| rev:text
| - Sigh. I've never been to the other locations in Van, so I can only write based on my experience here + the quality of their food and beverages.
Let's start with the food: Honestly, average westernized Japanese fare. On par with most of the other average sushi places in Calgary, but with the markup of the higher end places. I've had better Maki at Co-op, so I probably wouldn't go out of my way to come here for that. I do appreciate that they had GF soy sauce, though.
The cocktails are where they shined. I ordered the Hello Kitty and had a sip of my friend's pear martini, and someone's Ginger Kitty (basically a Moscow mule). The Hello Kitty had strawberry purée and vodka, and while it (presentation-wise) looked like something you'd see at a bar that serves pre-made mixes at a 1000% markup; it was actually really fresh tasting and refreshing. It was pretty enough that other people ordered one after mine came to the table.
Now on to the service: My friend had called in advance to make the reservation and request the $35 tasting menu (prixe-fixe?). They refused to accommodate her request to swap out 2 of the pork items on the menu for her, but she didn't fuss about it, as there were plenty of other people at the table that don't have cultural restrictions. They did let me pick items off of the regular menu rather than the prixe-fixe, as I'm vegan and have a severe gluten intolerance.
The first waitress was pleasant enough, and even kneeled down next to me to show me which items were friendly. We told her at the beginning of the evening that we were paying our bills separately, as the manager told us to do exactly that when the reservation was made, and she assured us it was no problem.
However, she failed to let us know that she was nearing the end of her shift. Halfway through service, she seemed to be tag-teaming with another waitress without letting the other waitress know about any of our needs. I had my menu taken away 3x, even though I was clearly still reading it.
- Not a huge deal, I guess. I get things abruptly taken from my hands all the time because people assume I'm sleeping, but really it's because I'm Asian. -
Waitress 1 didn't pass any of her notes to Waitress 2, Waitress 2 seemed frazzled and awkward and by the end of the evening was taking out her frustration on our table. She seemed really annoyed that we wanted separate bills, and her solution to this was to hand us separate bills for food, but one bill for drinks. The above sentence took 20 minutes. I know, because I kept checking my phone as I had another event to get to. The gratuity was included, so I paid my bill and after the debit machine made its loop around the table; headed out the door to change in to an outfit for my other engagement.
15 minutes later, I walked back and noticed my friends still standing around inside the restaurant. I went inside to say goodnight, and heard they had been accused of short changing their bill by $62. As I had witnessed each person pay according to the bills they received, this was clearly due to the waitress forgetting to include items on the bill. Remember, the 18% gratuity was included, as we were a group of 8, so it wasn't because someone forgot to tip. The waitress' confusion and frustration came to a head as other people in the group took out their phones and started showing her calculations as well as their receipts. How we could've been short $62 - UNLESS - items were left off the bill SHE prepared for us is beyond me. The recalculations by our table brought the total to exactly what we ordered + $3 so one of us offered our waitress a fiver, but she refused and kept insisting on the $62.
My friend voiced her disappointment with the manager who was brought in. He seemed irritated and did nothing to hide this, and gave my friend abrupt responses. Still, he too recalculated the bill, and also got the original total + $3, so again the $5 was offered. Again, we paid the bills we received, so we were NOT attempting to short change anyone, but the waitress was still confused, though the $5 bill was finally accepted.
---
TL;DR This is an overpriced sushi joint with less than stellar service. Next time: Kinjo.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)