Poor Ol' Fuji-San

If you’re tired of making any kind of effort to visit any kind of all-you-can-eat sushi place in town, your prayers have been answered, because Itamae sushi is the newest ubiquity bogarting on the phenomenon of cosmopolitanism that has been diffusing the neighbourhoods around Waterloo’s university blocks. That’s right, for all the lucky students, all-you-can-eat is a mere jaunt. 13.99 for lunch, 20.99 for dinner. You’d be foolish not to grab a filling, almost irresponsible, lunch every day. And now, when you do, you don’t have to feel like a contemptible in-debt student at an all-you-can-eat facsimile, because Itamae feels and looks a little more urbane. I’m ashamed to say, I found myself hypnotized by the chic, Orientalized space. Cool browns, blacks, greys, forgiving tiled splash-backs; thick, stocky furnishings, pearled dining tables, waiters setting orders on hand held tablets, faux sushi itamaes in blue hakis with murals of origami met with bursts of warm colours on aesthetics reminiscent of the origami motif of the space. Even its centre made the place exalted and heavenly as the gold ceiling reached up to a point representing none other than Fuji itself. The bathrooms had granite counters, and robotic paper towel dispensers; it was a fantastic feast for the eyes, an alright feast for the stomach. Unfortunately, our orders took a good amount of time getting to us, so much so that Joey lost any truck he had with the wait staff, taking his own order and walking up and handing his tab to every sushi chef, making sure he would get what he wanted. And there were the usual chronic mixups and mystery orders that constantly happen at sushi places too.

Itamae offers nothing particularly new, some different menu options, some half-assed desserts masquerading as haute because they look, like the space, really good. That was my biggest tension. I’m a devote fan of egg tarts, but what we received was a beaten egg baked in an obtusely folded wonton, too eggy and off putting. And the Itamae apple pie? Nothing more than an apple fritter, with no spin on it to imply the character or personality of the place. Just an apple fritter. A boring apple fritter. Everything is hit or miss, and that seems to be the complacent accession of all all-you-can-eat-sushi spots. It can’t all be good. But, I argue it can if it didn’t want to seem like a cash grab all the time. Some sashimi was good, the white tuna, clean and salty, the salmon and red tuna, a little stale and brassy from sitting in a fridge. Some sashimi came room temperature, some uncomfortably cool. The eel on my sushi pizza was another climatic affliction. Cold seafood on hot deep fried rice in other words. We did very much enjoy the lotus rolls, though. A series of rolls rolled with bean paper, reminiscent of a thin cabbage, rather than the usual seaweed. And the mango banana roll was somewhat amusing. Mango stuck out of it like shoots of bamboo, wrapped in usual seaweed and rice. It was an ambitious project. The fruit wasn’t as ripe as we would have liked, and the flavours juxtaposed too much to really want it again. Even if a dessert, which it wasn’t, it still fell very short. But again, the menu’s a big thing, with a lot to try, so you’re bound to accept something. We liked the bacon asparagus rolls, and the curry chicken was enlivened by lime and notes of star anise. The grilled mackerel was surprisingly good for something expected so fast.

Itamae sushi doesn’t need to try at anything. Hell, if it had any professionalism, I imagine the waitress would have stepped aside to let me through a hall of crowded people rather than elbowing past me when I approached. But when customers just want to fill themselves us with alright food, forgoing great taste and service, can you blame them? Still, why not just buy a bag of rice? Let’s hope it’s not a representation of the superficiality of cuisine, or anything for that matter, in our break neck developing city, even if substandard goods are conventionally associated with developers just interested in a quick buck. In that case then, I reckon Itamae is in the right place.

ANY PAYMENT

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Abandon Ship ***SHUTDOWN

It’s that time of year again. When grizzly winter days eliminate any perspective I have about the food of food reviews past. That’s right. I admit it. Sometimes, I make foolish comestible choices. Sometimes, my culinary stirrings can betray me. As I write this, I can still taste the displeasure on my palate, like some unappetizing apparition (weird, right?). My anger may very well be a projection of my own anger at myself for having chosen such a disenchanting place that had such disenchanting food, which would imply that it was actually the food, and not myself that made me, in retrospect, so angry. Did I just melt your brains? It may very well be for the best, because here comes, as I regretfully write, yet another ‘dooming epitaph.’

