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| - ***1/2 STARS
I am not usually a fan of stuffing myself silly at AYCE (All-You-Can-Eat) places, but when I do I usually opt for a sushi joint. I've been to quite a few in the GTA and the reviews are all over the map. When it comes to AYCE sushi joints, you should keep the following in mind:
Chinese-owned
10% automatic gratuity
Variable service (e.g. Sometimes its really good, and sometimes
you have to re-order half the things you originally ordered because they "forgot" about it)
Inconsistency in food (e.g. The same beef short ribs you had last time that were amazingly good, this time around - are not)
Yang's came up on my Yelp app, so I decided to give it a try. Otherwise, my default go-to place was Prince Sushi - at least when I'm in the west end. The interior decor is quite modern - reminiscent of a Milestones or Moxies say. The chairs are presumably faux leather as are the booth seats, with dark brown tables. The restaurant itself is quite spacious. It is located inside of a Chinese strip mall that is also home to many other eateries and a supermarket. Parking is plentiful.
Things I liked about this place:
Sushi here is not 80% rice and 20% filing - this allows you to sample more things and not fill up on rice
Extensive menu save for the dessert items which are a grand total of 3
Breaded items are not too oily
Gratuity is not automatically added to the bill
Clean washrooms
Things I disliked about this place:
Scant dessert menu
Random service (e.g. At the beginning the food was coming out expeditiously and then there was a random interval of 15 minutes where we were chewing on our chopsticks)
Minor details (e.g. They brought our sushi, and we had to ask for the wasabi - that's like serving me fries with no ketchup! And when they did finally bring us wasabi, it was a small dollop of it. Is wasabi more expensive post-Earthquake now? Me thinks not!)
Their sashimi is some of the freshest I've had from an AYCE, and their sushi rolls were all delicious, and as I mentioned, not just mouthfuls of rice. The sushi chefs here are great as all the rolls stayed in one piece and didn't fall apart on me.
We were offered 2 complimentary scallops dressed with mayonnaise and fish roe - these were nothing special and the scallops were made from frozen and overcooked. I know, how ungrateful am I to be complaining about "free" food!
I would recommend the following items: Yang's Roll, Spicy Crispy Butter Fish (Tuna) Roll, Soft Shell Crab Roll, Black Dragon Roll, Salmon Roses, Takoyaki, Butter Fish & Salmon Sashimi, and the Short Ribs. The short ribs were the melt-in-your-mouth kind of tender and although flavourful, it was lacking the charred flavour that I seek in a good short rib.
I would warn against the following: Onion Tempura, Salmon Neck (not my selection), Sole Fish Fillet, and the Fried Calamari. In short, I found all of their battered items to be bland and boring. To elaborate, we took one bite of the calamari and stopped eating it - even the mayonnaise couldn't save this dish. The calamari was also too chewy which added more to the yuck factor.
Although I wouldn't blacklist their Teppanyaki Sirloin Beef Cubes (aka Garlic Beef), I did find it to be a tad salty. Their Unagi Sushi also tasted a bit weird, but when the BBQ eel made a reappearance as a component of the Black Dragon Roll it tasted fine. Maybe it was just that piece?
Verdict:
As common practice at AYCE restaurants, weekends are more expensive ($25.99 vs. $22.99) for dinner. My opinion is that Yang's is a good quality AYCE restaurant - just stay away from their tempura items. The sashimi is fresh and the rolls don't skimp on filling and overfill you on rice. Service was good for the most part, until the kitchen started halting our orders. This was probably for the better anyways as we ended up cancelling some items that we originally ordered for the sake of getting uncomfortably full. I would definitely come back to Yang's when I'm in the west end.
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