Sushi Sold by the Piece at "Hikari Sushi Takeaways" in Queenstown, New Zealand

In Queenstown, sushi seems to be served in one of two ways—“takeaway” style, or semi-fine dining style. The town simply isn’t big enough or formal enough to have the caliber of establishments that a city like Auckland would introduce. (In my short time in Auckland, I had glimpsed casual shops with signs that heralded sushi for as low as NZ $.69 per piece, but I chose to pursue the upscale sushi for upscale sushi’s sake, leaving the casual places for the smaller towns to demonstrate.)

The hours in this town, too, are strange, especially for sushi haunts—some only open for dinner, some close in the afternoon—although I did find one casual place in the open-air Queenstown Mall that always seemed to be open during the day.

Enter the ever-casual “Hikari Sushi Takeaways,” a tiny sushi place strangely stuck between a Louis Vuitton store and a Bendon Lingerie shop. Upstairs, it’s an H.M.S. Britannia Restaurant & Bar, with an interior designed to make you feel like you’re aboard an old English galley ship. Outside the sushi shop, a sandwich board sign reads “D.I.Y. Sushi Box: Choose Your Sushi Selection and Take a Free Miso Soup.”

The clean tongs hang on the wall by the entrance; the used ones get tucked in a little bucket on the counter by the cash register. Choose from a variety of sushi…“Crumbed Prawn” nigiri or Crispy Katsu Chicken maki for NZ $1.80 a piece. There’s Inari for NZ $1.60, or Inari with Seaweed Salad tucked inside it for NZ $1.90. Signs promote the availability of brown rice and gluten-free soy sauce…just ask. In the background, K-Pop music plays.

Because of the cramped space, this place seats only four along a bar opposite the side with the sushi cases; the large kettle of free miso soup sits on one end of the bar near the exit, as if to say Help Yourself to some soup…on your way out.

On the door, the sign states their hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, but the sushi chef says it really depends on the number of customers as to how late they close. (This is a notable feature of most businesses in New Zealand that I’ve come across so far; some places even post signs that they are open “till late”—closing time really “all depends.”)

At 4 p.m. on a Tuesday, while all the other semi-fine dining Japanese restaurants are still closed, Hikari Sushi Takeaways has full trays of stock. Of course, this is a resort town with all kinds of food available midday—from Turkish kebabs to Chinese dumplings and Bambi Burgers made of Fiordland Deer, allowing tourists’ taste buds to be about as fickle as the weather here in Queenstown. But if you’re craving sushi around this time of day, Hikari Sushi Takeaways is there for you.

Hikari Sushi Takeaways

Queenstown Mall

22 Ballarat Street, Queenstown, New Zealand

Hikari Japanese Restaurant in Queenstown, New Zealand

Hikari Japanese Restaurant in Queenstown, NZ

Wakatipu Roll

Tempura Prawn and Avocado Hand Roll

Aburi Sake Toro Sushi

In the Heart of Queenstown

Named after the lake in South Island, the Wakatipu Roll is a refreshing one, with its cargo of salmon, cucumber and imitation crab, crown of avocado slices and creamy Japanese mayonnaise. 

For some strange reason, the sushi rolls at Hikari Japanese Restaurant (not to be confused with Hikari Sushi Takeaways) sometimes arrive in odd numbers of five and seven pieces, and it says so on the menu. There are four rolls that come in six pieces, and the rest are five- or seven-piece maki.

The direction in which a maki gets rolled is often determined by how much you’re going to stuff in its center; soft-shell crab rolls, because of their heft, are almost always rolled in such a way that it yields about five large pieces, six at most (in which case you get skinny slices with a whole lot of soft-shell crab pushing out). But I’ve never before seen so many sushi rolls on a menu listed as being seven-piece rolls, which I found oddly amusing. Sushi chefs, as I understand, are trained to cut the long rolls down the middle so they can split them in equal parts after combining two halves, which results in six or eight pieces. So it’s either just another foreign puzzle, or the chef here has an extremely sharp eye to be able to discern exactly where to cut.

Another strange detail of this restaurant is that there appeared to be an unused sushi bar; the patrons were all seated in the dining room at tables, and the chefs were in the kitchen. In one section of the glass cases on the bar sat some vegetables and a few seafood items, whereas the rest of the case was starkly empty.  

But despite its vagaries, the victuals here were pretty decent and fresh. I enjoyed a crunchy Tempura Prawn and Avocado Hand Roll, after specifying that I wanted Japanese mayonnaise and tobiko inside it. The Aburi Sake Toro nigiri, or “Flamed Salmon,” as it was written on their menu, came as a single buttery piece with a slice of lemon for NZ $5, and it was perfectly torched to a lustrous golden hue.

Hikari Japanese Restaurant

5 Beach Street, Queenstown, New Zealand
+64 3 442 7767

Of Venison and Crayfish at Minami Jujisei in Queenstown

Venison Tataki and Alfalfa Roll

New Zealand Crayfish

Crayfish Sushi Roll

A Heavenly Meal in Queenstown, New Zealand

In New Zealand, the term crayfish generally refers to a saltwater spiny lobster. In Queenstown, crayfish are also called Rock Lobsters. At a Japanese restaurant named Minami Juisei, they are Heaven on a plate.

Minami Jujisei is probably the finest in Japanese dining I experienced in Queenstown. Although it has a small sushi bar that seats only four, I was able to sit there and confer with the chef. The glass display case showed off beautiful selections of fish, including a container of “Tako Wasabi,” or octopus marinated in wasabi seasonings, which came from a purveyor, the chef conceded when I asked.

