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| - Sigh. Aji Sai. Where do I start.
First, I live down the street from Aji Sai, so I enjoy it, and frequent this place because of the convenient location. I've eaten here many, MANY times - I would say that I go AT LEAST once a month.
Next - AYCE. Love this. There are quite a number of other sushi places along Queen Street - some look a bit sketchy so I avoid them. As for the more presentable looking ones, they don't have AYCE, which I prefer which is another reason I choose to go to Aji Sai.
The food - always great quality. Well, for the most part. Last time I was there I ordered the chicken katsu and my boyfriend ordered (I think) sweet and sour chicken and the chicken katsu wasn't very satisfying. There was more batter than chicken, and the whole thing just tasted of deep fried batter, and it looked as if the oil had not been changed in a while maybe. Looks like the sweet and sour chicken had been fried in the same oil, and it looked quite greasy. Speaking of deep fried, that's not to say, however that their tempura isn't great, because it always is! Love the shrimp tempura here and the batter is always crispy and it looks like the tempura is fried in clean oil.
More often than not, this place is packed and in those cases you will have to wait a little to be seated (about 10 - 15 mins typically). The lineup grows quickly and the line tends to get a bit disorganized as they don't usually take names (they just ask for number of people).
Now, the service. Every time I come here and experience the service, I always wonder why I keep coming back. It's like I choose to forget about the terrible service because the food is always so satisfying. However, the last time I was there, the service seemed exceptionally terrible. The servers always tend to look miserable and often seem to have a sour attitude about them. As previously mentioned, I have been here a countless number of times, and last week was the first time I saw a friendly, seemingly happy server at this restaurant. I remember making a comment to my boyfriend about how surprisingly friendly she was, as it was very rare to see servers like that at Aji Sai. When I think about that conversation, it blows my mind as friendly service should be standard, not an exception! Come to think of it, I didn't recognize her so I wonder if she is new.
It seems they don't have one dedicated server per table/section, so when it gets particularly busy (which is often) you'll have about 3 different servers providing you with half-assed service. On my last visit, we placed our first order shortly after being seated, and only moments after had a second waiter attempt to take our order. On our second order, we had ordered the cheese wontons and it was served to us - no joke - 30 seconds after the order was placed. I'm pretty sure our waiter hadn't even put the order in, but a server already brought us the wontons. 5 minutes later, another serving of wontons came out and we had to let them know that we had already gotten them. On the other hand, sometimes they will forget to bring you part of your order as well (or perhaps it is served to another table by accident). This has happened to me on a few visits. Last time I was there I ordered shrimp tempura with my first order with waiter #1, and it never came. Someone from the kitchen came out to serve us something from our second order, and so we asked her about the shrimp tempura and she said she would check on it and retreated back into the kitchen never to be seen again. We then asked waiter #1 about it again, and he said that it was on its way. After about 15 more minutes, we asked waiter #2 about it, and she said she would check on it (at this point we had already finished everything else we had ordered). After about 10 more minutes, we got so fed up with waiting that we just asked for the bill and told them to forget about the shrimp tempura, and waiter #2 said "It's coming out right away. I just put the order in. Didn't you just order it?" to which I had to let her know that I had ordered it when I first sat down, about an hour earlier. I also know that the table next to us had ordered sushi pizza which never came out as well. At the end of their meal the waiter had asked them if they ever received it, and they told him that they hadn't and that they figured it was just forgotten, so they no longer wanted it and had him cancel it so they could get their bill.
Aji Sai really has the food part in the bag. If they could just improve their service (and I'm talking a major improvement), I'd give it 5 stars. Unfortunately, I'm sure as hell not "teaching them a lesson" by going back time and time again despite the terrible service, so I guess what difference does it make to them? As long as they get my money (and clearly a lot of other people's money), I'm sure they're happy and feel as though they're doing everything right.
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