Sakae Sushi at the Mall of Asia

Last month, I dragged the boyfriend to Dapitan to look at household things, vases, plates and other knick knacks. I promised I wouldn't take more than an hour, and I didn't. After browsing through the stalls there, the boyfriend said he was hungry. We drove around but couldn't decide on where to eat. I suggested the Mall of Asia since I wanted to go to S&R with him. When we reached MoA, we still couldn't decide on where to eat, since nothing seemed to appeal, and ended up at our usual spot, Sakae Sushi.


It used to be that the sushi buffet was only available from 2:30pm-5:30pm. Fortunately, they've expanded this to an All Day Sushi Buffet. The price now is Php399 for adults, and comes with Miso Soup and bottomless hot or cold tea. We were led to our table. Once you're seated, you can start taking plates of sushi from the conveyor belt.

Each of the colored plates has a corresponding price, but if you're going for the All Day Sushi Buffet, you don't need to worry about it.

Soy sauce, wasabi and pickled ginger are available on your table.

The sushi themselves are good for the price. Of course, do not expect gourmet fare since the nurse-looking women manning the kitchen are not sushi chefs. You get a wide array of sushi, and sometimes other kinds of Japanese "pampulutan" like fried salmon belly. My favorites are their inarizushi, and their salad sushis (different kinds of tuna salad sushi, crab salad sushi, etc..). They also have big tobiko (big orange fish egg) sushi. It's a good way to get your sushi variety fix at a reasonable price.

The thing is, to get maximum sushi variety, try to eat there near peak meal hours. Why? The kitchen doesn't replenish the sushis on the conveyor until most of them have been eaten. If there are too few customers, there is no turnover, and you're stuck choosing from the same choices that have been doing the rounds of the conveyor for the last hour. Peak hours = more customers = more variety. I've been to Sakae Sushi many times, and I think they have more than 30 different sushis available. Probably more. They usually have about 10 kinds of sushis on the conveyor at any given time.

Sakae Sushi also has an ala carte menu. Boyfriend ordered a Kirin and said it was good beer, clean-tasting.