I was dismayed to see this week that another sushi restaurant had opened up in Lethbridge, with this one being just around the corner from The Apartment! EEP! However, it is of the ‘all you can eat’ variety, so my expectations were low. The ‘dinner buffet’, as they call it, is $26.99 plus tax. There is a huge assortment of things you can order, and you can place multiple orders. I took a fair sample of the menu, pleased that almost all portions were tiny. I ordered a mountain of food, but did not come anywhere near stuffing myself.
The offerings were really hit or miss. Let’s see if I can remember everything. 🙂
Terrible
The salmon nigiri tasted old.
The eel nigiri tasted like an aquarium. Eep!
Bad
The chicken teriyaki was icky. The flavour was good but the meat was gristly.
So-So
Presentation was a bit sloppy, but that’s par for the course for an all you can eat that goes through great volumes.
The shrimp tempura was a bit slimy.
The miso soup was bland and it had mushrooms in it.
The tuna handroll was bland. I had ordered spicy tuna, which would have been delicious, but they brought the wrong topping. The nigiri and rice were good though. With the right topping it would have fit in the next category.
The gyoza (dumplings) tasted more oily than anything else.
Green tea ice cream was okay, but I had ordered one scoop each of the red bean and mango!
Service was very slow an inattentive (I didn’t want to be there all night, so I didn’t reorder the mistakes).
Good/Delicious
I asked for more pickled ginger and got a mountain of it.
Once I was able to get someone’s attention, my water refill came quickly.
The yam and brocoli tempura were flawless.
The octopus nigiri was so awesome I ordered two pieces.
The ‘Toyko’ roll with salmon and mango was great; a very plain roll with the mango giving it a little something extra. Really glad I tried this.
The spicy salmon and spicy tuna were each delectable. I ordered tuna in the first round and it was so good I got both tuna and salmon in the second round!
The masago (roe) nigiri had perfect flavour and texture.
Awesome
I had given up on my ‘tuna pizza’ but am so glad it came and that I finished with it. It was a thick fluffy rice cake encased in fried panko topped with thin slices of tuna sashimi and drizzled with the sweet sauce that usually comes on eel rolls. Totally worth the wait!
I really got my money’s worth at Makisu. That said, I’ve decided that with sushi I prefer quality over quantity, so I am more likely to go to O-sho or Dono if I want to spend $30 on dinner, or Umi if I want something quick. I can’t believe how many sushi options there are in Lethbridge and that I still have one left to try!
The table next to mine had a group of sushi novices and they quickly figured out that, hey, the gal at the next table knows her way around the menu! And could you help us figure out these chopsticks? They wound up being rather unadventurous, but provided quite a bit of amusement.
I’ve been remiss in my Japanese studies, but I had one incredible moment tonight. I was gazing at the bowl that held the sweet dipping sauce for the tempura and thought “Oh, isn’t that cute! It says oishii!” It took a moment for me to realise that a) I had read the word
the way I read a word in English, that is as a word rather than individual letters and that b) I didn’t translate it into English. It means ‘delicious.’
Well, I sure hadn’t planned on spending three hours on dinner (although the time away from home did me some good), but I have work to finish for tomorrow, so back to the grindstone I go.
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