Friday, May 7, 2010

Yoshi Sushi - 771 Vernon Ave, across for Saanich Municipal Hall

Sheila and I decided to grab some lunch out today and opted for Yoshi Sushi in the Gateway Centre between Vernon and Douglas.  

I have seen this strip mall area for years but never been in there.   I had heard there was a decent sushi place in there, but it was never top of mind when going out.   Today it made sense as we were over at Mackenzie and Shelbourne.

The plaza was clearly intended to be a retail location, but almost every storefront was more of an office than anything remotely retail.   Several government offices are located here.    Yoshi Sushi is located in the southeast corner and has lots of space to park - one of the reasons I vetoed going downtown for lunch.

Yoshi Sushi is relatively big inside and has a lot of tatami rooms.   The sushi is made upfront in view of everyone, something I always like in sushi place.  

We ordered a decent selection of maki and shared a large Sapporo beer.  The spicy scallop was the best of the lot.   The prawn tempura roll was too big and not well formed, it was clumsy to eat it, one piece was the end of piece you would normally discard as the trimmings.   We also noticed that the nori on many of the maki was torn.  It looked like someone was rushed and made basic mistakes.   We also had a spicy salmon roll, great flavour, but the pieces were not consistent in size.   There was also a problem with the coverage of the rice on the outside, there were spots that were spotty.

The flavour was decent enough, but not something better than other places in town.  The price is a bit on the more expensive side, though not unreasonable.   Our meal was $44 before tip, $9 of that was the beer.

On my number one scale to judge a restaurant - "could I do better at home?" - Yoshi does not pass.

If you are going to have a website, try to update your stuff once in awhile.    The events page has the last event in 2005.  Online they also offer a sushi club which entitles you to a 15% discount.

Yoshi Sushi on Urbanspoon

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