Etsu Sushi

This little shop with wood cladded facade is located at the corner of Tsing Fung Street, Tin Hau, right under a flyover. It may not have the best sushi in the town, but definitely one of the best in that local area. I am not sure about what the others wrote on the popular Hong Kong food website Openrice.com, but I must say that the food here in Etsu Sushi isn't bad at all. I guess some of them just don't know how to eat or appreciate good food.

Anyway, when you go into the sushi shop, the first thing you can see is a glass box with something moving inside, and they are...

Yes! If you order one of their crab dishes, the chef will grab some of these crabs from the glass box and fry them! But we didn't order anything like that, as we believe good sushi and noodle will be fine. The starter was some sweet lotus root slices...

And soon the sushi arrived. We got sushi of scallops (hotategai 帆立貝), salmon, sweet Botan shrimp (botan ebi 牡丹蝦) and the fatty bluefin tuna (toro 拖羅).

The shrimp ones were very good, and I seldom see such a big and meaty shrimp! The big head part was taken out and made as soup for us, so that you could get all the essence from the shrimp.

Then the skewers came. We got two, one is the ox tongue and another chicken cartilage. The first one was very well done with the amount of salt just right, or else the seasoning would overwhelm the taste of the whole thing. The chicken one was just so-so. Now, the main courses started. The first one was the clams boiled in sake soup.

Oh my god, it is not easy to find such big clams with so much meat inside! This was just awesome and the sake penetrated completely into the clams and you can taste the clams, the sake and also the sea water too! That means the clams were fresh not refrigerated. Nice! Next one was the hot pot with beef and vegetables. Not a very surprisingly good pot but it wasn't bad either.

The hot pot was part of a small set we ordered, which also included a dish of chicken slices made with Hokkaido milk sauce.

I thought it was very special as the name suggested, but it turned out to be just a creamy sauce chicken thing. Finally the set was completed with a bowl of cold udon served with tempura.

The noodle was only so-so, but the tempura was well done. It was not very oily and the shrimp and vegetable used were fresh stuff. I went to another Japanese restaurant some days ago and the udon was better and so I wouldn't give a high score for this one.

In general, the food was all above average, with the sushi and clams being the best. This meal was not cheap and one may get something in similar quality with a lower price. However, if you are looking for a quieter place, away from the busy city center, this is not a bad option. This place also serves quite a big collection of sake and Japanese wines, and if you like to eat with some alcohol, Etsu Sushi would be one of your options.