ( ★ω★)ノ

Spider Roll

Unagi and two Salmon Hand Rolls

Kotobuki Roll

There are several things that I usually rate a Sushi joint on; first and foremost is the freshness of the fish. Given the huge line of customers and constant turnaround of stock, the fish was definitely fresh, and yummy. The second thing I judge is the texture and flavour of rice. There is nothing worse when you're expecting to bite into vinegar-ed sushi rice, to be stuffed with a mouthful of bland plain rice. Thankfully, I have only experienced this a few times at different places. The rice at Kotobuki was cooked nicely, and flavoured nicely.

After Kakuson, this would be the second place in Brisbane that I have encountered sushi with melty cheese on it. The lion king roll here is arguably better in taste than Kakuson, however I would have really enjoyed it a lot more if they had something like raw salmon in the middle of the roll.

One particular thing I did like about Sushi Kotobuki was the value of its hand rolls. At $3.80 for a Salmon Hand Roll, it is a similar price to Wagaya, but it offers a significantly larger portion size. The Unagi was also nice, but for $5 for two pieces, it was not as good value.

There are two things that I do think need improvement. I had high expectations in terms of Kotobuki roll, particularly because the shop named the roll after itself.  I was quite disappointed with the starchy fried sushi that was served. Given the menu said it was "Tempura Sushi", I was actually expecting sushi with assorted Tempura inside of it. My companion was also quite surprised, and commented that it tasted a bit like fried potato (」゜ロ゜)」. Other than that, I do believe that Kotobuki could improve by offering a larger menu to choose from.

Overall, I found the experience to be quite pleasant, and the food was very nice, however the waiters could be a bit more attentive.

Price Range: $15-20 pp

Taste: 7.5/10. 

Value: 8/10

Service: 5/10

Environment: 6/10