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| - Kyoto House Japanese Restaurant is located directly on the south-west corner of Elizabeth and Dundas amids a myriad of Asian eateries. Besides very limited street parking (read: don't count on it), there are only expensive lots nearby (one just on the south-side of Bay). Kyoto specializes in AYCE (All You Can Eat) Japanese food including sushi, rolls, and a small assortment of cooked food for $12 at lunch. This forgettable, obesity-inducing, Japano-Clone offers bland dishes that barely scratch the surface for sushi craving customers.
Kyoto's decor is a waste of the otherwise ideal location, with large window frontage of both Elizabeth and Dundas. A small sushi bar sits in the corner with square tables evenly distributed and configured in 4s and 6s throughout. I honestly have very little recollection anything besides that.
For the AYCE lunch, you are presented with a small "menu" (a slip of paper) which you are to write numbers beside the items. Most common items are present. Salmon, red snapper, white tuna, "crab" and others are accounted for. A small section of rolls also runs down the favorites like California, salmon, spicy crab, etc. Finally the "cooked" section includes chicken teriaki, pork cutlet, dumplings (gyoza), Mizo soup, green salad and ice cream. Not present are staples like shrimp tempura, hand-rolls, beef ribs, beef teriaki, and egg sushi (ebi?).
The Mizo was quite good as my co-worker had 3 bowls. The salad was topped with a sweet white thousand-island like sauce which was interesting but not good. The fried stuff came out next like the dumplings and spring rolls and they were a charred mess. Next came the salmon sushi that was merely a blob of rice with a thin-cut deli-style sliver of salmon sitting on top. Terrible.
Service was laughable, with the "waitress" insisting that we we finish eating everything off our plates with no wastage. We literally had 2 sushis left. Needless to say there was no tip left for these angry, non-attentive, sour ladies. Clearly the owners of this restaurant care little else than providing the lowest possible quality in volume and turning over as many customers as possible.
Why is it so hard to find a decently priced AYCE Japanese restaurant downtown? North of the city they are plentiful and good. Stay away from this appalling "Japanese" resaturant.
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