Amimoto

Cuisine: Japanese
Shop 13 Lido Arcade, 24 Orchid Avenue 
Surfers Paradise, QLD 4217


Food: 9/10
Service: 7/10 
Cost: Cheap Eat
Overall dining experience: 8/10

Situated inside Lido arcade, this place is a diamond in the rough. At first glance the place looks dingy and seems unimaginable that the food would be as great as how it's been raved. Just like a book, don't judge it by its cover. 

Simple garden chairs is available for outdoor seating and cold corn tea is self-served. Their open sushi bar allows you to peek at the chef working his magic and a tall bookshelf full of manga is free for your perusal. 

We were very excited to see that they had sea urchin on the menu. Our philosophy is: if a Japanese place has sea urchin, food must be decent (as they must have an adequate following of Japanese/foodies that can appreciate this delicacy)! Much to our dismay they did not have any as it was nearing end of the season. 

Upon arrival of our first dish, the waitress neatly placed our chopsticks, serviette and soy sauce before us. 

H Set ($18) - 10 sushi combination served with miso soup (2 pieces each of tuna, salmon, white fish, cuttlefish, and 1 piece each of egg and scallop)

Salmon literally melts in your mouth and mixes with the sushi rice perfectly.  
Scallop was so fresh as well as tuna and whitefish. Cuttlefish is not our favourite type of seafood so it is biased for us to say it was our least favourite. We especially liked that the tamago (egg) was cut in half making it easier for us to share and try everything. 

Main sashimi ($22) - Sashimi platter consisting of 3 slices of whitefish, tuna, 6 slices of salmon, 1 scallop, 3 rolls of whitefish and avocado, ...?

Avocado and white fish roll was interesting in that the fish took the place as the rice and cushioned the avocado into the centre. Really loved everything on this plate. Beautifully and simply presented with high quality ingredients.

Agedashi Tofu ($6.00)

1 piece of delicately fried tofu, the skin was drenched in flavour yet still maintained a slight crunch.

Pork Katsu Curry ($12) - Mild crumbed pork cutlet curry on top of rice served with salad

 This simple dish did not go wrong.

I Set ($15) - Sushi and seawood roll combination served with miso soup (4 pieces salmon sushi, 2 salmon seaweed rolls

We enjoyed the salmon so much we ordered this set specifically for it's all salmon treat. 

I enjoyed their miso soup slightly more than others as it contained more than the usual amount of seaweed and tofu.

Overall

Although the place is small it does not sacrifice service and cleanliness. It boasts authentic Japanese food that gives quality and quantity; great value for money. We highly recommend sushi and sashimi lovers to try this hidden gem in Gold Coast!