After a long hiatus from writing on my blog, and for AccessWinnipeg, I am back! Welcome to December’s first edition of “Friday Eats”, this is Gazel with a new review and a new restaurant review, at that.
Firstly, expect more reviews for restaurants. Due to school and work schedules, I was relatively busy—but enough about that, let’s get straight to the food.
During my last week of school at University of Winnipeg, I noticed the former “Sushi 101” sign was no longer there, across the street. I didn’t really take much note of it at first; until the sign became “Sushi Gen” instead of Sushi 101.
[flickr style=” border:none; padding:4px; border:1px solid #BDBDBD; float:right; margin-left:5px;”]photo:4256976286[/flickr]I’d like to say Sushi 101 was actually a decent sushi restaurant, at least for Winnipeg. The one thing I didn’t like was the pricing and the constant removal of discounts and items from the menu… but I digress. Sushi 101 no longer exists, and is now replaced by “Sushi Gen”, a newcomer to the scene of “All-you-can-eat-sushi”. Out of the six AYCE sushi places in Winnipeg, this one is the best.
This restaurant actually opened during the last week of November. I actually happened to stumble the opening day. It was empty, as expected. The décor was pretty much the same as it had been with Sushi 101. The Bubble tea house that joined the sushi restaurant was no more but more space. I’m sure that extra space will be needed later on, anyway.
So, when we were seated we were promptly served. They gave us our water and the usual menu, paper and pencil to start ordering. You may order a-la-carte (so, regular dining instead of AYCE) but we opted to try out the AYCE version. For dinner time, it is $22.95, as the usual with the others. On weekends it’s a dollar cheaper.
[flickr style=” border:none; padding:4px; border:1px solid #BDBDBD; float:right; margin-left:5px;”]photo:4256976330[/flickr]For the dinner menu, it was much more extensive. There is A LOT of items which brings the other AYCE to shame. The best part about this menu has got to be the sashimi; there is an actual variety AND it’s not limiting you to a few pieces—you can order as much as you like! You don’t know how happy we were when we found that out. The fish isn’t skimpy, when you order the sashimi. It is FAT, fresh wedges of fish that melt in your mouth. For this, I have got to recommend “butterfish” and “salmon”. Of course, you can order the nigiri-sushi with also a smaller (but generous) wedge of fish on top of rice. There’s many to choose from and is very different from other menus; such as seaweed nigiri for example. I highly recommend that, it is actually very good.
The second best thing on the menu is the vast selection of hot items. There’s many soups and appetizers to choose from, as well as “main course” type of meals. From this, we ordered miso soups, agedashi tofu, eggplant tempura and deep fried scallops. Everything was delicious and it is what you would normally get at a normal sushi restaurant. There is much more to choose from, such as chicken yakitori, thousand island shrimp, edamame, teriyaki beef and more things I have probably failed to mention. They also offer a variety of soups as well.
[flickr style=” border:none; padding:4px; border:1px solid #BDBDBD; float:right; margin-left:5px;”]photo:4256976464[/flickr]For those who are vegetarian, fret not, there are lots of options if you wish to dine here. There is already a lot of vegetarian options from the “hot food” section, but there is a variety of vegetarian options in the maki/rolls as well. The maki was good, but as with most AYCE joints they like to pack the rice as much as possible. There is a lot of selection of rolls, and we did enjoy the “volcano roll”, a roll that has crispy salmon bits and has black sesame and a hot spicy sauce on top. There are also favourites like spider roll, eel roll, dragon roll, california rolls and more.
They also offer sushi pizza; except there is at least 5 varieties of the sushi pizza, with different toppings so it does not seem completely one-note. We had the opportunity of trying the spicy salmon and California pizza, which was good. For those unfamiliar, a sushi pizza is a deep fried rice patty with toppings.
[flickr style=” border:none; padding:4px; border:1px solid #BDBDBD; float:right; margin-left:5px;”]photo:4256976394[/flickr]To finish off your meal, they offer desserts with the AYCE deal: Ice cream! It’s not the usual chocolate or vanilla kind either, but a choice of ginger, green tea, red bean and mango.
The service here was excellent, they always fill your water, always ask you if you need anything else and always take your plates away the moment you’re finished. They even suggested to us to get ice cream—we totally forgot about it at the end of our meal.
Now, I know that I had lots of happy notes in this review. There were a few minor downsides, such as the parking. The parking for this place is really, really annoying. It’s in downtown, so parking is hard to find. Luckily for us, we have a parking spot near the University so it isn’t a big deal, but some may find it frustrating.
Another nitpick is that sometimes we’d get food that didn’t belong to us, or have been forgotten… but you may simply re-order if that is the case.
Their lunch menu is much smaller, but it is also good for the price at just $15 a pop, and a dollar less on weekends. There is no sashimi and certain fish available during lunch… same goes with rolls, but the hot food doesn’t really change either.
All in all, this is a quality restaurant. It is a new restaurant, though. Quality MAY go down in time… but since it’s fresh, reap the advantages and come there today. It’s a sure change from the other places in Winnipeg.
Sushi Gen also has a website: http://www.sushigen.ca/
Location:
Sushi Gen
500 Portage Ave.
Winnipeg MB
Canada R3C 3X1
(204) 885-7888
All photographs in this article is taken by Gazel Ma, and products are from the respective restaurant(s) mentioned.
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