I wrote about this back in 2015 (reproduced below) and years later things are still the same. The indulgent, sensual thickness of cut that The Sushi Bar practises may satisfy one's primal sashimi-hungry craves, but when applied to an aburi context, the segue between seared and raw becomes very jarring - instead of toeing the happy line of melted semi-solid, you get the unsettling, queasy psychological feeling that you're eating a slab of salmon that is half cooked as opposed to well, being intentionally raw (swipe to view what I mean). The aburi kaisen don came across worse this time, and the point about value I made in 2015 may have well become irrelevant given the current trend of far cheaper (bara) chirashi. 3.2/5
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This is what I wrote back in 2015: "Evoked the feels I had when I discovered that a Komodo Dragon didn’t breathe fire or fly. Only the scallop emerged from the searing process a radically improved goddess – elsewhere, while the seductive aroma of melted fish fat permeated the air, the salmon was positively Jekyll/Hyde-esque with its cooked and uncooked personalities, the tuna had a most meaty mannerism, the swordtail was curiously cooked yet torrentially wet within, and the amberjack flapped its tail puzzledly. Still bloody value for money, though. 3.7/5"