Let me wax poetic, dear readers. Something has to entertain you, because it certainly will not be the food. Harsh snowfall produces in me a nostalgic yearning for the Japanese food I remember having many times in my past. In retrospect, however, I think whatever perception I’ve had was only vividly dreamt of through a screen, having been forced to watch a multitude of culinary shows about Japanese noodles- soba, udon, ramen- by that kid from Hong Kong. I’ve never had such bowls in this city. And yet, again, the very screen I type this on, like the television we all use for fantasy, served the very same purpose.

But let’s not blame the internet for my follies. I was foolish enough to fall victim to my own archipelagic cravings, cravings that might forever play out until I’m on a boat, or learning noodle mastery on the island of Okinawa. Cravings, I think, after my most recent culinary adventure, I have finally learned to control.

Sushi Boat’s online menu looked promising, and I assumed I could avoid any trouble if I saw an affordable meal option. That was enough to clinch any prejudgments about the city’s newest sushi place. There were some appealing options. Aside from a menu that optioned pretty inexpensive combo choices that could easily be split between two diners who wanted to try different things, there were some unexampled dishes I hadn’t seen and thought worth a gastronomical shot: like tofu salad, egg corn soup, and Sunomono: glass noodle dishes with varied ingredients tossed with a styled vinaigrette.

	Oh, hi Mark!

But it was when I walked through its doors that I was nagged by the strange feeling that I had been there before. I was jaded. Black and red walls, dim lighting, inappropriate, but clearly unintentional ornaments (like wall stencils of angel fish). It was another sushi place catering to the most alien of culinary tourists. A phantasmagoria of what the Japanese dining space is thought to be like. What’s worse? It was all-you-can-eat. This became a disheartening realization when I was seated and faced with familiar lists of paper awaiting pencils and numbers. I asked for the menu, hoping that what I saw on the restaurant’s mounted plasma screen was actually edible choices and not yet another fantasy screen out to trick customers into believing what was shown was what was served. So I cried, I prayed, and I begged- that’s a small music allusion for you all- for a menu that wasn’t all-you-can-eat, and I was happily obliged.

Unfortunately, what I was looking to eat on the regular menu was also offered on the all-you-can-eat menu. Guilt ridden, I accepted it, and picked up my pencil. While waiting, I was bombarded by yet another screen. A tablet was set down in front of me with even more photos of what was on the menu. I was becoming more and more leery. Could the food actually speak for itself, rather than depending on so many screens? I hoped I was wrong. I didn’t want to disavow Japanese restaurants altogether in this town, but I was prepared to do it.

	Original.

First, I ordered what I initially intended to: the Sunomono, or ‘vinegared things,’ with mixed seafood. An outdated dessert goblet was placed in front of me, cradling a batch of noodles (not glass like the menu said) swimming in a sweet, overbearingly pungent vinegar and topped with strips of crab and a tough rubbery snapper. The vinegar was offensive, the crab imbued with the chemical quality of the plastic it was freeze dried in. Next, my beef udon soup was a mess of overcooked noodles, tough beef bits and a salty broth with a smokey undertow that I hoped was imbued by the tuna flakes traditionally used to make it.

	I've taken better photos. Then again, I've been to better places.

Is there a silver lining to any of this? I’m sure the menu’s not all that bad, there are a few mentionables: like the white tuna sushi, a smooth textured fish that would have otherwise felt great creamed by my tongue if not for an eerie warmth that tailgated it. And the short ribs, though somewhat fatty, offered more meat on their bones than I had seen at other places. I did enjoy the capelin; a deep fried salty whole smelt- that’s a tiny little fish for those of you that don’t know. But this is as tender as I get. My tofu salad was a mere sprinkling of deep fried curd on iceburg lettuce. Chewy and fetid, the outer crust did nothing to compliment its silken interior, nor the entire dish. I couldn’t understand why it existed as an option at all. Tempura was lackluster, and if I remember anything about it at all, it was the unevenly cooked batter across the terrain of some pieces. My sushi pizza was the worst I’ve had. Labelled as ‘rainbow’ it was nothing more than a thin rice base with even thinner slices of fish, and shrimp so thin it looked shredded. Aside from a saturated, oily crust with odd pebbly bits of deep fried rice, it was also drizzled with a sauce that was spicy, sweet, and overbearing. More than anything, I wanted to eat what the cooks on break were eating because, I assumed, it wasn’t anything like what was on the menu, and probably made with more effort and care. I was tired of trying to make sense of the food, like what makes something called a ‘Thai roll’ Thai? Was it the pickled radish? I doubt it. There were no conventional Thai flavours; it tasted too similar to everything else. Too sweet, too salty, too sour.

