The Round-up:
- Food - 3.5 out of 5
- Decor - 2.5 out of 5
- Service - 3 out of 5
- Total - 9 out of 15
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Those who follow the blog will recall the news that Café Orange (in the Cathedral area) shut down a couple of months ago amid rumours that it will reopen as a sushi café.
This is all fine and well, except it seems that just about every month a new sushi restaurant pops up in this city. At some point, sushi just isn’t going to sell enough to make a profit at each one of these places. At least that’s my opinion.
So when Sake Japanese opened on Albert Street (near 13th Avenue) in February, I was only a little bit excited. On one hand, it is fantastic to see a vacant storefront turn into a thriving restaurant. There were too many empty buildings on that side of Albert Street not so very long ago.
On the other hand, do we really need more sushi?
Judging by the crowd at Sake on a recent Wednesday lunch hour, we do. The place was packed with groups and couples, likely from the office buildings nearby.
To Sake’s credit, the restaurant is clean and decorated tastefully – nothing out of the ordinary, just a typical Japanese restaurant décor. Sake offers a mix of traditional tables, along with a number of “tatami” tables, where guests sit on cushions on top of bamboo mats. Lucky for us non-Japanese, the floor is sunken beneath the tables, making for a much more comfortable sit.
As for the menu, be prepared to pig out. It’s an all-you-can-eat feast at Sake. You’re provided with a paper menu and a couple of pencils. Then you go to town marking off all the dishes you’d like to try. And there are plenty to taste.
Sake offers at least 15 types of sushi rolls. Each roll consists of eight well-portioned pieces, far more than your average all-you-can-eat sushi joint. The Salmon Roll, California Roll, and Rainbow Roll that my dad and I shared were fresh – so much so that the sushi rice was moist and just a tad warm (meaning it was cooked only minutes before the rolls hit the table). Score!
We also tried the crispy tempura, which comes with one jumbo shrimp per order; the fried fish; the edamame (whole soybeans); and the wonton soup. We cut ourselves off at that point, not wanting to overdo things and then go back to work in a food-induced coma. (Note: Sake, like every Japanese all-you-can-eat, will charge for food wastage, if need be.)
Ice-cream fans, listen here: Sake also offers an unlimited amount of serve-yourself ice cream for dessert. Another classy touch. On offer were Tiger Tiger, Raspberry, and Pistachio the day we were there. Big Poppa and I both dug into the Tiger Tiger. Like father, like son as they say.
So far, we’ve established that the food is great and the décor is good enough. That leaves the service. It was what I would call friendly, but not overly attentive. Our waiter neglected to bring one item we ordered (a rice bowl with chicken) and never came back to check if we wanted to order more food after the first round. Given that you pay a flat rate for lunch, missing an item wasn’t a big deal. Let’s just hope it isn’t a regular habit.
I went in a skeptic, and I came out a believer (in the food anyway). Sake is on the right road to success.