I like sushi. The best sushi I’ve ever had was in Japan, at a fish market in Tokyo. Two of my Japanese friends took me there, and even though I don’t usually prefer to eat raw fish, that one was perfect. We even had puffer fish which is poisonous if it is prepared incorrectly. We were at a professional restaurant though, and we didn’t have any problems.
I’ve had lots of nice sushi here in Guangzhou. One time, I even went to a sushi restaurant that had hamburger sushi. I wish I remembered the name of that restaurant, but it was far from my house, so I probably won’t go back. But the rice with beef and cheese was quite good.
A few months ago, Kendra and I were at the mall looking for something to eat, and we decided sushi sounded good. We passed a sushi restaurant, but it had a wait of at least several hours. We walked a little further and saw another sushi restaurant that also had a line to be seated. We were hungry, so we gave up on sushi and ate pizza.
The next time, Kendra was at the mall early, so we decided to try the first restaurant, called Sushiro, again since it had so many people in line. She was there at around 5 p.m., but there was already a line. Since I was still on my way, she waited to get the ticket. The waiter advised her to wait because if I wasn’t there when the number was called, we would have a problem. So Kendra waited, and by the time Kendra knew when I would arrive and got the ticket, there was a wait of several hundred people. Yikes! We waited for a while, but it was still quite a long wait.
While we were waiting, two of my students said hello. That’s when I realized how popular this restaurant really was. The students had made reservations, so they were able to get seats earlier. They recommended the food very highly, but Kendra and I decided to give up. The other sushi restaurant a little further on still had seats, so we went there instead.
The third time we were finally successful. We went to the park for the afternoon and then took a bus to the mall. It was around 5 p.m. again, but this time there was no line, and we were able to get a table immediately!
Sushiro is a chain, and there are several restaurants around Guangzhou, and the food was amazing. Kendra and I have similar sushi tastes (neither of us prefer raw sushi), so we had fun trying different ones that looked cooked. Many sushi restaurants in Guangzhou have the sushi run on a track past the tables and you can take as many plates of sushi as you want. Different colors of plates are different prices, and at the end of the meal, the waiter will count up the plates and calculate the cost.
We also got some wasabi to put in our soy sauce and Kendra grabbed a couple packets of ginger to use as a palate cleanser. The only other time I remember having ginger with my sushi was the time at the fancy fish market restaurant in Japan. I really liked it here at Suhiro also.
Kendra and I grabbed a few plates of sushi from the passing plates, but we also ordered some from the menu. After we’d had a few plates of sushi, I found the tempura in the menu, so we ordered a plate of that. The tempura (which is fried food) was one of my highlights. This plate had shrimp, mushrooms, and a slice of the small pumpkins. It was really good, and I probably would have ordered another, but we were pretty full by this point.
I was a little afraid of how much all this would cost, but by the time we had everything added up, Kendra and I only spent about 50 kuai apiece (around $7 or $8). But, remember that we didn’t order a lot of the raw fish sushi, so most of our plates were the cheap ones. I was talking about it with a couple friends, and they said that since they weren’t paying attention to the color of the plates, they ended up spending around 100-200 kuai per person. So it really depends on what you get.
I posted about the adventure later on my Chinese social media account and many of my students commented about how much they like Sushiro. That’s why the line had several hundred people in it before 6 p.m. the second time.
I wholeheartedly recommend Sushiro, but I also recommend getting there early or making a reservation.
How to make a reservation for Sushiro (寿司郎, shousi lang):
1. Open WeChat
2. Go to the mini-program section and search for Sushiro (or 寿司郎, shousi lang). It should be the first one that pops up.
3. Agree to several things and allow the program to access your location.
4. The tab to make a reservation is the second one from the left called 用餐预约 (yong can yuyue).
5. Choose the location that you want and then choose the button that says 预约取号 (yuyue qu hao)
6. Choose the number of people the date, and the time. (Depending on the day, you will need to reserve the table at least a week in advance, otherwise the reservation slots fill up—especially for the weekends and dinner time.)
7. Go to the restaurant before your reservation time and show them your reservation number. They will put you at the front of the line if there is one so you will get the next available table. Since there are often quite a few tables, this goes fairly quickly.
There are a limited number of reservations available, but if you go early enough, you may still be able to get in without problems (like what happened with Kendra and me).
Hope you enjoy the sushi!