Royal Caribbean Cruise: Izumi

Izumi is a Japanese sushi restaurant we visited during our 10-day cruise on the Royal Caribbean Quantum of the Seas. It is a specialty restaurant, so it’s not included in your basic cruise fare, but since we had the unlimited dining package, we checked this place out for dinner.

Interior

Gotta apologize first for the weird colour/edit on all the photos in this post. There was a lot of dark/red light in Izumi which made it really red in general so I tried my best to reduce it but it doesn’t look that great.

Anyways, the interior of Izumi doesn’t really exist. They have a small section by the bar area that has some panel dividers, but the rest of the tables are scattered in the main halls of the cruise so it kind of feels like you are far away from the actual “restaurant”. Compared to the other specialty restaurants like Jamie’s Italian, Chops or Wonderland, it seems like they had the smallest space set aside.

Food

Unlike the other restaurants, you don’t get unlimited ordering at Izumi with your specialty dining package. You do, however, get around $35 USD worth of credits to order food. And since they have a set menu of 1 small plate, 2 big plates and 1 dessert per person for $34 USD, we both just decided to do that instead.

Edamame was complimentary.

Chicken karaage

For one of our small plates, we select the chicken karaage. It is marinated in soy-ginger-mirin and served with a sweet Thai chili sauce. We felt that the karaage was a pretty safe choice and the chicken was fried decently. Chicken thigh meat inside was not dry.

Shrimp firecracker spring roll

For our second small plate, we chose the shrimp spring roll which was kind of cute because of how the tail was sticking out. Inside they also include crabmeat, sambal chili and cream cheese, which I wasn’t a big fan of but it wasn’t too bad.

Assorted sashimi

For our first large plate, we selected the assorted sashimi even though all our friends on the cruise who ate at Izumi already told us that the sashimi was bad. We ordered it because 1. it was the most expensive main on the menu so it was the most “worth it”; 2. we wanted some sashimi lol

The assorted sashimi came with 3 of each: tuna, yellowtail, salmon and shrimp. Conclusion is that yes our friends were right and the sashimi was bad (but we still ate it all lol). I think we are pretty spoiled in Vancouver to have really high quality sushi for cheap prices. The salmon sashimi at Izumi just cannot compare to the salmon sashimi you can get at your local sushi joint. It had a more pink colour and tasted a little watery (ugh).

The only kind of nice thing about this main is that it came with a side of wakame salad so it felt like we got an additional small plate.

Champagne lobster roll

For our second main, we order the champagne lobster roll because it has lobster in it, so that also seemed like a “worth it” sushi roll. The lobster is blanched and inside there is also avocado, daikon sprouts, a soy wrap, and chili thread (lol what) with some Champagne sauce (??).

I have never tasted such a bland sushi roll in my life lol.

Spicy crispy tuna roll & Baked snow crab and salmon dynamite roll

For our last 2 big plates, we order 2 special rolls – the spicy crispy tuna roll and the baked snow crab dynamite roll. I was surprised at how large these roles are because this is a lot of food! And guess what, these aren’t even the biggest rolls lol. I saw another table had a gigantic one and was so glad we didn’t order it.

Anyways, the spicy crispy tuna roll was ok. The asparagus is flash-fried in panko crumbs and there’s a unagi sauce that kind of covers most of the flavour.

The basked snow crab roll on the other hand, had a lot of stuff going on – snow crab, salmon, cream cheese, cucumber, avocado, spicy mayo, garlic-chili oil, Champagne sauce and daikon sprouts. I am a strong believer that cream cheese should not be in sushi so I disliked this roll.

Mochi ice cream

For dessert, we chose the assorted mochi ice cream. You can’t tell because of the colour in this photo, but they were actually 3 different colours – yellow for mango, green for matcha, and pink for strawberry. I liked the mango flavour the most.

Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐

I don’t really know what to say because honestly we hated the food at Izumi lol. We didn’t like any of the actual sushi dishes and would never pay to eat here al le carte. The raw fish did not taste fresh and it was super inauthentic. I’m not sure if this is a “white wash” version of sushi or if the quality of the fish is really that poor.

Only thing I liked here was the chicken karaage and that one mango mochi. It said on their menu that the miso soup is included in the prix fixe, but we had to specifically ask for it and the server only brought us one bowl so that was weird. We drank it anyways though because we missed Asian soup (the miso soup was fine).

So even if you have the unlimited dining package, I say save your stomach some room and eat somewhere else. Even the main dining hall might taste better lol.

Sincerely, Loewe