Food in my Shirt Victoria restaurants

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Hunt for better Sushi - Ebizo Edition

So, as you may have noted, I have given up on Azuma as my go to sushi place. It has been sucking and I just don't have anymore patience for it. Some of my coworkers (the lovely Sara and Nathan)agreed to help me in my search. Our first stop: Ebizo.
Ebizo gets points for being the closest to our actual office but that was really all i knew about it. Nathan joined me for a lunch test.
We decided that we should order the kind of things we always get when out for Japanese so that we could rate it consistently against other places.One of the main points i asked our served about was if they had the "rice with sauce" that i loved so much at Azuma. She said that the sauce was actually their salad dressing but lots of people order it on the rice. Fine by me! nathan had a bento with a miso soup and i had a spicy tune, Dynamite roll and a cucumber roll as well as the above mentioned rice with sauce.
now, i won't rate nathans food as he pointed out to me that he always enjoys food that he doesn't have to make fro himself.
But here are My feelings on the meal:
  • Service: Sucked. that's all. It just sucked. Things came out at the wrong time, we had to wait forever for our bill. I get the feeling that if you are a regular than it works a lot more smoothly...
  • Sushi: I will preface this by saying that i am not an avocado fan. That being said, i know that most people are so i think they would enjoy the sushi i ordered. The dynamite roll was tempura prawn, cucumber and avocado. The Spicy Tuna was thick tuna and big slices of avocado. i prefer cucumber with my spicy tuna because I fine that the crunch is a nice balance for the silkiness of the fish. The rolls were well proportioned, not sliced too thick to get in your mouth (i hate that) and not filled with rice. The ingredients were high quality, though the spicy sauce wasn't much of a stand out. My issue would be that they should list what is in each roll. I simply assumed that a spicy tuna would be cucumber. 
  • The rice with sauce: Why would you put this sauce on a salad. it is really think and rich and the thought of it on a salad makes me a little ill. The sauce is very similar to the one at Azume but a little more oily (since it is a dressing?) and it has a hint of garlic i think. Since it was more oily, i found it a little bland but a little soy sauce seemed to do the trick. It was only $1 so it was a great deal but not as good as Azuma used to be.
So is this the best that the City has to offer? I suppose it's possible. It's better than Azuma is now, but not nearly as good as it used to be (am i living in the past?). Oh well, onward in our hunt for Victoria's best sushi!

Ebizo Sushi on Urbanspoon

3 comments:

  1. I'm not sure what sauce you got on your rice, but they have a sauce that goes on the cabbage and on the tataki that is very good. Its creamy and not oily. Also I find the spicy sauce not spicy enough so I get an extra side, which is free.

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  2. I suggest you try Chikara next. It's a little out of the way for some people (near the Canadian Tire and Lifestyles Market on Douglas St), but worth the trip. The food tastes great, and served in large portions, so you get what you're paying for. The service is good. The atmosphere is quiet and private.

    And the Spicy Tuna roll there is awesome!! I'm not sure if they have the same rice sauce that Azuma has though, didn't check. I'm guessing you're referring to the sesame one?

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  3. okay, Ebizo has been our go to place for sushi for about 10 years and as we are considered regulars we never have a problem with the service, but they can be distracted and inconsistent. However, the food is the absolute best sushi I have ever had. I love the sauce so much that I actually take it home for my salad dressing. The best tuna tataki, hamachi and salmon. The fish is so fresh it just melts in your mouth and the reason I go for sushi is because I can't do it as well at home, so service is not an issue. If you want consistently good sushi, I highly recommend Ebizo besides, if you don't get there before 5:15 or have a reservation, you are going to have to wait, that tells a lot.

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