S was craving AYCE so we decide to check out Oishii Sushi for some Saturday night all you can eat festivities. Holy crap, why is this place so busy? We arrived at 6:00pm and had to wait about 10-15 minutes to grab a table. Seriously? I don’t understand.
Prices depend on age and when you come in. Lunch time is $16.99 for 14 and over ($17.99 on weekends) and dinner time is either $27.99 or $32.99 (for the deluxe premium menu). Pretty standard pricing for AYCE. Is it worth it? Read on grasshopper.
$1.00 for toro is pretty decent but you might as well just upgrade and get the deluxe premium menu as it’s included there.
The menu is massive and has everything under the sun. Great if you like variety. Not so great if you like quality.
There is a separate deluxe menu ($5.00 extra) where you can order extra items.
On the back, each person is allowed to order only two of the items. If you look closely, there’s two things on the menu here that’s on the regular menu. Are they tricking regular people here? Be smart and order the good stuff.
Salmon and tuna sashimi
If there’s anything you need to order at Oishii, this is it. The salmon was hands down everyone’s favourite item. Fresh and great quality for an AYCE. The tuna was medicore – several cuts were icy and still half frozen. There’s 10 pieces of each here. Note, slices are small and thinly sliced compared to normal. Order lots!
We definitely got a second round. Or three. 🙂
Tuna tataki, Alaska snow crab and sashimi salad
Lightly seared tuna sashimi drizzled with chef’s special sauce. This was delicious. The snow crab legs were small but sweet and succulent. You’ll have to do a bit of work to get out the meat but it’s worth it. The assorted sashimi green salad with house salad dressing was standard.
Enoki beef rolls
Grilled green onion wrapped with beef strips. I love enoki but the beef wrapped around it was gross. Stale, overcooked and dry. Skip it.
Sashimi sunomono
Prawn/octopus/surf clam/red onion and glass noodles in a sweet vinaigrette.
Oyster motoyaki
Grilled oyster on shell with homemade creamy mayo paste. You can only order maximum 2/person so we got the max! Incredibly hot so let it cool down before popping them into your mouth.
Beef tataki
Thinly sliced kobe style beef with green and red onion drizzled in ponzu sauce. We tried all three types of tataki’s.
Scallop karaage and spicy chili tofu
Deep fried scallops and deep fried tofu topped with spicy mayo sauce. Nicely fried but smothered in sauce.
Oishii mayo shrimp
Grilled prawn with Oishii special mayo paste. Think peaches and cream sauce that you get at Chinese restaurants. Same thing. Shrimp were good, sauce a little too creamy.
Hiyashi wakame salad
Seasoned seaweed with a sesame flavour topped with sesame seeds. Seaweed salad is the best. We got two orders. Love that texture to smithers.
Special scallop sushi, ebi, unagi and tako nigiri
We picked a couple variety of nigiri to get. Just mediocre.
Lamb skewers, yakitori and assorted vegetable tempura
Grilled lamb on sticks with cumin seeds and peppers (left) and chicken, green onion skewers topped with teriyaki sauce (right). Chicken was good, lamb was dry. Assorted vegetable tempura (background) consisted of zucchini, broccoli, pumpkin and yam. It came without the usual sweet sauce, which it desperately needed.
Toro and hamachi sashimi
We all picked the same specials from the chef specials menu. Savour your one piece maximum of each!
Saba
Traditional style grilled mackerel. Small piece but half decent.
Spicy salmon and spicy tuna roll
Spicy mayo, salmon/white tuna, cucumber and sesame. Again, just sauce drizzled everywhere.
Lobster roll
Tempura lobster tail, flying fish roe, avocado, cucumber and topped with mustard mayo sauce. Didn’t have much lobster in it and massive rolls of rice. Blah.
Unagi cone
I think this was an unagi cone? Honestly, I don’t remember.
Hot and sour soup
Tofu, bamboo, black fungus, egg and carrot. This looks like crap and taste matched.
Salmon tataki
Lightly seared salmon drizzled with house citrus sauce. Another tasty tataki.
Salmon yukke
A Korean style poke if you will. We found the sauce a tad too sweet for our liking.
Creamy yaki udon
Stir fry udon noodles with cabbage, onions, green onion and carrots topped with sesame seeds. Sauce was overpoweringly creamy.
Shrimp skewer and geso calamari skewers
Shrimp were good. The calamari took a long time to chew…
Green tea and vanilla ice cream
You can never go wrong with green tea. They also have strawberry (the fake strawberry tasting kind) and vanilla.
Closeup of the green tea. Great way to end our meal.
Crispy bananas
This wasn’t what I was expecting but it’s basically deep fried banana tempura. Go with the ice cream.
We ate a loooooooot of food. Think we finished with four full orders. You can never get your money’s worth from AYCE but we gave it our best shot. I doubt I’ll be coming back anytime soon but if you do, order smartly and get the salmon sashimi. A lot of it.
Oishii Sushi
http://www.oishiisushi.ca/
#338, 8338 – 18 Street SE
Calgary, AB
(403) 475-8333