Sushi Boat was sinking faster than Costa Concordia (too soon?), and I only wondered how long it would stay afloat. I can’t forgive it, even it is an all-you-can-eat place, because there is too much competition around. I’m sorry, dear readers, sorry to have trolled you along like this.

	I bet.

Sushi Boat
465 Highland Road West
N2M Kitchener, ON

 

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As Constant As the Northern Star

My animosity towards the all-you-can-eat sushi place in this town is dwindling. This means one of two things: that my own pre-judgments and pretentious assumptions denied my stomach the chance of really getting to know these eating places and limiting my own experience to a few terrible experiences in previous ‘hasheries.’ Today, I wasn’t pleasantly surprised, but certainly tempered against the bias that accompanies my own opinions of sushi in a place that is so far away from the ocean and fresh fish. But what does that mean anyway?

It may be a moot point even discussing Sushi Star, a restaurant that’s been around for a substantial time, and a restaurant I’ve given only the slightest of nods, having heard mixed reviews about it throughout the years. However, dear readers, I like to believe we’ve developed a good amount of rapport between the lot of us and that what I do have to say about the place has some merit.

To say I had a hankering for sushi today would be an untruth. In fact, I can’t claim to be a die hard fan, though I certainly can say I enjoy it, but not as much as the body builders who frequent the all-you-can-eat stops at least 3 times a week to keep their weight up. Today’s venture was a kind of earnest admission in order to see if the all-you-can-eat sushi place is a place even worth going to anymore, or if it’s gone the way of the great portion-givers of the West’s glorified consumer past; I speak of fast food joints, Chinese buffets, pancake houses.

So what can I say about Sushi Star that hasn’t already been said about an all-you-can-eat sushi spot? Believe me or not, there is some interesting personality accompanying Sushi Star’s food. Some peerless exceptions that make you consider the micro cultures that exist around the locales of restaurants. I normally don’t pay any mind to restaurants catering to the palettes of customers thereby changing their menus for profit because I glamorously consider it a kind of selling out, but this is stupid. Because while it could very well be perceived this way, it is exactly that dynamic that allows the all-you-can-eat to stay separate from others and in business.

Yes, there are tables with bamboo appliqués, contemporary paper lanterns hanging off the ceilings, neko fukus, pervasive dinnerware with calligraphic eggplants and Japanese characters of ‘delicious’ printed on them (purchased from the supermarket up the block), roasted rice tea, beige booths and uniformed wait staff, which are all too familiar. And on the other end of that familiar, maybe clichéd, spectrum there are the darker dining rooms in the city full of red, black and fancy wood, but these are nothing more than the Chinese whispers of sushi reviews from the past which are cause for nothing more than snap judgments for every all-you-can-eat sushi place.

Sushi Star has rare oddities, like deep fried milk for dessert, pork bone soup (sans the bones and pork, sadly), sushi rolls stuffed with nothing more than avocado and pineapple (surprisingly refreshing), plum wine (inexpensive plum wine), a selection of kind of real ramen noodles- or lo mein- or lao mian- or pulled noodles- on the menu; even purple yams. I didn’t think I’d ever find such individuality in any all-you-can-eat menu; there was even grilled saury. Never mind the misspellings on the thing, at least it was manageable. I wasn’t bombarded with infinite options like I usually am at other all-you-can-eat spots. And have no fear of being left out if you go for lunch, what’s kept exclusively to the dinner menu is comfortably small. There are only four kinds of raw fish offered (but all kinds of sushi) which I actually appreciate and interpreted as taking seriously the food offered.

Sushi Star really is its own world. It has wait staff that devotedly beckon to every whim and happily write down what you want, rather than giving a slip. I’ve commented on my displeasure at this choice of service in the past, but the wait staff had an exceptional charm.

