Sushi Passion has been open in the Great Western Arcade now about 8 months, after branching out a little from its original home in the BullRing Markets. Run by Polish chef Adam Glamacinski it’s widely regarded as the best Sushi in Birmingham, and after my first visit, and my second in quick succession, I probably agree.
Image from the Birmingham Post
We ate at the Sushi Bar both times, overlooking the chefs preparing the food, and there are also 4 tables, in the small but perfectly formed restaurant, with lovely traditionally Japanese touches in the decor.
The menu is extensive and well laid out although a little garish, but it gives relative beginners in sushi like my husband and I enough information to make informed choices about what we ate! There are several ‘sushi sets’ that you can order, that come intricately arranged on bridges and boats, but you can also order things individually which we did on both occasions.
Waitresses are dressed in traditional attire, and make you feel right at home.
We chose a couple of Nigiri – the Tuna and the Yellowtail. Both are sublime and I can’t remember having tasted anything quite so fresh and flavourful before.The glimmering purple tuna melts in the mouth and after claiming to Lee that I bet its so tender i could cut it with my chopstick – I go on and prove to do just this.
We also order the Beef Sashimi, which comes with a spicy coriander dressing as well as two Uramaki. These are sushi rolls where the rice is on the outside, and are probably my favorite type of sushi to eat.
We chose the Teriyaki Uramaki – salmon in a coil of rice, topped with slices of avocado, a sprinkling of crispy onion, Japanese mayonnaise & teriyaki sauce as well as the Tuna Samurai Uramaki. Each Uramaki was spilt into 8 pieces. Both of these were out of this world. The kind of food where you find yourself making lots of little appreciate noises and getting funny looks from others. Yep, that happened.
The second visit was only a flying one – we ordered the Spicy Salmon Uramaki, more tuna Nigiri and some Tuna Gunkan. The Gunkan were fantastic – the nicest thing we have had there yet.
We were marginally less keen on the beef form our first visit than all the other food we ordered; we found it chewy and a bit bland, but overall the experience was stunning and we’re already planning our next visit.
At £25/head for the first visit, its not the cheapest, but its still good value and WELL worth the money.
Disclosure: We paid in full for our meal on both occasions.
