Ottawa Foodies

I had a horrible experience last night with 6 people.

The place was packed around 7:30 pm. We noticed only 2 sushi chefs were serving 50+ people. Not a good sign, no.

Out of the first 3 full order papers we handed out, we only received handful of dishes. I felt they were messing with orders on purpose, just to keep up the speed for 2 chefs. Even ordering directly to a server did not help at all. They kept reducing the numbers of orders; we got 7 pieces of sashimi when 30 was ordered. Who takes 40 minutes to bring a seaweed salad?

Ebi (shrimp) sushi was the worst I've seen my life, almost at fishing bate quality. The others were ok at best - we've not seen many for the 2 hours anyway.

If you are looking specifically for sushi, I'd suggest going someplace else, at least that's the experience I've had with their all you can eat menu.

It's not that their sushi is bad, but it's kind of bland, and for what you are paying for all you can eat, you could get a decent portion of much better sushi someplace else.

However, as an all you can eat place, what it does excel at is giving you a wide choice of other Asian dishes, and I would recommend it on that basis, with an endless parade of small dishes you might not normally try. They do have a warning about charging you extra for uneaten food however.

I've gone four times in the past year. Service can sometimes be a bit spotty.

I had a ho-hum experience here last week when I went for lunch with a friend.

I am not a fan of "all you can eat" anything. Unfortunately, I was dining with someone who is hungry half an hour after eating. We had originally tried going to Sushi Kan, a place which my friend was familiar with but I wanted to order a la carte because I prefer sashimi. The service at Sushi Kan was rather off putting. We asked if we could order and they said no, all you can eat only and then argued that it was cheap, only $12.99. Sure, it's cheap but it's a waste of money they don't offer what I want.

I suggested that we head over to Sakura on Merivale, where they confirmed that I could order a la carte while my friend ordered all you can eat.

Service seemed somewhat inexperienced but friendly.

The decor was minimal with a very commercial feel to it. The booths seemed rather strange- I felt I was too far from the table.

I ordered a tuna sashimi($5), one salmon($1) and one scallop ($1.50) nigiri sushi. The nigiri sushi were veru reasonable for the price. The amount of fish was adequate but had the non descript flavor that you'd expect from supermarket sushi. The rice, was of much better quality though.

The tuna sashimi looked nothing like the pictures from previous posts. Although pleasantly arranged as a rose, the pieces were extremely thin. Almost as though they were precut for AYCE orders.

My friend ordered 4 types of rolls: salmon, spicy salmon crunch, california and New York roll. He said that he thought the flavor of these rolls was superior to Sushi Kan but I can not comment on that.

Not a bad experience but not a great one.

We went here for lunch, expecting great things. Out of all the AYCE sushi in Ottawa, this was my least favourite.

Firstly, the waitresses are very rude. When we asked for two sushi pizzas, she gave us a look and kind of hesitated for us to order. It seemed like she did NOT want to be there at all. Thankfully, the nicer waitress served us too and was prompt to give us our tea and water.

We ordered:
- Miso soup. Nothing interesting about miso soup.
- Deep fried scallops. Nothing bad to say about these. You can't really screw up deep fried scallops.
- Fried agedashi tofu. Again, same comment with scallops.
- Sushi pizza. It was good, fresh (cause it was piping hot) and had a generous topping of fish.
- The nigiri was meh. The fish was not that all fresh, but ate it anyway. We ordered surf clam, snapper, salmon and spicy salmon.
- Spicy salmon roll. It was meh. Just tempura bits with mayo and sriracha. I couldn't even distinguish if it had fish.
- Unagi roll was same as most AYCE places. Too much cucumber.
- Volcano roll was decent. It was salmon skin, some crunchy stuff and spicy sauce on top. Best roll out of the meal.

This place put too much rice and not enough stuffing, but I guess you get what you paid for.

I went for lunch at Sakura for the first time yesterday. It was my first time and I didn't have any expectations. We opted to get the all-you-can-eat and I surely ate-I-could!

Rundown of what I recall eating (the number of exclamation points indicate my yumminess rating -- out of three):
- salmon teriyaki (delicious!!!)
- seafood pancake
- fried scallops (!!!)
- seaweed sushi (!!)
- spicy salmon sushi (!)
- spicy salmon handroll (!)
- seafood pizza (!)
- edamame (!)
- udon seafood stir-fry (!)
- small red roe (forget name) sushi (!!)
- tempura
- ice cream: all three types (!!)

The service was good. The food was quick and fresh and, for what it was, it was quite good and satisfying.

We went here last night after we weren't able to get in at Sushi Kan. I suggested Sakura after a friend had previously recommended it. The service was really good: the servers answered all our questions about the menu and they were very nice and polite. The food arrived promptly and was well prepared. We ordered:
- Grilled Eggplant and Butter
- Edamame
- Deep-fried Pork
- Vegetable Tempura
- Shrimp Tempura
- Beef Sirloin
- Beef Sirloin and Pork
- Spring Rolls
- Snapper Nigiri
- Salmon Nigiri
- Egg Nigiri
- Black Dragon Roll
- Unagi Roll
- Assorted Sashimi
- California roll

And that's what I can remember. I was really impressed with Sakura and it was also a bit cheaper than Sushi Kan. While Sakura doesn't have the same wide selection as Sushi Kan, what they do offer on their menu is done really well.