The food wasn’t matchless, but it did offer up some great distinction: mackerel sushi with dollops of pureed ginger for example on rather thin and well balanced fingers of sticky rice (no wasabi underneath though). What really impressed my company and I was the temperature of the raw fish, never cold, but tempered to the climate of the room. Usually, we as eaters assume cold raw fish means it’s fresh, but in reality a fish pulled out of the ocean never comes from some underwater fridge. Some rolls could have used a little more rice, as the layers were so thin the nori peered through, and our curry chicken was a muddy sauce of salt. But for every yin, there’s a yang; our shredded crab pizza had a thinner base than other places and was easy to put in our mouths, the sauce of red peppers and spicy mayonnaise lending itself perfectly to the charred flavor of rice deep fried in a bread crumb coating. The deep fried scallops were a little leathery, but pea sized and easy to pop into our mouths. Dumplings were peppery but with a refreshing vinegar tang, and our seaweed salad not sweet at all like most places, but rather savory, though sometimes sinewy. The food ebbed and flowed between us. And though it wasn’t perfect, Sushi Star just has too many good qualities to disqualify altogether.

Sushi Star
450 King St. E., Kitchener, ON N2G 2L6
519 584 2341

Mon-thur 11:30-10:30
Fri-Sat 11:30-11:00
Sunday 12:00 – 10:30
Lunch Mon-Thurs 12.99 Fri-Sun 13.99
Dinner 19.99 20.99

All methods of payment accepted

 

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Great Wave Off Kanagawa

You may not know this, my dear readers, but I’m leery about sushi places in these here parts. I find buffets especially fishy (mind the pun, because it was on purpose). I’ve no right to argue about quality, because we eat in a place far from bodies of water that provide fresh fish (or real sushi chefs for that matter). However, I hold firm to the personal belief that I have perspective in regards to everything sushi related in Kitchener-Waterloo; and therefore, a little reason to say what is worth buying. Indeed, no spot has escaped this trawling tongue. I’m a big fish in a small pond, and although the nautical metaphors may seem a little much they are not without due cause. Mine’s a mind that’s anchored with a whole lot of cynicism.

The all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant is a perfect example. It coddles the growling stomach and staunch wallet and therefore can compromise good eatin’; that is, if you know what else is out there. I unfortunately, do not. However, this works to my advantage, because I can give an honest, well catered review. Now, when it comes to any kind of authenticity in food I’ve loosened my kung-fu grip over the years, because there is no need for such crude inflexibilities. The French culinary school may be the only form of cooking trying to hold onto any kind of charmed legitimacy, but I dare say if food tastes good, it tastes good. But why this digression? Simple. The all-you-can-eat sushi bar antagonizes this dynamic perfectly, and shows that authenticity isn’t all that important, so long as it tastes palatable. What this says about our culture, I’ll save for a Baudrillard paper.

It’s easy to find what’s wrong and Othering with foreign restaurants catering to Western palettes: phonetic mis-spellings, inherent Orientalizations of names. This next place is certainly a portent of what can happen if we all don’t pay much attention to where we eat. The name alone alerted in me a kind of casus belli which made me quick to judge. An honourific Japanese ‘O’ in the title and an Orientalizing phonetic diminutive for ‘delicious’, packaged into a submissive, charming synonym of ‘Yummy,’ with ‘Sushi’ tacked on the end, made my company and I both guarded and hesitant. I haven’t been to an acceptable all-you-can-eat Sushi place in town since July 2006; my memory sinks that deep. All times after have been full of mis-orderings, hair in food, and callow servers who swoop in like seagulls to take your scraps away and make you feel unwelcome, spurring you to leave at a faster pace. Thankfully, it was a Monday and lunch, so there was no chance of the later happening. As for anything else, I’d have to eat and see.

It was O’Yummy Sushi’s grand opening, and the smell of the place certainly signified the newness of the establishment. Though I couldn’t exactly say how long it was open for, I could certainly sniff out that it was still in need of customers and cooked food to break it in. The smell of drywall and plaster still permeated its banquet hall, but that only made me all the more excited for trying what it had to offer; that and seeing if there was anything worth sticking around, save for the obvious 12.99 all-you-can-eat lunch price.

The space was another chronic creation of a contemporary all-you-can-eat sushi place. Brown, red, black and beige decorated a hall with booths along the windows and tables in the middle with a sushi bar up ahead where diners could happily watch their sushi being made and servers rush in and out of the kitchen feverishly. Orb shaped flood lights and ceiling hearths that washed the ceiling in pools of changing colour gave the hall a kind of urbane feel, reminiscent of the neon lighting that pervades huge metropolises. These kinds of stylistics materialize in so many all-you-can-eat sushi places around town. If there is any other design at the end of the sushi place spectrum it usually offers beige walls with bamboo trims, bonsai trees and lucky cats.

