Long overdue review.
I really was disappointed because my Mom's side of the family are Asian immigrants to Brazil who had lived in South America for decades. I really thought this was going to be Brazilian style Sushi, but it wasn't. A lot of people don't know this, but Brazil has the 3rd largest population of Asians outside of Asia. 1st being the USA, 2nd being Canada, and 3rd being Brazil. Did you also know that Brazil has more Japanese residents than the United States? So, I was very excited that a place like this opened up.
I am a big fan of "fusion sushi". I love new and creative twists on the oldschool style maki, but Sushisamba just doesn't do it as well as other sushi restaurants. Sushi is really really popular in Brazil. And unlike Americans, the Brazilian sushi houses tend to be very traditional. That means that they don't really like California rolls or other types of fusion sushi that is popular in America. But, the menu here is more similar to Ichiro Mashita's American style sushi.
Sushisamba prides themselves on having "fresh fish", that is of higher quality than smaller sushi restaurants and that is their justification for charging higher prices. But, even places like Sushi Bomb(North West), Sushi on Rainbow(Koreatown), Sushi Twister(Boulder Highway) and even the overrated Goyemon(Southwest) have fresh fish flown in everyday, and some of these places even keep the fish alive in tanks until the day of serving. And they only charge a fraction of what this place does. You know, even the Edomaezushi style Kabuto restaurant's prices are lower than this place.
I guess I'm just really upset over the fact that they hyped this place up as a Brazilian-Japanese style restaurant and it wasn't any of that. It wasn't Brazilian cuisine and it really wasn't authentic Japanese cuisine. And, I just recently found out that the owner of this place is a guy named Matthew Johnson. That doesn't sound Brazilian or Japanese to me.
You know how a lot of full-blooded Japanese yelpers always complain about how they hate Sushi bars that are owned and operated by non-Japanese Asians and have Latino cooks? Yet, this place is owned by a White man from New York City and we don't find those same Japanese Yelpers complaining? Why is that? Someone explain that to me? Where is Alex S and Hootie B??