Have you been to Sushinho yet? If not, I wholeheartedly recommend that you give this Brazilian-Japanese restaurant on the King’s Road a try.

I’ve written about Sushinho in the past and have always been a big fan of their bar. The cocktails are divine and if you can’t find what you want on the menu, you’ll feel confident when you hear the barman say “I can do that” because they generally can.

Last night however, I popped in to try their new early evening set menu. Available from 5.30pm until 7pm and costing £18 per person, the servings are designed to cater for two people at a time. The deal is that you pick five dishes from the menu and a drink, which could be a Sushinho sakerinha (saki with passion fruit); a glass of red or white wine; or a bottle of Asahi super dry.

In anticipation of the evening, I presumed that the menu offered five small plates to share as a tasting experience for the real thing: Sushinho’s full menu. But I was wrong.

The five dishes which the bf and I chose included:

Rio house roll, which involved prawn, wasabi tobiko and strawberry. The red layer on top is strawberry jam but don’t expect anything overly sweet and do anticipate this roll to melt in your mouth with a myriad of delicate flavours.

At the moment I’m staying away from raw fish so my portion arrived without the wasabi tobiko, which the bf said added another layer of subtle flavouring. We were both bowled over by this dish.

Also on the plate was the asparagus tempura house roll, which included red pepper, avacado, shiso, chives and carrot puree. This was another great treat and not anything like I’d tasted before.

With three more dishes to go, I was already satisfied with the quality of the meal. But little did I know what else was to follow in terms of a great foodie experience.

To be precise, the dishes were confit pork salad with mango, melon and burnt orange dressing;

The Sushinho fried chicken with kimchee, pineapple and cashew nut;

And the pork belly with feijoada, kale and crackling. Feijoada is something like a black bean stew, which complimented the tender pork perfectly.

In fact, all the meat involved was tender. And whilst my stand out favourite was the chicken, I enjoyed the other dishes thoroughly too.

The fusion of Brazilian and Japanese also felt refreshing. I loved having the fruit in the pork salad and I loved how all the dishes felt guilt-free because there was so much goodness in the dishes, such as the kale.

For drinks the bf enjoyed beer and tried the Sushinho sakerinha for me, which he said he liked. But I get the feeling the next time we come here he’ll try a more masculine cocktail from Sushinho’s cocktail menu which always looks really good.

I, on the other, had to keep my cocktails virgin and I was not disappointed at all. My first was a lychee and lemon grass mocktail whilst the second one was a mixture of all things berries.

At the end of the meal, we were persuaded to try Sushinho’s signature dessert dish: the passion fruit crumble. And oh my goodness, I haven’t tasted a dessert so good in ages!

We were advised to just dig in. Don’t think about eating the dessert layer by layer. Instead get the full hit in one bite. The various layers of textures and yet more delicate flavours to savour was the perfect end to the evening.

Apparently this dish hasn’t changed in the four years Sushinho has been on the King’s Road and it really isn’t a wonder why it is so popular. The whole dessert is a complete surprise and I don’t think I want to ruin the fun for you, in case you try it.

The final note of the evening arrived on a plate with white chocolate, sorbet and a madeleine. And how the chef managed to produce sorbet encased in white chocolate left me very intrigued.

All in all, I can’t recommend Sushinho enough. And if you’d like to give them a try, simply out of curiosity, the early evening set menu is definitely the easiest way to do it. Enjoy!

www.sushinho.com

*The food and drinks were complimentary for the purpose of the review.*

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