Taking it in cautiously, we were greeted by a server that took our orders to start rather than handing us the proverbial order sheet. This may have taken away from the ambiguity of customer/server but I couldn’t help but wonder how time consuming it eventually would become, having to eat and order again and again. The sentiment was certainly appreciated, and there’s no doubt in my mind that people often feel neglected even at arm’s length, but this effort could hardly last in an all-you-can-eat place. And it didn’t, we were eventually given order sheets. Yes, there was some confusion; yes, servers misunderstood our questions about items on the menu, but that kind of feature seems so common in every all-you-can-eat place, why bother to worry about it? The staff was quick to clear up any confusion by coming back and asking about our orders if there were any problems anyway. My only beef may have been that our tea was refilled too often, usually more than half still left, and the over-service became somewhat unbearable, but better than none at all.

The menu was simple trial and error. Ambiguous but well stocked, my company and I often had trouble deciphering how much of something we’d get, and often received items feeling foolish, especially when we thought we’d get more in a serving. This problem could have easily been avoided if the already bare menu gave a description of items. My face was red enough when I got what the dessert menu called a sugar ball and what came back as a dollar sized ball of deep fried dough slathered in cheap chocolate sauce. Customers may be familiar with sushi, but not everything on the menu is found at every sushi spot. Speaking of variety, assortment was a refreshing change at O’Yummy Sushi. Aside from offering the obvious, it offered some original ideas like cream cheese filled wantons. Crunchy on the outside, rich and smooth on the inside, it was a Western flavor that amalgamated well into a package from the East. There were other seemingly out of place but well appreciated options, like onion rings and, believe it or not, French fries. I can’t complain. Although at times I often wondered about particular item ideas. Baked mushrooms come to mind. They were nothing more than poorly stemmed mushroom caps baked in an oven sans stuffing or any kind of sauce. And a good amount of roll combinations were almost identical to others. The only difference was maybe one or two ingredients less in a roll or two kinds of rolls combined into one maki reminiscent of what one might see in the drain of a kitchen sink. That sounds harsh, but I never said they tasted bad.

We started our meal with seaweed salad and beef soba noodle soup. The salad was a pleasure. I couldn’t recall the last time I had a seaweed salad with just seaweed. Though a little sweet, I was glad to have found it. My soba on the other hand was a slap in the face. As if trying to pull the noodles over my own eyes, the dish wasn’t the buckwheat noodles I breathlessly expected, but instead the wheat based instant noodles one can expect to find in a tub. Though the stock was sweet and delicate and the beef added a surprising buttery taste to the dish, equivocation is inexcusable and a huge insult to any customer that comes to eat. The menu had other ambiguous names for dishes, like ‘sexy snapper roll’ and ‘ice island roll’. Needless to say, when they came to my table, I couldn’t tell what was potentially sexy or from an island. The salmon roses were actually an example of good culinary presentation: thin slices of fish wrapped around a ball of rice with a dollop of mayonnaise all in attempt to mimic the shape of a rose. Delicious and delicate, each piece demanded a hand gently pick it up; it would otherwise fall apart by way of chopsticks.

O’Yummy’s menu has infinite things to talk about: sweet and pleasing short ribs, an extensive vegetarian menu, pretty garnishes (though tasteless, seemingly tired and dried out, and no doubt prepped ahead of time) that it may just be the saving grace for the all you-can-eat sushi place in town. I can only hope it doesn’t become overwhelmed by an influx of customers in the future and compromise quality. I’m glad to have been humbled by such a seemingly unoriginal place. I’ve disqualified sushi a great deal, and considered O’Yummy just another drop in a pond which to my surprise turned into a great wave off the coast of Kanagawa.

O'Yummy Sushi

646 Erb Street West #101

Waterloo, ON

Phone: (519) 954-6555

Mon – Sat: 11:30 a.m. – 10:30 p.m.

Sun: 11:30 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.

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Straight to Chekhov

Mommy: Whuu! I been up since 9. Mommy glad you're here, baby. Me and Daddy go to bed late last night!

Weezee: What time did you go to bed?

Mommy: We go to bed at 3:30.

Weezee: Mommy, why'd you go to bed so late?

Mommy: We went to a party. I'm a pawwwwty animal. Haha. Mommy is a pawwty animal! You want coffee?


