If all you care about is great sashimi and great sushi, Sushi Qube is outstanding.
But if the dining experience and service are also important to you, then be very careful. The food is not supported by good customer infrastructure. The service should be improved.
See pictures below.
Introduction
Sushi Qube is, as of the time of writing, in its soft opening stage. However, we were not informed of this when we made the reservation, and we went there armed only with an article from Next Magazine and very high expectations.
The setting is a curious mix of Japan and Hong Kong. Qube adopts the spare wood decor that many native Japanese restaurants use. The simple placements are meant to focus your attention on the food and on the chefs. At the same time, dark or perhaps intimate lighting adds to the effect. But Qube also uses bright spotlights, which have the opposite effect of accentuating the harshness of the decor.
But no matter. The food.
Set Menu: $1200
We decided to order the same $1200 set menu that was featured in Next Magazine. We were slightly disappointed that the dessert was to be ice cream instead of Japanese Honeydew melon, though.
The first two courses were sashimi (fish) and sashimi (shellfish). They were amazing. Possibly the best sashimi I've had in Hong Kong, in all respects: freshness, temperature, texture, taste, and cut.
The rest was downhill from there.
You're supposed to serve pickles at the end with the rice. Our pickles came after the sashimi and before the sushi. The sushi itself was good, but they served the 4th dish, grilled fish, while we were eating the sushi. Not only were they hurrying us, but by the time we got to the fish (which was grilled very well), it had already become cold.
We called the waitress to tell her to go slow. Soon after, the tempura came when we were halfway through the grilled fish. Some manager came over to apologize for the speed, and would we like our miso soup now or later? Uh, too late ma'am, (1) the manager shouldn't have to ask about the miso soup, and (2) soft opening is too late to re-train your staff (more on service later).
The tempura was...crap. I'm sorry. Look at the pictures at the end of the review. Contrast the fatty tuna with the tempura, where the batter is so chunky it's like 2 shrimp stuck together. This is obviously not Inagiku. Also, the shrimp used in the tempura was NOT the shrimp used in the sashimi. One of our party also ordered tempura udon on the side. She regretted the choice. Don't make the same mistake.
Lastly, the miso soup was very good. Great temperature. Not too much miso.
But where was my rice? No rice and no noodles in the set menu, very weird.
Service
Simply put:
Paying Caprice level prices ($1200 per set) leads to an expectation that the service will also be of very high quality.
Even if it is the soft opening, after I pay the bill, you should not forget to give me back my credit card. I shouldn't have to ask you to go grab it from the machine.
I mentioned in the headline that this is low-class service. Let me put it this way. I would be very happy with the same level of service at a family restaurant or a typical HK Japanese restaurant in TST or CWB. You shouldn't make all these common mistakes:
(1) Keep pouring tea the entire meal without changing the cups. This means after the first refill, your tea is permanently warm, never hot.
(2) Only take away the used dishes when the next course arrives.
(3) Use a white plate with a faint red center for sushi, it looks like the fish is bleeding
(4) Bring the courses one after the other without breaks, it feels like you want me to leave asap.
Conclusion
Make no mistake: The sashimi is top class. I have tried sushi made by Sase in Sapporo (the same guy who was lured to HK this year to open his own ship), and it is comparable. Try the salmon roe at Qube; it is immensely fresh without any saltiness.
But the food is severely (but not fatally) undercut by the service. Granted, it is still during the soft opening and there is still some time to get rid of the bad habits. I sincerely hope Qube will train its staff better. It would be a shame to lose a sashimi itamae of this caliber.
Also, get a new tempura chef.
