Singapore's Best Cheap Sushi? Ryoshi Sushi Ikeikemaru, Liang Court.

Today, our quest to find the ordinary (wo)man's Holy Grail of Sushi - that perfect balance between cost and quality - brings us to Ryoshi Sushi Ikeikemaru in the basement of Liang Court. Much has been said of how this sushi restaurant serves quality sushi at reasonable prices, so we pay a visit to see if it can unseat our current favorite Tomi Sushi.


There isn't much of a queue on a Sunday night, so we're seated pretty quickly. Ikeikemaru is a kaitenzushi restaurant, but interestingly they've also added an iPad ordering system. Glancing at the sparsely populated belt it's perhaps safe to assume that the chefs have decided to make most of their sushi to order instead of filling up the conveyor.


One advantage of this, of course, is that you get freshly made sushi that hasn't been sitting on the conveyor belt for ages. We had some salmon, aburi salmon, aji (jack mackerel), tuna, shima aji (white trevally), kinmedai (splendid alfonsino) and madai (red sea bream). We thought that the fish was mostly generously portioned and fresh, and we liked the relatively small size of the hand-formed rice ball.


On the down side, our orders arrived in a plate-by-plate trickle. It's not exactly fun for a hungry person to need to wait 5-10 minutes in between bites. Also, while the rice was nicely vinegar'ed, we thought that it wasn't quite packed enough and fell apart too easily especially when handled with chopsticks.


Prices are reasonable, but not quite cheap. Granted, you could stuff yourself silly on SGD1.80 inari (beancurd skin) sushi, but if you order off the "today's recommended fish" menu, expect to pay SGD5.80 or SGD6.80 per plate.


We ended up with a SGD62.85 bill for two people, which is okay, but you'd pay roughly the same price at Tomi Sushi and get a lot more food thrown in.


So overall we can't quite wholeheartedly recommend Ryoshi Sushi Ikeikemaru. While the sushi is above average, we don't like the long wait times and prices are a little on the high side for a conveyor belt sushi place. Still, if you're in the area and feel like eating some nice sushi at prices that won't break the bank, you probably won't be disappointed. Non halal.