A friend asked me about Japanese restaurants so I decided to extract the information I’ve written on my general restaurant page here to a separate page.
Kimdo: [Review updated in 2014] This is Derek’s favorite restaurant in SB. Seriously. He always wants to eat there, but it’s expensive and so we don’t go nearly as often as he’d like. But if you want Sushi / Japanese, it’s the best option in SB by far. The place is small so you typically need to make a reservation, especially at peak times. Unlike many of the other sushi restaurants in SB, their ginger always taste fresh, and they offer a high-quality soy sauce. Their rice is always perfectly seasoned, not too sweet and not too vinegar or salty. If you sit on the sushi side of the restaurant you can only order off the sushi and salads menu, but if you sit on the grill side you can order from the sushi menu and from the grill menu. Comments on some of their vegetarian dishes:
- Their avocado rolls are the best in Saarbruecken.
- I often order a tofu kimbab roll (tofu, spinach, egg, radish, avocado, and sesame seed). It’s tasty but huge, and the slices are hard to fit in your mouth! If you go to the sushi side you can only order sushi, but if you go to the grill side then you can order from the sushi menu and/or the grill menu.
- The bulgogi salad is good without the meat. The wasabi dressing is a bit sweet but nice and spicy and it comes with sunflower seeds and pepitas. If you order it vegetarian the price is the same but the portion is larger.
- The Namul korean salad is small but very tasty, with spinach, soy sprouts, and cucumbers.
- The edamame is good but salty.
- I found the grilled tofu a bit underseasoned and overpriced.
- The roasted green asparagus is very good, but I’ve only ordered it once, because I refuse to order asparagus out of season.
- The grilled Kräuterseitlinge (King oyster mushrooms) are amazing
- They used to have a braised daikon radish that was heavenly, but they took it off the menu and replaced it with a broccoli dish that I haven’t tried yet.
OiSHii. [Review written in 2010?] A Korean girl I met recently told me that this Japanese all-you-can-eat place is her favorite restaurant in Saarbruecken. Derek and I tried it for dinner one night. We had a reservation but we still had to wait about 10 minutes for a table to free up. Lunch is 13.50-15.50 and 21.50-23.50, plus any drinks. If you eat fish it’s pretty cheap but for a vegetarian it seemed pretty expensive. I started with the miso soup, which was fine. Sadly they didn’t offer any avocado rolls, but the cucumber rolls and pickled veggie rolls were fine. I liked the inari quite a bit. I think it was yuba in a sweet sauce on top of a ball of rice. They also offer tamago nigiri, which is a piece of omelette on top of the rice. They also have wakame salad and kimchi salad, neither of which I tried. I tried a number of the hot dishes. I didn’t care for the hot tofu with teriyaki sauce, nor the hakodate (sort of a japanese veggie burger). The grilled vegetables were salty and oily but very tasty. I don’t think I tried the fried veggie spring rolls. Derek really liked the tempura veggies, even though they didn’t use a traditional tempura batter. Other hot dishes I didn’t try: fried rice and fried soba noodles. Even though the food was generally pretty oily and salty I think I would go back. However, I’d go back for lunch. It’s almost half the price, the exact same veggie options are available, and I’d rather eat a big all-you-can eat meal in the middle of the day.
Osaka: [Review updated in 2013] This sushi place is on Dudweilerstr. near the Bahnhofstr. The first time I went I ordered an avocado roll (2.60 euros), an egg roll (2.70 euros), and the A11 tofu (3.50). The two rolls were both fine, but not quite as tasty as the ones at Kimdo. I didn’t care for the tofu–a bit greasy and bland. The rolls started to come undone towards the end. The ginger was quite fresh tasting, but the wasabi wasn’t very spicy. The service was acceptable. Certainly the food came out quickly. They also have cucumber rolls (2.50), radish rolls (2.50), egg tamago (3.00), miso soup (2.40), goma wakame salad (3.50), edamame (3.50), and a noodle soup that they could probably leave the shrimp off of. Derek isn’t a huge fan of Osaka, but he has had a food things he likes: the california roll, the unagi nigiri, the seaweed salad, the kürbis roll (just okay). He doesn’t like the salmon, tuna, scallop, unagi roll, or miso soup (which has meat). I went again in Dec 2013 and ordered an avocado roll (3 euros), which was bland, edamame (3.80), which was overcooked, the Goma Wakame seaweed salad (3.80), which I enjoyed. I was still hungry though so I also got a Kürbis maki (2.80), which was better than the avocado roll but not great. Overall I wasn’t that pleased. The soy sauce tasted cheap and the sushi rice didn’t have enough vinegar in it. The ginger tasted just slightly moldy. Derek ordered the Tokio roll, some fancy expensive salmon roll with kürbis and other stuff (12.50) and was happy with it. He said the quality of the fish wasn’t that good but they loaded it up with some fatty/salty sauce that made it quite tasty. He was less pleased with his Unagi maki.
Sushi Bar. This sushi place near the St. Johanner Markt is the cheapest of the sushi places in Saarbruecken. I only went once, but it was not at all good. Really low quality.
- I tried their avocado roll. It was okay, and for 3 euros made a reasonable small lunch. Derek tried their all you can eat sushi, and wasn’t impressed at all. He said they give you a huge amount of rice and not much fish, and all the sushi is really standard stuff. Plus, when he ordered “unagi” the teenage chef had no idea what he was talking about, and had to go ask the head chef.
- I went another time and ordered an udon noodle bowl and I don’t remember the details but do remember that it was not good.
Places I haven’t been yet: Hashimoto (in Nauwieserviertel) and take-out Hashimoto (near St. Johanner Markt)
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