Margaritaville at Sea Islander introduced several firsts for the young cruise brand. One of our favorites? A new sushi concept called Far Side Sushi. We purchased the Ultimate Dining Chill package which provided us each $25 to spend at the upcharge venue – and it was more than enough to ensure we left full. On our most recent sailing we went back and purchased several rolls ala carte; we enjoyed it that much! Ok, enough backstory. Let’s take a look at the Margaritaville at Sea Sushi Menu and Photos!
Which Ships have Far Side Sushi
As mentioned, Far Side Sushi is a new concept first introduced on Margaritaville at Sea Islander. However, based on the success of the concept, we expect to see this expand to other ships in the fleet and will update this article as we hear more.
Where Is Far Side Sushi Located
Far Side Sushi can be found on Deck 2 forward, just outside of the Stars on the Water Theater. It’s in The Far Side of the World area and features bar seating (and a full bar). If you’d prefer to take your items with you and eat elsewhere, you can get your food to go. Just don’t forget the chopsticks!
How Much Does Far Side Sushi Cost?
This is the part that surprised us the most: Far Side Sushi is the best-priced sushi we’ve found at sea (and we’ve sailed on 100+ cruises)! As of December 2024, rolls are priced at just $10. It’s a very easy price point to be able to give the concept a try.
Margaritaville at Sea Islander also includes Far Side Sushi in several of their dining packages. We recommend checking out either the Ultimate Dining Chill Package (see our review) or the Far Side Sampler Package to see if one of those resonate with you.
Far Side Sushi Menu
The Far Side Sushi Menu is divided into Starters, Rolls, a Poke Bowl, Sashimi, and Dessert. We tried several sides, four of the five rolls, and the sashimi quartet.
We’re going to take a look at items from the various sections of the menu. We include photos along with our own recommendations. To see the high-def version of the menu, jump to the end of this article.
Far Side Sushi Starters
We ordered both the Zen Garden and Soba Salad to start our meal. At $5 apiece, we expected these to be small bites to try as we got ready for the rest of the food. Imagine our surprise when two bowls of salads were delivered to us!
I’d describe the Zen Garden as a fresh, Asian salad. The carrot ginger dressing was phenomenal – to the point that I asked for more. The Soba Salad was also really good. The noodles combined with the fresh greens and toppings was fantastic.
Both Rocky and I shared these dishes, and, honestly, we couldn’t agree on which one we would choose between. We liked them both very, very much. Off to a great start at Far Side Sushi!
Far Side Sushi Sashimi
So we weren’t exactly sure how to order the Sashimi. The menu lists salmon, tuna, yellowtail, and shrimp along with four options: Solo, Duo, Trio, Quartet. Because we didn’t want to miss out, we decided on ordering the Quartet.
Well that just meant we got FOUR OF EVERYTHING! The moment our server set the Sashimi platter down in front of us, we knew we had ordered too much food.
But let me tell you, if you’re a fan of Sashimi, this was all fantastic. Even though we don’t eat a lot of shrimp, this was still very good. None of the Sashimi was overly fishy, and every piece had a great texture. You could definitely tell it was all very fresh.
If we had to rate each of the Sashimi, we’d say first place goes to tuna, followed by salmon, followed by shrimp, followed by the yellow tail.
And all of this for $10?!
Far Side Sushi Rolls
Bring on the sushi rolls! We’ve tried 4 of the 5 rolls on the Far Side Sushi menu. And while you can get a California Roll anywhere, based on our amazing experience here, we’ll even try that one on our next Margaritaville at Sea Islander sailing!
Let’s break down each roll individually:
Duval Street
While Duval Street is definitely Insta-worthy, it wasn’t wrapped tight enough causing the roll to fall apart when trying to dip in soy sauce. While we enjoyed the roll, it’s the most tame out of all four we’ve tried. The flavor was dwarfed by Yucatan Express and the Volcano rolls. If you’re prioritizing, pick one of these two over Duval Street.
Yucatán Express
Again, another fantastic presentation! The torched salmon and cream cheese on the Yucatán Express are a fantastic combination! As you can probably tell in the picture, the rice comes apart easily causing a little bit of a mess when eating, but the combination of flavors were honestly phenomenal. While I can’t say we picked out “pickled carrot” or the “tenka” specifically, all of the textures and flavors worked so well together. We’ll get this roll again every time we visit Far Side Sushi!
Casino Roll
We weren’t sure what all of the liquid was on the plate when they served the Casino Roll, but we very much enjoyed it! This roll and the Volcano Roll were the most tightly wrapped of the four we tried. We really enjoyed the texture of the panko shrimp and the flavor of the jalapeño cream cheese really comes through. With that said, we got more cream cheese than we did jalapeño! Between the four rolls, this would take third place.
Volcano Roll
Wow. Another winner. While the Volcano Roll doesn’t look as fancy as some of the others, it probably has the most flavor of all four rolls we tried. There’s a spicy chili salmon flavor at the front and that flavor keeps building as you enjoy the roll. While it’s not a hot spicy, those with a more tame pallet may prefer the Duval Street over this one, however, this is another roll we’ll get every visit. Probably our favorite, but Yucatan Express is a very close second place.
Desserts
The menu consists of two desserts: Green Tea Tiramisu and Mochi Ice Cream. While they both sound quite lovely, unfortunately, we were so full that we didn’t save room for dessert! But if – err, when! – you eat at Far Side Sushi, get dessert! If you do, be sure to drop us a picture and let us know what you think!
Final Thoughts
Wow, what a meal! We were blown away by Far Side Sushi. The presentation was truly next level. We’ve tried sushi on more expensive cruise lines, at a much higher price point, and Far Side Sushi blew those out of the water! We loved our dining experience here and hope that our pictures do the chef and restaurant justice.
We also really appreciated that the very reasonable price point. It allowed us to try more dishes than we normally would and not blow our budget. While sushi on a cruise is a bit of a splurge item, we were very impressed with what we got for the money we spent.
Overall, we rate Far Side Sushi 5 out of 5 ships and highly recommend checking out this venue on your next Margaritaville at Sea Islander cruise.
High Def Version of Far Side Sushi Menu
To access the full menu, simply click the thumbnail below. But be warned: you may experience hunger pains…
Still Hungry? Check out Margaritaville At Sea JWB Prime Steakhouse Menu and Photos to see what we thought about that experience on board!