This one I have to write despite it reinforcing one of the reasons why I have stopped writing at HGW - becoming Singapore's official restaurant complain site as well as one-reviewer bullshit haven.

I don't consider Sanshigo as separate from all the rest of the "outlets" at Ebisboshi Shotengai (Illuma) so I don't see how it should be categorized as separate outlets by HGW. The concept is a Japanese food bazzar with different "shops" selling different Japanese food. Bottomline reads a Japanese Marche or Shokudo...

Apart from the nice decor every other aspect that defines a restaurant stumbles quiet terribly. Sanshigo serves sushi in this shop I ordered a Crispy salmon skin hand roll ($5) and Uni Gunkan Sushi ($12.80) for two miserable pieces. The one thing I realize about claims on where the ingredients are imported from ie Hokkaido, Sapporo etc. is that the simple truth is the human factor fails to match the quality of the ingredients resulting in Singapore quality ingredients in the every end product.

Crispy salmon skin hand roll misses the mark by miles - salmon skin is not crispy, seaweed is so soggy making the whole roll chewy - it is almost like the time I left my supermarket hand roll in the car over some afternoon sun for an hour... effect is the same except my under the sun supermarket hand roll is still miles ahead in taste... God damn it toast the bloody seaweed if you don't want to keep it air tight. The seaweed wraps around the sushi and the hand roll it is IMPORTANT to keep it crisp. I am going to take it a step further here and apologize for all the flak I gave our dear home grown chain sushi shops because I have found something so much worse.... I think I can appreciate heartland sushi better now.

Uni Sushi took a whole 30 minutes to come out... 2 pieces of sushi taking a whole 30 minutes - 15 minutes each in a not so crowded restaurant. I can hear the table beside trying to cancel dishes as well because it took so god damn long. The cooks were more interested in chatting and other cleaning up to close shop that do the orders. Similarly, we sat in front of the Okonomiyaki "counter" watching 3 cooks walk around and wiping bottles then finally decide to get to our lone order of okonomiyaki taking another full 30 minutes.

The only thing that is edible is the Shoyu Ramen - even that is rather salty/msg-ed but I do appreciate edible.....

Service is mainly local and Filipino. Very chaotic with a touch of nonchalance from the local staffs who can't speak English well but try to shout Japanese greeting in Bush style short forms / language creation. All the yelling of greeting is personally annoying especially if it is done incorrectly but staff don't seem to care as long as they shout out. ie Irashaimaseh beccomes iraseh or some greek blabber that I can't even catch.

Bottom line - very slow, very poor service, poor food, but nice decor. I hope this place goes because this is the kind of place that young Singaporeans will form their first conception of Japanese food/cuisine and it is a total disgrace (just see the young reviews at Tsubohachi @ Ebisboshi Shotengai (Iluma @ Bugis)....sigh