Ottawa Foodies

I'm pretty sure that is Pej Daddy's original marketing phrase.

They actually say "empty the ocean of unsustainable marine life"?

Wow. Unbelievable.

for $19.99, you can "empty the ocean of unsustainable marine life" edition with sashimi @ hockey sushi. it's all about the good knife skills and luckily today the fish was fresh. always a risky bet with AYCE places...

basket of tempura was a hit @ hockey sushi. well done, crispy tempura, fresh assorted veg/shrimp on the inside. how do they serve this faster than mcdonalds? is it fast food or good food fast?

all the teppanyaki and terikayi meats @ hokey sushi. where quantity > quality rules!!!!!!!!!!!!!

for $19.99, you can "empty the ocean of unsustainable marine life" edition @ hockey sushi. proteinaceous raw eats without the high glycemic carbs. goes good with sapporo or asahi asian beer.

I took my 6 year old son here for his first sushi experience. He liked it, but I think he filled up on the tempura which arrived first. From this visit I have to agree with AisuKurimu that the rice was off. It was just falling apart. Also with the sushi the rice was still quite warm - I've never notice this before at a sushi place, and I'm guessing it is a result of running out and not having time to get the rice done correctly before turning into sushi. As usual we did not get everything we ordered - but I'm used to that and was full with what we got (my son ate less than I anticipated.) White tuna and salmon were really good. The mackerel was a bit off that day. All the maki were pretty good. I think next time I do father/son sushi we'll go to Sushi Kanata and sit at the counter to watch the action.

Hi, None of my Japanese friends recommend this place. I have tried different all you can eat sushi restaurants before,well I guess it was okay as fast food.
Any all you can eat sushi place, I don't like the way they prepare sushi rice. Rice is always too soggy and mashed up, I doubt if they even know how to cook rice for sushi.

I know I shouldn't be too harsh, but I am Japanese and I grew up with sushi...I guess my expectation is too high.

I had the worst dining experience here the other day!

I'm not a fan of all you can eat sushi places, but I decided to give this place a try because my co-workers have been trying to convince me to go ever since it opened. Going in, I knew that the quality was not going to be superb. I expected what one would expect from any AYCE resto. The food was ok...not bad, not great. No biggie.

However, what made me furious was the service. All I wanted that day was a spicy tuna roll, and what we got that day was everything except the spicy tuna roll.

When we first noticed that the spicy tuna roll didn't come, we politely told the wait staff who said she would check for us. She never came back, and we had to ask a few more times. We were there for an hour and a half, and our spicy tuna roll never came. We finished our food within the first 45 minutes, so we basically sat around for 45 minutes just waiting for my spicy tuna roll. It even got to the point where the wait staff started ignoring us. When we tried to get their attention, they would look over, and then keep walking like we weren't even there. At one point, I even started waiving my chopsticks in the air to get their attention, and they still blatantly ignored us. But as soon as we got up to ask for the bill, it came in less than 10 seconds.

I will NEVER come here again. The staff is incredibly rude, and I was extremely insulted by the way we were treated.

Of course we had to try this new AYCE sushi place since it's pretty close to our house and we do love Japanese food.

Saturday dinner price is $20.99 per adult (a buck more than the weekday price). Like all the other AYCE sushi places in Ottawa, the value is good but the quality is highly variable. Unlike the other places the service and atmosphere are warm and friendly!

Highlights included the BBQ Eel Donburi (a few slices of tasty unagi on a small bowl of rice with a dash of nice sauce). The Red (salmon) and Green (avocado) Dragon Rolls were pretty good too, but they're only available at dinner time.

Lowlights included the Teppanyaki Sirloin Beef, which was chewy and dry but somehow too rich, and the Shrimp Tempura, which was bland and greasy due to a fat-absorbing type of batter (possibly containing panko?). The vegetable tempura was less greasy than the shrimp, mostly because the batter was a more traditional tempura style, but it was no less bland. Also, the salmon skin maki was bland, contained cucumber (I would say too much, like most of their rolls), and had a slightly nasty taste to it (bleach from the cutting board?). Salmon skin maki is one of my favourites so this made me sad.

Some of the food choices, notably the tempura, are stated on the menu as "1 pc". This means if you ask for one serving of calamari, you will get a basket containing exactly one ring of squid. It looks funny when you do that but it's actually a pretty useful concept. You get exactly the order you want. BTW, you order by filling in a little card where you specify how many portions of each item you would like.

Other things we tried that were fine but not incredibly good or bad included: green salad, miso soup, tobiko roll, california roll, shrimp yakitori, mackerel teriyaki (large portion but a little overwhelming), baby mushroom beef roll, green tea ice cream, red bean ice cream.

The food in these places is never the same as at a good a la carte Japanese restaurant but neither is the final bill as high. For what it is, this restaurant is perfectly decent and provides good competition for Ottawa's AYCE sushi scene.

Here are some maki rolls and hand rolls. The hand rolls are beautiful, and I found them delicious (especially the "crispy roll"). Well worth the lunch price, this place is probably going to become a workplace lunch favourite.

Hand rolls come in an order size of one, so if you want a few you have to indicate that on the order card.