Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Creativejuice
WHEN that craving hits it simply cannot be ignored. Sushi is the only food that does that for me, and when I popped the first aptly named Happy Bite into my mouth that combination of cucumber, rice, mayo, soy sauce, wasabi, and tuna made me feel vaguely religious.
Happy Bites (R35 for three – salmon, tuna, caviar) are one of the current monthly specials at Fugu, which run until next Thursday. The entire menu will be changing on Monday so there’s no point in going into that in too much detail. Since this is mainly a sushi restaurant which also serves various Asian dishes and curries I’m guessing it’s safe to say it will be staying in that wheelhouse.
The best special, and great value for money is, also well-named, the Ultimate platter. It costs R165 for 40 pieces of sushi, and you can add a bottle of Klein Steenberg sauvignon blanc or Pierre Jourdan Tranquille for just R70 (normal price R115). This makes it an ideal sharing meal for two, or one great big pig out for one.
Count with me: the 40 pieces are eight crunchy calamari rolls (reloaded and topped with fried calamari, mayo and plum sauce), eight salmon California rolls, eight Firecracker rolls (tuna tempura with avo or cream cheese), four tuna bamboo rolls ( cucumber instead of nori), four Red Dragon rolls (like a rainbow roll with spicy powder), two pieces of tuna nigiri, and six small salmon fashion sandwiches. I’m really not going to get precious about their size; there is more than enough on the plate. The only thing I wasn’t crazy about was the Firecracker rolls as the tuna was overcooked and slightly greasy.
As a rough comparison, the Madiba platter on the regular menu is R175 for 40 pieces but makes extensive use of less expensive ingredients like vegetables and crab. The R184 Wembley platter has 20 pieces, mostly salmon.
Other sushi specials in January are the Happy Bites, the 16-piece Fire platter (R85), Crunch platter (14 pieces for R70), as well as eight-piece portions of the Firecracker and crunchy calamari rolls for R50 and R45 respectively. There are also five hot dishes on special, like salmon tepanyaki and chicken with cashew nuts ranging between R68 and R140.
When ordering the sushi specials, no changes to the specified items are allowed, and there is R5 charge for “doggy” bags. While no one likes a good sushi special as much as I do, the prices on the main menu are reasonable and there’s a wide variety of interesting items so I reckon I would go back to try them.
The bill came to R275 without a tip.