Arriving the first time we were seated right away. I noticed the mirrors on either open wall, it made it look much bigger than it was. It's a fairly cozy place but with enough shoulder room so that your comfortable. The kitchen and bar are also right there, giving you a plain view at the whole process. Very mild decor but it came off as very pleasant.
We did not eat much the first time. A few pieces of sushi, a bowl of vegetable tempura and salmon sashimi don and a bowl of their beef udon. The broth to the udon was a little weak but other than that everything was quite good. Sorry about the brevity but I took no pictures and wrote little down.
The second time how ever I took meticulous notes. We also had a large as to try out a fair bit of the sushi. In the rolls we had an Alaska Roll, Vancouver Roll and a Spider Roll. The Vancouver Roll tasted a little of mandarin oranges, sweet but not overly sweet. Although the Vancouver Roll was rolled with mangoes and not mandarin oranges. The Alaska roll which had the smoked salmon was good, but not to my liking. I'm not a particular fan of smoked fish. It was a little creamy and the smoked taste lingered a little, I still found it particularly appealing and would probably try another one else where. The spider roll, an interesting piece with a piece of tempura fried shrimp. Crunchy yet cool because of the cucumber. A odd but well done combo.
Next the pieces. They are as follows: Shake(salmon), hokkigai(Surf clam), tataki(seered beef aka gyu) and unagi(Eel). The shake was pretty much to taste although the wasabi was a little strong. The hokkigai was also a little strong with an above average fish taste. The best time of year to get hokkigai is in the winter and fall months. They tend to get bigger during those months. The tataki was simply amazing. The perfect crispness that they gave the garlic made the piece for me. Although, still, to this day, I do not know what kind of meat that piece that I ate was. It was good none the less. Heres the interesting part, their eel looked very white. It didn't even look like a regular bar-b-q sauced piece, but did it ever taste like it! Even though it wasn't drenched, or even look sauced, it was one of the deepest flavors I have taste in unagi.
To give a quick breakdown, the food was good even if a few pieces were overly spiced and that our gyozas didn't show up that night, we all had fun enjoying good food for average prices. The location is also fairly easy to find just down from sait/acad on 14th st. You can find them about half way down on the east side. All in all the service and food were good, decors were simple, the noise was fine, the line was a little long (15 min wait) the second time around,a few pieces were strong, the broth had little taste, the prices were ok and their menu was good. I'll give this a jolly 8,5 out of 10. I should have another post on Sushi Kai in dragon city mall next week.
Till then,
mata ne!
(having problems with uploading photos, I'll try again later.)