So, again today, I wonder how the hell that woman has so much energy? She went to a party? And she stayed up until 3:30 am! And worked the night before! Probably the whole day! from 9 to 11:30 at night. All I did was tutor some kid for 3 hours, get lectured by a 17 year old about what I'm gonna do with my life for the same amount of time, and attempted to apply for an internship that I probably won't even get! What's more, I fell asleep at like 9:30 in front of my computer. There's a way to spend a Saturday night.

But I'll be reasonable. It wasn't all fun and lame. There is some back story to this otherwise mediocre blog entry - like crying babies, obscure phone calls with Russian Grandmothers, and doors in houses where Russian Grandmothers probably keep crying (deformed monster) babies. But I'll be even more reasonable still. That's only a very small part.

One of the "youths" at the "youth" theatre I volunteer at forgot their wallet after a rehearsal; so, naturally, me, being the trouble maker that I am, volunteered to take the wallet home, hold on to it, and have the actor/actress call me early Saturday morning before I managed my prerequisite 11 hours of sleep after the usual Friday night of work (only a part of my usual 11 hour shift), debauchery, and early morning winding down, usually to some European game show called "Sexy Car Wash" - the name pretty much speaks for itself.

Anyway, call me they did. Needless to say, the conversation was an hour longer than it should have been, and an hour earlier than it should have been too. But it was kinda nice, and to be honest, I'm kinda hopin' I get more. Now it's just a question of finding more forgotten wallets.
I hadn't been out to eat in a while, and by a while I mean one week. Out to eat where you ask? Well, I had passed a place on the outskirts of town called Afro-Bistro several times, and had a hankering for small empty places lit by the seediest red lights you could imagine, and the ladies of the night that probably frequented them - probably for some kind of delicious combo platter including rice, ox tail, and a trick or two. Unfortunately, my friend was stuck studying midterms all weekend, and I was stuck on the phone with a 17 year old. A 17 year old who wouldn't, for the life of me, let me bring her her wallet until I admitted why I wanted to bring her her wallet. Which was, apparently, to see her. What's more, I had (with all intentions) called her "kiddo," which she, on the verge of 18, didn't like too much. Specifically because she was turning 18, sometime soon I'm sure (I should have checked her wallet). So, for the next 30 minutes or so, a little bit after being forcibly put on the phone with her grandmother (which probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't asked what she had been cooking), I ended up spending a good portion of my morning begging the person on the other end to let me bring her wallet to her. Was this a bad breakup? It felt like one. Only I didn't know there was a relationship to begin with, only a wallet I really wanted to return. Apparently, I did want to see her. And talk on the phone for a good hour or so, yelling back and forth, ignoring the bike in the garage and the breaks that needed fixing, and the kid that I needed to get to to tutor, preferably by bike, because my car, which I affectionately nicknamed the Blue Bomber, finally blew, and was hauled to the junk yard the night before. And while I should have been thinking of a productive way out of the situation, all I could think about was sushi and inviting this kid out for sushi in order to get the wallet to her, which, now that I look back on it, has no basis in logic whatsoever. But it worked. And I eventually got the wallet to her. And I eventually got yelled at some more, by her - a 17 year old - for picking her up half an hour late, in the cold (in a car this time - not mine).
So, after some stellar arguments yet again, Tokyo drifting down the mean streets of downtown Kitchener, after stopping off to pick up some groceries (for me mam), and after getting kicked in the heel for taking too long to choose a good MSG free brand of oyster sauce, we were well on our way to choosing where, if anywhere, we wanted to eat that had dead fish. I said Niko's Niko's, she said Ye's; I said tomato, she said, "Fuck you, I want Ye's." That's where I drew the line. The kid would have to pay for her own meal, and "rock, paper, scissors" me for food locale. Unfortunately, I lost. So Ye's it was, and Ye's I will tell you about; though I'm sure you've been to a generic, sub-par, all you can eat sushi place, at least once in your food blog reading lives.

