itamae AYCE Sushi

Im a huge fan of sushi&sashimi (eat sushi prob 2~3 times a week). I have been most of sushi restaurants in KW region and I am 100% sure that this restaurant is the worst one i have experienced in my life. This place should not be called «restaurant». Not only their foods taste like shit but also the service. I dont know how Makkiman could make that kind of weird taste of sushi with great food sources like salmon.
I hope ppl go to 168 or sushi99 for much much better experience, not itame.

Before going into the actual quality of the sushi, I’ll briefly talk about everything else. The décor, service and speed of service is fine and the price is essentially the same as most other AYCE sushi places in KW. The appetizers weren’t too much worse either but some items, such as the deep fried scallops (which were thin and dry), were underwhelming to say the least but for the most part, the appetizers were alright. That being said, the problem with this place is its lacklustre sushi. The construction of the sushi was awful — the pieces were falling apart and crumbling while still in the platter and lacked the finesse that other sushi places put into the construction that makes the sushi look appealing. I would have preferred the extra wait on our order if it meant the sushi wouldn’t be falling apart. In addition to that, the ingredients were anything but fresh and tasted old, like they had been purchased and stored for weeks in a freezer before actually being used. The crab meat tasted sweet, the rice was hard and dry and all of the various fish meats tasted aged. I wouldn’t recommend this place, especially since there are a number of better options nearby at the same price point.

I came here with intent to take advantage of their cheap lunch prices. Having come here before I already had presumptions about the quality of their food and service but today I was deeply disappointed in the food.
Poor sushi quality, a confused menu offering dim sum in a sushi restaurant, cold tempura, and other disgraceful attempts at being an AYCE sushi place.
The wait staff had a few blunders at our table, one occasion almost tipping a tray of food onto me, and another where we stacked our finished plates to the side of the table, and when the waitress came to clean up, she literally slide the stack into my arm.
All said and done, I will never return to this establishment again and hope they improve their foundation of being a sushi restaurant first before trying to embarrass themselves with feeble attempts at other ethnic cuisines such as dimsum and padthai

I kind of have mixed feelings about itamae. First of all, I read something that said they once had bugs? I have never heard of this from anyone first hand but a lot of people have told me this actually happened. Second, one time I went in their salad dressing must have gone bad because there was something SERIOUSLY off about it and I tried ordering a new one 3 different times. The staff did not understand what I was saying when I tried to explain the dressing had gone bad
However, that second point happened a while ago and I have gone in without issue since. It truly is the most convenient location for students which is why it is always packed despite there being better sushi just up the road.
The iPad is nice and the staff is usually pretty quick. Food is decent but nothing great.

Service: Quick
Atmosphere: Casual conversational
Food: Decent
Would Return: yes
This is my usual sushi place as the service and food is usually pretty good and at a fair price. I hadn’t been there in a while as I’ve been checking out whatever K/​W has to offer, but we heard there was new items on their menu and decide to swing back in for a night.
As usual we were seated right away to the idle chatter of other guests and drink orders taken. We checked out their new items and were pleased to find some interesting dishes available. Now I’m not going to pretend to remember exactly what they were or how to spell them as that would just be insulting.
Our initial order came out quicker than usual and unfortunately it seemed like today was going to be an off day for us. There were some that were great like the shrimp and mushroom tempura, but others just seemed bland.
Usually the rolls and sushi here have great flavours that mix well and pop out but just not tonight. Even our regular orders left us wanting something more.
In the end it was a disappointing night but we will be returning as Itamae has earned some credit in the past.

Good place, nice food, especially avocado eel cheese sushi! With good service, and food coming very quickly!

Thy are alright. Went there often until I heard they failed the health test … haven’t went back since. Maybe in a year I’ll look into it again and see if they have cleaned up there act.

Ever since the reddit post about how a student found bugs in their sashimi, I was hesitant on coming back to Itamae. But it has been over half a year now, and I was craving AYCE sushi so I went, and it honestly wasn’t bad at all!
Their sashimi is much better now, more fresh and very delicious. Their sushi and rolls are pretty good. I also like how they’ve added new items to their menu, like two dim-​sum dishes, random but good. I recommend their salmon and red tuna sashimi, eel sushi, and black dragon roll! The mutton skewers and short ribs were also really good.
The ambiance and décor of the place is also really nice. The cutlery and dishes they use are nice and the iPads are great! They’ve even gotten new stands for the iPads that makes the iPads super convenient to use and share among people at your table.

I have been to a number of AYCE places in my lifetime and Itamae is unfortunately one of the bad ones I remember. At such a prime location on the corner of King/​University, they serve mediocre food and fish that is noticeably not the freshest. Their service is decent but I find the iPad ordering system tacky and the staff still managed to mess up our orders.

Pros: Conveniently located near the universities, they serve red tuna sashimi as part of the AYCE menu (which a lot of restaurants in the area don’t)
Cons: Mediocre sushi, slow service, THEY CHARGE FOR TEA! What kind of person opens an Asian restaurant and charges for tea?

Don’t go. Ever seen one of those articles about how someone who ate sashimi got worms? I wouldn’t put it past them.

Had a great time last and every time I have gone. The service is good and the iPad service is fun. The sashimi is just amazing and would go there only for that, but everything else is delicious and enjoy their sushi.

It’s conveniently located in King and University that is close to university. They also use ipad for ordering, which is unique.
However, their sushi is nothing much to talk about. The quantity of food is not as ordered and it can be often a long wait before the food come.
They don’t give free tea, which is quite a bummer.

