Review : Isetan Supermarket KLCC

Established in 1998, Isetan KLCC is the flagship store for Isetan Malaysia. Photo Credit : timeoutkl.com

Isetan is a Japanese departmental store which set its foothold in Malaysia in the 1970s. In the 1990s it open its first dedicated store and along with it, a supermarket section with a section called 'Isetan Foodmarket' which offers ready to eat and takeaway Japanese (and recently Korean) meals. The KLCC store is packed during lunch hour as you can spot office workers purchasing their takeaway meals.

Isetan offers more traditional variety compared to other off the shelf takeaway sushi.

I purchased a pack of assorted sushi right after the store opened. Thankfully Isetan has a dining area in which customers who purchased their takeaway food from the foodmarket can dine in. The sushi is beautifully packaged and it gives a premium feel when viewed. The sushi is tightly packed next to each other giving it less chance to move around and maintain its neat arrangement during transport. The downside of this whole thing though is the sauce from the unagi has spilled over to the salmon nigiri.

From top left in clockwise motion : tuna, salmon, unagi, inari, steamed prawn and tamago 

The sushi offered here is pretty much a standard variety. There are other premium ingredients sushi offered like Ikura, salmon belly and hotate. However they are not sold individually making purchase for review a tricky matter. The gari offered is pretty decent and does its work, although the stock amount in the package is measly for even one bite.

The shoyu offered is just enough for the nigiri here, although the downside is there is no place in the container to contain the shoyu. I had to use the transparent container on the box to place the shoyu and use the gari to brush the shoyu on the fish. The wasabi provided is particularly strong hence there's no need to put too much wasabi on the sushi for the desired effect and hence that small pack provided is more than enough for this. Chopstick is not provided in the pack as I found out too late so I had to resort to the good old traditional way of eating sushi with my bare hands.

The riceball is constructed well. It is not to compact together but able to hold firm and yet somewhat able to break nicely in the mouth, although some effort is needed. I'm pleased to see that 100% short grain rice is used and the vinegar used is noticeable although a little more acidity would significantly elevate the flavor. The rice is not too sticky hence its worth while to try to shatter the rice when consuming to experience the flavor.

They still fall to the usual practice of giving more rice portion compared to the fish.

The fish is properly sliced with no rough edge found, although it still fall victim to the cheaper sushi practice of giving insanely high amount of rice compared to the fish. This practice is more economical and following customer demands who wants more quantity for what they pay and its an acceptable practice when it comes to takeaway sushi. The ingredient used specifically the salmon is of quality and while I found the salmon slice to be generous, the tuna slice is comparatively small, and hence I could barely notice the tuna flavor when consuming.

Despite its reputation for highly sought after fish, the tuna was disappointment of this set.

Speaking of which, the tuna nigiri appears to be the weak link in this set. The other sushi offers strong flavored ingredients which would still blend relatively nicely with the oversized rice portion. More lean flavored ingredients like the lean part of tuna (Maguro) will need more careful balanced rice portion in order to bring out the most flavor in the fish. The fact that the tuna used are the ones fished in the Indian Ocean (which is warmer and hence less fat content) means that it is not suitable for use in sushi or sashimi. Hence first timers who often hear about the ridiculously expensive tuna being auctioned in the Tsukiji Market will be confused about the hype surrounding this fish.

Isetan KLCC represents one of the better source of takeaway sushi around. Using its advantage of being both importer and retailer of japanese fish means it's able to provide more variety of traditional sushi outside of the usual salmon at good quality and affordable prices. The price range is slightly higher than other takeaway sushi but the ingredients offered and preparation is worth paying the slight extra for. I would recommend getting their sushi to offer to first timers to give them an introduction to what sushi is all about.