Go by Steffen Henssler – Sushi for braggers

Now I wanted to do something good for my family and ordered sushi from the highly acclaimed Steffen Henssler, who recently opened branches in the Rocco Forte Hotels in Düsseldorf, Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich.

First of all: Henssler’s Sushi has nothing to do with the authentic Japanese appetisers. He serves the Californian version with lots of sauces on top and spices inside.

We ordered a Go Box For Two – Chefs Choice (75 €) and a Sashimi Box (52 €). We paid in advance via Pay Pal.

The delivery was very punctual. The packaging is impressive. There were two gift boxes in black in a tastefully printed paper bag. The unboxing was as wonderful as unboxing a Chroma type 301 cnife or a new phone.

The lid was attached with magnets. Underneath, the sashimi or sushi, was revealed.
The box consists of 5 slices of Sashimi Tuna Tataki (left) – 5 slices of Sashimi Tuna (I can’t find it)- 5 slices of Sashimi Faroe Salmon Tataki (top centre) – 5 slices of Sashimi Loup de Mer (bottom centre) – 2 slices of Sashimi Salmon & Char Caviar (bottom right) – 5 slices of Sashimi Hamachi (top right). All information comes from the Go by Steffen Henssler website.

Sashimi for me is high quality fish well cut in a Japanese way. Tataki here does not mean “tartar” as in Japan, but the method of searing developed by the samurai Ryoma Sakamoto for bonito in Tosa.

The treatment makes the tuna taste so different that you no longer know whether it is tuna or beef. The salmon didn’t like the scarfing very much either. The sea bass was tough, the chilli couldn’t save it. The two slices of salmon sashimi and the hamachi were of high quality. It was irritating that the normal tuna sashimi was missing. We would have liked to judge the quality.

The description: 2x Special Sashimi, 2x Maki Rolls, 2x Nigiri's , 2x Special Rolls, 4pc Tempura Shrimp.
Now here were the tuna sashimi, which were not delivered in the other box. However, they probably belong here too as two different sashimis were promised. The tuna is in a sweet sauce, probably teriyaki. Even now, you can’t taste any of the tuna, only the very penetrating sauce. Too bad! The other sashimi was nice.
One maki was under a green sauce, which was awful, because here too you couldn’t taste the tuna too. The rice was overcooked. The other maki was under sawdust or something like that, which was easy to get off. Fortunately the chips were rather neutral in taste.
The “special rolls” were over-seasoned something or other. All the elegance of sushi was missing. It had something of a ” doner kebab with everything” taste. You couldn’t taste anything anymore, but it had a pleasant feeling in your mouth. I do understand why people like it.
The tempura prawns were gluey. Tempura don’t seem to be suitable for “to go”.

Then there were sauces and a very small portion of gari, in fact far too little of the good gari. The soy sauce was very salty. What to do with the other sauces was beyond us. We used them next days for rice dishes. Tobiko is great, Teriyaki is strange.
Devotees of real Japanese sushi have a hard time. We are used to Vietnamese/Chinese sushi because they sell sushi here. They also often offer a mix of Californian and Japanese sushi, often with poor product quality. At Henssler, we assume that the basic products are of good quality, which was also confirmed to us by his cooks. Slathering unnecessary sauces on top often damages the basic product. If you were a little more open, some things would taste better. If I expect tuna and then only taste a sweet sauce, I miss the point. I should have saved the €127 for my next trip to Japan! By the way, yesterday was World Tuna Day.