The menu, displayed outside, originally enticed me with an unusual item: a Venison Tataki and Alfalfa Roll, for NZ $18. I have always been a fan of extremely original and house-created sushi rolls and sauces, but a seared Venison roll with alfalfa sprouts in New Zealand definitely takes the cake.

I was even more pleased that Chef Koji added a housemade Japanese chili and lemon soy sauce on the side for my Venison roll, which arrived in front of me lightly seared, as tataki items are, with green onions sprinkled on top. Chunks of venison were rolled inside with the alfalfa, while thin slices of it sat on top. It was a beautiful roll, and it tasted a bit like seared beef, and wasn’t hard to chew or gamy. The alfalfa balanced out the flavors and textures just right.

On the menu, there’s another section that catches my eye: whole crayfish—your choice of sashimi, poached or grilled—at market price. Today’s market price? NZ $85. I decided to order the crayfish, but insisted I wanted it served with sushi rice, seaweed and Japanese mayonnaise. Chef Koji responded right away and began to construct a sushi roll for me from a whole poached crayfish. It was big as a lobster, shiny and bright red, and then it became white and pink chunks sticking out of a roll, with avocado, sushi rice and black seaweed laced with Japanese mayo. Then he bedaubed it with Japanese chili and lemon soy sauce, and did the honor of serving it to me personally, by stepping out from behind his station and walking around the bar to place it before me, this brilliant, incredible heap of steaming sea meat in a sushi roll. The crayfish chunks that didn’t fit into the roll were piled on the side and also touched with the sauces, to be simply savored in bites.

The taste of the crayfish was so good, I was nearly moved to tears, and I felt suddenly grateful for this moment in time, for this wonderful journey to this exotic paradise…this moment…this was the moment I had been searching for in all my travels. It’s this moment that makes it all worth it.

According to Chef Koji, the water is colder in South Island, which might explain why the meat tasted sweeter than I’d expected.

The Japanese mayonnaise and house-made sauce offered a refreshing change from the way a lot of the sushi joints in California would have seasoned something like this—drowning it in eel sauce and spicy mayonnaise, then blanketing the top in green onions and smelt fish eggs. It’s one of those generic, habitual treatments in places that don’t seem to recognize that meat itself has a taste, and it need not be coated with so many seasonings that its greatness is lessened. I felt jubilant to have completed my New Zealand sushi tour with this most outstanding of meals.

Minami Jujisei

45 Beach Street, Queenstown, New Zealand

+64 3 442 9854

Sushi, South American Style at SushiSamba in Las Vegas

The 1 Ounce Roll (with Kobe Beef, Farofa Dust, Edible Gold)

The 1 Ounce Roll Costs $40

The Amazonian (A Totally Vegetarian Treat)

The Yamato Combines Tuna with Foie Gras

Osetra Caviar Sits on Top of the Yamato

Back to SushiSamba, Las Vegas

Sushi.

At SushiSamba.

Is addicting.

Perhaps it’s because of my weak will, my pathological proclivity for consuming all that tastes, smells, and looks good, that drew me back to its only west coast location, strolling past the glitzy Shoppes at the Palazzo and toward the ornate entrance of this colorfully cultural dining establishment that blends Japanese, Brazilian and Peruvian cuisines.

It’s a feast for the senses in here, an oasis in the desert that offers a respite from the rush of Las Vegas Boulevard out there; it’s indulgent, delicious, and the service is impeccable…what more could I ask for?

Except there is always a surprise here at SushiSamba, some menu update or a chef’s special, such as the week-old inception of the “1 Ounce Roll,” an eight-piece creation that costs $40 but comes with an ounce of seared Kobe beef on atop a roll with avocado and red onions.

The little orbs speckled with real gold, you learn, are an imitation roe made of some jelly-like substance, but this is okay, because it is merely there to decorate the Kobe beef which, as its juicy rich flavor bursts in your mouth, you know is real. You learn of farofa dust, a finely ground version of that popular South American meat seasoning, which enhances this roll while offering a wild variant for the all-too-common tempura flakes, which has a similar look and color. There are charred green strands that make you inquire—Oh, well I would’ve never thought of toasting shiso!—and red tendrils of dried chili that contribute to this bizarre and boldly imaginative statement of a dish. And then, my favorite: pour on the truffle oil…and more of it, please! I ask for an extra saucer of more, more, more white truffle oil, for the ultimate gastronomic delight.

Later that evening, with an almost insatiable desire to rhapsodize about this restaurant, I returned to explore other wonders I had not yet tried on the menu—such as the very South American-sounding Amazonia. Cloaked in leafy dark green Swiss chard, this roll turns out to be a vegetarian one all the way, with two kinds of pickled radishes, Portobello mushrooms, avocado and cucumber. The “wasabi-onion soy” sauce is not overpowering; it’s salty-sweet, with a hint of wasabi flavor.

The gilded flakes of edible gold make their shiny appearance again in the Yamato, a $19 three-piece ensemble that pairs tuna with unctuous foie gras on sushi rice and shiso leaf. A cherry soy reduction sends you swooning as you bite into the sour-sweet notes (there’s just enough Osetra caviar on top of each piece, which provide a salty contrast).

My waiter noted (as I swooned) that even he didn’t like foie gras before trying this dish. And now I, too, am a believer.

Outside the entrance, the hustle and bustle from the adjacent casino and shops can be heard, as the masses feed their own addictions.

SushiSamba Strip

The Palazzo

3327 Las Vegas Blvd., Las Vegas

702-607-0700