I convinced Mrs Foodie to come here with me tonight. It was pretty much as expected -- all we could eat for a reasonable price but quality was definitely below average. Service was variable: 2 out of 3 servers were really friendly. The one who brought our tea did so with a filthy wet tray, which she slapped down on the table for us to admire while she took our first order. They didn't bring two of our dishes (miso soup and a salad) and when we mentioned it half an hour later, they apologized and brought them in about 2 minutes.

For $47+tip we were given a lot of food, but agreed that we'd rather pay twenty bucks more for a slightly less gluttonous feast of much better food at pretty much any other Japanese restaurant. But we're getting old and the AYCE thing just doesn't have the appeal it had when we were starving students.

Here's a rundown of what we had (yes I'm a pig):

- Green Tea (weak and blah, but served nice and hot)
- Tempura (pretty bad, but the shrimp were better than the veggies)
- Edamame (nice and salty)
- California Roll (much like the pre-made stuff at Loblaws)
- Salmon Skin Hand Roll (I normally love this, but the salmon skin was dry and chewy)
- Unagi Maki (all right, but kind of bland)
- Spicy Fried Fish Fillet (good plain fish, like the one some places sneak into their tempura dish, with a nice spicy mayo)
- Black Dragon Roll (was all right)
- Skewers of Sirloin Beef (tender and tasty but might have been cooked in the deep fryer)
- Crab Maki (just surimi, rice, and nori)
- Miso Soup (good enough but probably from a mix)
- Salad (nasty sweet orange-flavoured dressing, but thankfully very small)
- Spicy Fried Fish Fillet (because I liked it the first time)
- Japanese Seafood Pancake (greasy but very interesting, see note below)
- California Roll (wifey's standby)
- Shrimp Tempura Roll (boring)
- Green Tea ice cream (for wifey only, I was stuffed after eating most of the above)

The Seafood Pancake is worth checking out, especially if you have people to share it with (it's about 6 inches in diameter and quite greasy). The really cool thing is that it looks ALIVE! They put very thinly shaved bonito on top, and the shavings open and close from the heat of the pancake. This happens for several minutes and makes the whole dish sort of wave and gyrate in front of your eyes. I had to really examine it to make sure that there wasn't anything living in the dish. Very cool! Flavour was so-so, but I wish I'd taken video. :)

So in the end, we had 16 dishes plus tea, for $42+tax. That works out to about $2.75 per dish or about the same as extremely cheap dim sum. However, the food quality just wasn't worth it for us. We'd rather have dim sum for the same money or a superior a la carte Japanese meal for more. Just our opinion though -- your mileage may vary.

I ate there with a couple of Japanese friends. The consensus was that the food was ok, the white tuna sashimi was pretty brutal though, but the maki and handrolls were good. So, all in all, the food was OK, the service however... oi... it was very inconsistent (one server was very sweet and attentive, the next would literally toss our orders on the table at us)... but you get what you pay for here. After all, it's only $20! It's like cafeteria style sushi. Oh, and no ambience (very very bright pot lights, and tables are very close together) and no liquor license (yet).

assorted 2

spicy salmon, seaweed and flying fish egg sushi.

Out of all the restaurants (sushi and otherwise)I've been to in Ottawa this has to be my least favorite. Everything negative I read about it online (but gave Sakura the benefit of the doubt and tried it anyway)was completely true.
The service left alot to be desired. They just dropped everything they served to us on the table without a word. They brought out our food at completely different times. I received and finished my first dish before my boyfriend even got his food and he had already finished all of his (over 20 minutes later) by the time they gave me the rest of what i had ordered. I would have asked them what the hold up was but they never even back to our table. There were only 2 other people in the restaurant so I can't imagine they were very busy.
The food didn't even make up for the lack of service. My shrimp tempura roll was soggy and pre-soaked in soy sauce, and the green salad i ordered was TINY and had nothing but a few pieces of lettuce, one slice of pepper and a few carrot shavings maybe. The sushi my boyfriend had was chewy and not fresh at all. The miso soup was powdery and tasteless. The only decent thing about it was the low price. Needless to say I was very disappointed and will not be going back and recommend people stay away from this place.

The only thing that could've been improved upon here was the unagi. Mr. Nanook and I both found it rubber y and lacking flavour. Everything else was fantastic. The presentation of our nigiri and rolls in a large plate was beautiful. I wish I'd had my camera!

Went with large group of colleagues for the dinner AYCE. We didn't order anything too adventurous so we filled up on spicy salmon/crispy salmon rolls, soft shell crab rolls, and lots of sashimi. Everything was fresh. The rolls could use a little less rice and more filling in some cases.

Service was great, not one dish was missed the entire evening and we weren't rushed out or made to feel like we were intruding. At my time of visiting this restaurant didn't have a liquor license so we were confined to soda and ice water which was too bad.

Overall a decent 'all you can eat' experience, I would return.

The Edamame was wonderful - served warm and still crunchy. It could use a bit more salt, but was tasty enough for us to order seconds.

We ordered the white tuna, salmon and red snapper sashimi. It was better quality that other AYCE places. The pieces were also thicker and bigger.