Food Blog | Sushi Samba | St Regis Hotel | Palm Jumeirah Dubai

Up on the blog this week is one of the newer additions to the Dubai food scene - Sushi Samba @ St Regis! This is a Japanese-Peruvian fusion restaurant that has already welcomed the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Sheikh Hamdan.

Context: Featured on the blog will be their business lunch offering. This is what 3 business lunches look like at Sushi Samba.

Sushi Samba interior

Where It Is

It is located at St Regis Hotel Palm Jumeirah. There are two options for parking. You can either valet your car with St Regis or park your car at Nakheel Mall and walk over to St Regis to go to Sushi Samba.

Note: The lift to access sushi samba is on the right side (from the perspective of getting dropped off at the hotel lobby) of the hotel lobby. It is NOT the lift which accesses the hotel room - there’s a receptionist for the restaurant on the ground floor, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.

One important thing to note is that one of the prime reasons that it is nice to come here is the view. You get a fantastic view of The Palm Jumeirah from 51 levels up from the restaurant (it’s almost a 360-degree view).

Address: Sushi Samba - Level 51 - St. Regis - The Palm Jumeirah - Dubai

 

Operating Hours:

OPENING HOURS

Lunch
Monday – Friday: 12pm – 3pm
Saturday & Sunday: 1pm – 3pm

Vivo Business Lunch
Monday – Thursday: 12pm – 2pm

Dinner
Sunday – Wednesday: 6pm – 2am
Thursday – Saturday: 6pm – 3am

You can make a reservation at Sushi Samba by clicking on this link right over here.

What it Costs

Here’s the breakdown of our lunch:

3 Business Lunch - 417AED
1 Large Still Eira Water - 30AED
Municipality Fee (7%) - 31.29 AED
Total - AED478.29

So it’s around AED160 per head depending on what you drink for a business lunch here. What you get is miso soup, a choice of two starters (there’s a pretty big selection), and a choice of main.

I think this is one of those places where it is much better to share - or at least share the starters - because they are very sharable things that you just want little bites out of each one.

How it Tastes

If you want a very short summary of how it tastes, go for all the cooked things - they are fantastic. In terms of sushi and rolls, I feel like you can get better sushi/rolls elsewhere. So if you want to skip to the end and see the photos, that’s basically the important thing you need to know about this place.

Starting off with the miso soup, a nourishing miso soup - I would say they don’t really stinge on ingredients as this is a rich miso soup.

For the starters, we had the following:

Sea Bream Seviche (Green Chilli, Coriander, Cancha Corn, Panca Oil)
Chicken Taquitos (aji panca, garlic, charred pineapple salsa & avocado)
Prawn Gyoza (Tiger prawn, crab meat, chilli ponzu)
Asevichado Samba Roll (Tuna, salmon, yellowtail, avocado, cucumber, sweet potato, cancha corn, aji amarillo, leche de tigre)
Bahia Samba Roll (Tuna, shrimp tempura, jumbo crab, aji panca)
Angus Beef Tenderloin Antichucho

Appetizers

Of course, we had it in the middle and we took bites from each one of them.

For me, without a doubt, my favorite is the Angus Beef Tenderloin Antichucho. Super packed with flavor and extremely juicy. It’s really a super yummy appetizer and for me, the must-try appetizer at Sushi Samba. Just looking at it again in picture form makes me want to go back and have lunch again someday!

Pictured is the Angus beef tenderloin cooked to medium.

I think the sea bream ceviche is worth trying. There’s a lot of flavors going on in there - and I’m that type of person who will enjoy the cancha corn because it has a very unique, nutty texture. On first inspection, I was thinking it was Natto or something like that, but I like how they used cancha corn to really add some texture and that nutty flavor to the sea bream ceviche.

I think the chicken taquitos are one of those “can’t go wrong” things to order from their menu. A structurally solid taco with different flavors bursting through from the acidity to the garlic and avocado. This is probably the appetizer I would suggest for more picky eaters.

The prawn gyoza is interesting. You have a pretty luxurious filling of tiger prawn, crab meat, and chili ponzu and I would say that it is done pretty well. Has that slight burn on the exterior to give it a bit of a crunch and this is yet another appetizer that I think is done well at Sushi Samba!

Asevichado Samba Roll on the left, Bahia Samba Roll on the right

I want to get one thing straight about the sushi despite what I’ve said before. I’m not saying it’s bad. Far from it. All I’m saying is that I feel that other appetizers like the beef and the ceviche are better relative to the sushi that I tasted.

Asevichado Samba Roll

Perhaps one of the reasons is that I’m a fan of more authentic sushi places. The sushi here definitely gives the fusion kind of feel - because it is a lot of things mixed together in a sushi roll.

I think if you were to order a sushi roll, I personally liked the Bahia Samba Roll - this was more because I liked the shrimp tempura inside coupled with jumbo crab so there’s quite a lot going on in there (probably because I like my fried tempura). As I said, don’t let this put you off ordering sushi - it’s decent, just that I feel that you can get better sushi elsewhere.

For the mains, we had the following:

Black Cod (White miso, hajikami, shichimi, chimichurri/plain rice)
Australian Angus Tenderloin (Spicy soy, foie gras, chives, 100g, chimichurri/plain rice)
Samba Chirashi Sushi (Avocado, 3 kinds of fish, salmon roe, Japanese egg omelet, sea urchin)

I would say that yet again for the mains, I have the same general sentiments as from the appetizers. I feel like you can find much better chirashi dons elsewhere, whereas I think that their black cod and Angus Tenderloin hit it out of the park yet again.

I had more of the black cod. And it really is cooked to perfection. Has that crispy, almost glazed look of a dessert and it is really super delicious. Especially with the sauce (which has that hit of sweetness) coupled with the chimichurri rice. The one thing I would say about the dish is that the chimichurri rice doesn’t go too hard on the flavor - so this makes it very pleasant to eat together with the fish and the sauce altogether.

The other main that I have high praise for, as mentioned above, is the Angus beef tenderloin. Cooked perfectly and with this decadent layer of foie gras layered on top. This dish is super yummy and it’s paired with your choice of chimichurri rice or plain rice. It really is super yummy and if you asked me, I would say that this is probably my pick for favorite main of the 3 we had.

The chirashi sushi, yet again I need to make this clear, is decent, but it is one of those dishes that I can find a much better version of elsewhere. The uni portion is pretty small and I just think that the cooked mains tasted better overall.

Star Rating

8/10. I would say this is a solid 8/10. Perhaps could have been higher if the sushi was better and again, I have to reiterate, the BIG appeal is quite simply the view and it is marvelous from the restaurant! But generally, the food was great, service was great most of the time, and definitely worth a try for business lunch.