Ye's: an Anagram for "Ey"

Ye's Sushi has two locations: one in the nice, wholesome, sprawled town of Waterloo, Ontario; the other, in the mean streets of downtown Kitchener (beside Waterloo), where homeless like to meet up with friends and talk about who they beat to death with goonie sticks, and alcoholics who like to take time to sit on the street's benches and reflect about the beauty of dusk against the cityscape, all while vomiting furiously. I say it all the time folks, Kitchener is real. And the place with all the best food holes.Now, not to say that Ye's is a bad place, but I would have preferred to write about some place better. And not so generic. That is, Ye's used to be awesome - when it first opened, for its first couple of months, three years ago, when there was no demand, and friends and I could demand every flavour of ice cream and weren't charged for each can of coca-cola that we could knock back - yes, a Hong Konger's dream. UUUU!! And it used to have cool neon signs, and red booths to sit in, a strange buzzing noise, and loud clangs coming from the the kitchen. Now that's character. Now that's gone. There's no obnoxious neon signs - well, there might be one; there's definitely no red booths, and silver diner-esque tables. And that strange buzzing noise? Drowned out by all the people the place is crowded with, which proves that Ye's does well - but that doesn't mean it is well. It's all you can eat, and that's enough to sell anyone who likes to eat. But is it enough for someone who really likes to EAT? Ye's is a restauranter's dream, a foodie's disappointment; overwhelmed by it's own popularity and expansion, catered to faux fads of Asian interior design: bamboo trims, soft cream colours, fung shui, a lucky cat or two - nothing really Japanese about it. Except for the one really tiny picture of Hokusai's Great Wave Off Kanagawa, and the Mandarin speaking wait staff - wait, what? They could at least speak Cantonese - I hear Sushi is uber-popular in Hong Kong - it's true. All my Hong Kong friends told me.But dear readers, I digress, it's all about the food isn't it? Not the fact that I was crammed into a corner beside a table packed with two or three families and their kids, all of whom kept giving me a one over with their strange shifty, baby eyes. Forget the fact that I had no chopsticks, or that me and the 'devoesjka were strangely surprised when we got food we were positive we didn't order. My favourite part though was sitting back to back with a really really big man - who I'm confident was eating alone - and feeling the convulsions in his spine when he swallowed. At one point, I think our chakras aligned and the food actually went down easier.
For the first time in a while, I liked Ye's sushi rolls . . . alot, which is strange because I'm usually such a strict food traditionalist/facist. Raw fish rolled in rice? How unorthodox! But you know, I could have very well felt that way in comparison because the sashimi itself was less than spectacular. White tuna was so wet that it almost felt soggy (how? I dunno) and the surf claim was so dry that maybe, just maybe, if I had combined the two together, and mashed them up into a kind of sashimi pâté, the situation might have jived better. The fatty tuna, too, also had its fair share of problems; but hey, no one expects top quality toro in an all you can eat sushi buffet. No one also expects there to be gray where white should be. The octopus (which was a new item offered on the menu - on weekend's only) was a pleasant change, not as tender as I would have liked it, but at least the suckers made a pleasant little face that said, "hey, how's it going? Your date looks pretty." She wasn't my date octopus, though it would have been nice.


Aside from all this, I'd say anything hot and fried (deep or not) is a good bet; nothing out of the ordinary, but something you can put your lips around. I swear, the kid must have eaten like 10 pieces of shrimp tempura. When it really boils down to it, any buffet is really hit or miss; that's part the fun of eating at them, guessing if you're gonna get something good, that and the crying babies, and the gratuity you pay for not finishing what you order. Awesome.

I would have eaten more, unfortunately someone had a curfew at 7 o'clock on a saturday night. And I was more or less tired of being asked what I intended to do with my life, and why I was 24 and still living at home. I'm almost positive at one point the conversation reared in the direction of me always playing my electric twanger. I was so delirious, I prayed with all my heart Twisted Sister would bust through a door, or wall, or anything and just start shouting, "We're not gonna take it!"

So, after attempting to say, like the Russian's say: "Yanayilsa," poorly written of course, I was "on eating" - eating as much as I could before the kid literally got up out of her seat, went to the register, paid, and complained. She'll make some man very happy someday, if not me.

So that was that. Found a wallet, returned a wallet, ate some sushi, dropped off "young woman," was offered tea by polite Russian Grandmother, politely declined out of teenager's embarrassment and angst, found out teenager didn't tell mother she was with responsible, Onizuka like character, looked like a creeper, and missed a stellar opportunity to discuss Chekhov in the original Russian. I did however, get to see a creepy door that Chekhov probably wrote about and predicted, and that I should not write about at all, it's creepiness being explanation enough.

Will I ever go to Ye's again? Well, let's just say, someone would have to lose a pretty big wallet.

Спокойной ночи и приятных снов!Ye's Sushi103 King W,
Kitchener, ON N2G 1A7
519-568-7566

583 King Street North,
Waterloo, ON N2V 2E5
519-888-6066

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