Prior to going to this next restaurant, I did some research online on this establishment to see what this place was like. What I found oddly enough was that one either loved this place or that they really, really hated this place. I found this to be strange as I had never seen such extremes for one restaurant before. After reading all the comments, a group of eight of us decided to give it a try last night and made reservations prior to going.
Although it was a Saturday evening, we didn't find the place to be busy at all. The restaurant was only half full when we walked through the doors. They offered us a choice of all you can eat buffet or a la carte, and on this evening we decided to go with the all you can eat buffet style so that we could try a little bit of everything on their menu. Scanning their menu, it stated that they had over 100 items to serve however as the night progressed, we wondered if that was actually true or not.
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| Complimentary Sashimi Starter Tray |
As we placed our first order of the night, we were told that our table was going to get a 15% discount. Why, I have no idea, although I did have my reasons by the end of the evening. Prior to getting our first order, they provided us with a special-made, on the house shrimp tempura. It was battered differently where I believe they used a bit of coconut oil and yam strips to bread the shrimp. It actually tasted very good and it was a nice way to start the evening. Another on the house complimentary dish that soon followed was a sashimi tray which included salmon, butter fish, octopus, shrimp and surf clams. The butter fish, octopus, shrimp and surf clams were all nice and fresh however the salmon were much thicker, not as "orange" as some of the other salmon sashimi that we had seen before and was actually a little bland.
As the night wore on, we ordered quite a few more items including sushi, hand rolls, beef ribs, tempura and meat wraps. We also ordered a couple of udons and noodles for the little ones to eat as well. However, as more and more of their dishes came out, I soon realized where all the negative comments were coming from.
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| Shrimp Tempura |
For starters, the beef ribs were a mess, literally. I am sure many of you have had ribs elsewhere where there is a solid piece of meat wrapped around the bones. The beef rib that they served here was "shredded" and it looked like a pile of rags when it came out. It looked as if it had gone through a blender before it was given to us. The sushi and the hand rolls were also average at best. Once again, the quality of the rice is very important. If you serve sushi with "wet" rice, the sushi will taste "soggy". Although I was sure that the sushi was fresh, the wet rice feel sure will make one question as to whether this was actually the case or not. As bad as it had been, the kicker of the night however had to be the fact that it seemed like any time we ordered something off their menu, it was either sold out or it was not available because the items were "limited edition". For example, we wanted a second order of the surf clams, octopus and shrimp sashimi and we were told that we were not allowed because it was only available in the starters tray. The specially made shrimp tempura was also limited to just the starter tray only. There were about five or six other items that were either sold out that evening as well. Looking around, it sure didn't look that busy to have items to be sold out. They might have over 100+ items on their menu but it sure seemed like only half of it was available to order that evening.
I won't go through every single I item that we had ordered as that could take all night however what I have written pretty much summed up the night. The food was average at best outside of the complimentary starters and service was so-so. A coke I ordered took over 15 minutes to arrive. At the end of the night, they even brought us the wrong receipt. My guess was that the 15% off was to compensate for all the missing items on their menu. Who knows. Fifteen minutes prior to closing time, they were already starting to dim the lights, shut off the music and ushering us out the door. This restaurant is not conveniently located and if you don't have a car, it would be quite difficult for one to get there. For one to have to travel to such a remote area, I would have expected quality service and food and unfortunately this was not the case. The cost was $22.99 per person this evening. Compared to the all you can eat restaurant I had blogged about 1-2 weeks ago, it was certainly almost night and day. I see where all the negative comments came from. Overall I give it a 2.75 out of 5.
Kaze Japanese Cuisine
1285 Elgin Mills Rd E Richmond Hill, ON L4S 2V9
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