Grill & Sizzle Fusion | Dickson
Audaciously calling itself 'Canberra's New Taste Sensation', Grill & Sizzle Fusion occupies a space on Dickson's Woolley Street that Jimmy's Place once held.
As you walk inside, the space is quite open but elements of the decor give off the feel of a nightclub, such as the black vinyl seats that are at some tables, and the sparkly gold ones at others (like ours... forgot to take a photo though!). There also seemed to be strobe/disco lights mounted on the walls.... maybe some late night karaoke goes down there too?
It seems that the fusion idea has been lost in translation somewhere - the menu is predominantly Japanese (with a healthy selection of grilled meats, tempura, sushi and sashimi, and udon noodles), with the only western dishes being 3 choices of pasta. Nevertheless, I'd read that the sashimi platters here were worth trying, and as long as they got that right I didn't really care how peculiar the menu was!
First up, we ordered the assorted tempura. Being one of the first customers of the night, we must have gotten the fresh oil because the batter was crispy, light, and without the taste of other things that had been in the fryer before it. There was a nice selection of prawns, sweet potato, pumpkin, shitake mushroom, and salmon to start us off. The tempura came with a big bowl of tentsuyu dipping sauce which was a perfect accompaniment.
Assorted tempura ($16.8)
The main event came out next, and it was presently beautifully on a big bed of ice. This was the 'large' sashimi platter (there are also 'medium' and 'deluxe' ones - I asked what the difference between the large and deluxe ones were in case we were going to miss out on something by ordering the large, but the waiter said that the only difference was the quantities) and it had a good spread of regular salmon, salmon toro (the fatty underbelly), tuna, kingfish, octopus, scallops dotted with some roe, natural oysters, and one other type of fish that I can't remember the name of. The fish was really fresh and kept nice and cold by the ice underneath. Our favourites were the salmon (both types) and the scallops - although the octopus was good for a different texture, and it was quite tender as well. The kingfish was a little disappointing as the slices were quite thin and textureless.
Large sashimi platter ($42.8)
Salmon avocado mango roll ($17.80, 6pc)
To round off the meal we also ordered a serving of the salmon avocado mango roll (for some carbs more than anything else!), which was cut into 6 generous pieces. Each piece contained some tomago egg, crab stick and cucumber, topped with a thin slice of salmon and either avocado or mango. The ones with the mango tasted quite summery, but i'm not sure that it went all that well with the rest of the ingredients.
It's great to find another Canberra restaurant with high quality sushi and sashimi. A couple of our other 'regular' sushi haunts have dropped off in quality lately, so I'd say we'll be back here for our fix! Grill & Sizzle also offers an all-you-can-eat selection of grilled meats and skewers which a few of the other tables were having (the food is grilled out the back and brought to the table), so will have to give that a go next time.
- Food: 8/10
- Service: 7/10
- Atmosphere: 5/10
- Overall: 7/10
http://www.grillsizzle.com.au/
