Hi Sushi or “Hai” Sushi?

Hi Sushi is located on Carnarvon Street, behind the Plaza 88 and New West Skytrain Station. The interior walls are decorated with large dictionary-style explanations of what the word “Hi” means in English and what the phonetically-similar word “Hai” means in Japanese.

Aside from that, the interior is fairly clean and filled with a number of small tables as well as a wall-mounted tv showing various menu items.

The Gomae ($2.90) arrived pre-molded and free-standing with copious amounts of sesame-miso sauce on top of the chilled spinach.

The Salmon and Tuna Sashimi ($9.90) came with 4 pieces each. The sashimi was pretty good but the salmon, having a buttery softness to it, was better than the tuna.

I was a bit surprised at how large the Chicken Karaage ($5.90) was. The six large pieces of chicken came encased in a thin batter (kind of like tempura) but I found it difficult to bite through the pieces. I’m guessing that they used chicken breast meat as it became a bit stringy. Personally, I prefer when restaurants use thigh meat for karaage. Still, the meat wasn’t dry so it wasn’t too bad.

Often times, I order BC Rolls hoping for the filling to have salmon skin in it. Sometimes it’s more bbq salmon meat than skin. However, the BC Roll ($3.50) at Hi Sushi had plenty of salmon skin filling. And for 8 pieces, the price is pretty fair.

I also picked up a couple of nigiri pieces… the Unagi ($1.90), Negitoro ($1.90), and Chopped Scallop ($2.50). All three pieces were prepared well but I really liked the fatty tuna mixed with fresh scallions.

I grabbed a Chicken Yakisoba ($8.90) to go and didn’t realize until I got home that they had decorated my take-out container with hand-made drawings… that was a nice touch.

Overall, the food was pretty solid but I didn’t get any tea refills despite the place being not very busy during my visit. I might come back to try some of their specialty rolls like their Lady Gaga Roll or Angel Kiss Roll.

881 Carnarvon Street
New Westminster, BC