The rice didn’t have any of the vinegar mix (whatever) flavour. Pizzas tasted terrible, 2 stars for fresh sashimi! Ipad ordering confused us the ipad clearly said call server for any allergies they need to be aware of, but actually you had to call a server every time you wanted to reorder.

As someone who basically only eats sashimi when going out for an all you can eat sushi dinner, this place was pretty decent.
Their sashimi tasted fairly good and fresh. I’ve had better fish from O’Yummy and other sushi places, but for how close this place was to campus, their sushi was alright. The grading on the salmon was decent, and their tuna was not bad.
Their service was pretty great. You order from iPads and the food comes out really fast compared to traditionally giving in paper order slips and having to wait for the waiters to come pick it up. I must have made at least 10 different orders, and the food always came pretty promptly.
Though on the downside they barely put any fish into their hand rolls or specialty rolls, and filled up most of it with rice, but if you just order the sashimi, it’s pretty tasty meal!
Might try other sushi places next time, but id definitely helps that this place is walking distance from campus.

It’s a lot bigger inside than what it looks like from the outside. Décor is quite nice and fairly upscale. Seats were comfy. They use iPads to order. $ 25 AYCE dinners. I thought the food was pretty good and worth the money.
There are certain dishes that you probably shouldn’t bother ordering (such as the apple pie), but other dishes that are fan favourites. I liked the wakame salad, all the rolls except the Itamae Roll. The Itamae roll had big hunks of cream cheese in the center that made it pretty difficult to chew and swallow. The ice cream is pretty good. Keep ordering those. The fried udon dishes are pretty good. The chinese dishes are too greasy, like the grilled eggplant.
Their «pizza» dishes are pretty good. It’s a deep fried hash brown (with rice instead of potato) and topped with salmon or avocado or whatever and sauced. It is surprisingly good. I should have ordered more.
The wakame salad was reasonable. The california roll and other rolls were satisfactory. I think coming here and ordering the rolls is a good way to get filled up fast with stuff that is reasonably decent tasting.
I ordered a slice of several of their sashimi. Each piece was really small, maybe 2 cm squared at most, but tasted ok. At a lot of places in this area, ordering an assorted sashimi plate would cost $ 15, so just getting this much was already bank.
They keep filling your water cuz they want you to be full with the free water than with the food. A lot of the dishes tasted saltier, maybe to get you to drink more water too.

Not a whole lot to say, as it was a typical ayce sushi place. I thought the quality of the fish was better than a fair amount of other sushi places in the area, but definitely not exceptional by any means.
I was really disappointed by the desserts, as the egg tart and apple pie were flavourless. However, the fried banana and ice cream were pretty good.
Overall, an average place to eat at.

Being from the West/​Pacific coast, I have pretty high standards for good sushi. My general opinion: AYCE has skimpy portions and terrible overall quality, mediocre service, restricted options, is overpriced, and is pretty much only good for a large group outing due to its convenience. Raw food has to be quality fresh, you know? Every time someone invites me for AYCE sushi (especially somewhere far from the ocean, like Ontario), I do cringe a little.
That being said, Itamae does quite well by local standards. Cool modern ambiance, very convenient location for students, relatively user-​friendly touchscreen ordering system (visuals for all items, and ability to change order quantity is helpful for customizing within large groups), service can be a little off when things get busy but the food itself is not bad. Perhaps it’s the mix-​and-​matching in their rolls that disguises the diminished quality of the fish itself, but they do a decently good job of it.

Very polished interior décor, fairly clean. Great location, meaning it gets busy. Sometimes you can wait up to 20 mins depending on group size. They don’t take names when doing reservations for some reason, they go by phone numbers. They have messed up our reservation on one occasion, but they let us be at the front of the line when it happened.
The iPad ordering system is a good concept in theory but has a ton of issues. First of all, if you are in a large group, you need to pass the iPad around to allow people to select what they want, especially for those who have never seen the menu or don’t go to AYCE sushi often. There are a couple iPad minis, but most of them are the original iPad with a large heavy case, so it gets bothersome passing it around all the time.
Also, you still have to get the waiter/​waitresses’ attention when you have placed an order for them to confirm the order. There is a timer on the system for 2 minutes, where after 2 min, the order will automatically go through. I believe the timer is there for you to change your mind before then.
There are also some issues with the iPad system that we had on one occasion — the order automatically went through without our prompt. This was fairly bothersome because we weren’t sure if the order was actually placed or if we needed to re-​order.
From my observations, their main priority is getting the dishes to various tables. If they would do a quick glance at each table before walking away, that’d be great.
In terms of speed: the food seems to come pretty quick despite how busy they are all the time.
Pricing is fairly standard across all major AYCE sushi places.
Quality: Obviously not spectacular but you really can’t expect that much from AYCE. PS. The Pink Lady tastes extremely watered down, I do not recommend it.
All in all, a decent sushi option near Laurier and UW.

Not impressed with this new iteration of order-​style AYCE sushi from the owners of what used to be Ye’s Sushi (now Ye’s Buffet). The restaurant is notably smaller than Ye’s Sushi/​Buffet and Sushi 99.
The restaurant uses iPads as part of its menu and ordering system. It’s great that there’s now a picture and full description of each roll, but the selection is much more limited than it used to be at the old Ye’s Sushi. The food is not as good as I remembered from the old Ye’s Sushi and it took a lot longer to come out too!
I would suggest skipping Itamae and heading north to Sushi 99 instead if you like everything quick and freshly-​made, or Ye’s Buffet if it is not busy and you like the convenient buffet-​style format. Itamae has nothing really going for it other than a convenient location near Wilfrid Laurier University.