All-You-Can-Eat Sushi Quest: Wasabi Asian Cuisine
Lunch: $14.99 + tax
Dinner: $23.99 + tax (add $1 Fri-Sun)
10% off when paying cash
Types of Sushi: nigiri, hand rolls, maki, sushi pizza
Sashimi Options: 6 (salmon, butterfish, surf clam, red snapper, egg, surimi “crab”)
House Special Rolls available: 13
Vegetarian Options: 11 rolls, 5 nigiri (+egg)
Tempura Options: sweet potato, crab stick, shrimp, surimi “scallop”, onion, assorted vegetable
Kitchen Selections: teppanyaki, udon, fried rice, donburi, spring rolls, gyoza, agedashi tofu, skewers, deep fried chicken
Dessert: green tea and black sesame ice cream*, tempura banana w/ ice cream
* ice cream was unavailable (apparently they often run out)
Sackville’s Wasabi Asian Cuisine has a clean, bright dining room adorned with paper lanterns and koi fish murals. The service was friendly and prompt. The menu was somewhat limited.
Gyoza (Japanese dumplings) were surprisingly deep fried rather than pan fried as per the usual expectation. The merits of this cooking method I’ll leave to personal preferences (I prefer pan fried), but the ground pork filling was tasty.
Agedashi tofu is deep fried tofu in a dashi-based sauce This was the best agedashi tofu I’ve ever had (for whatever that’s worth).
I’m more inclined to fill up on sashimi and sushi than on kitchen selections – but others are keen on the latter. My reports tell me that, Wasabi Asian Cuisine is doing a fine job on the teppanyaki, skewers and tempura. To me these are just fillers that distract from the main event.
We ordered a dish simply called “Deep Fried Chicken” that I was hoping was actually chicken karaage. And maybe it was, but it was such a small portion cut into such small strips that it stripped away my enjoyment. The chicken teppanyaki was presented similarly. Most enjoyable was the shrimp teppanyaki.
The salmon and butterfish sashimi were highlights of the meal. They were fresh tasting, and of good temperature and cut. There is no restriction on sashimi consumption as far as I could tell, which is good news. However, tuna is not an option, which is bad news.
Tuna did make an appearance in several rolls, but it was largely absent from the menu.
Also, be careful when gorging on all-you-can-eat butterfish, as this is actually mislabeled escolar (much thanks to @johalifax for pointing this out). Escolar is delicious but can cause a condition known as keriorrhea, which you can read about it here.
One of my favourite types of sushi is tamago nigiri, which is a sweet egg omelette, strapped onto a bed of rice with a seaweed seat belt. Unfortunately, the sushi restaurants around here don’t seem to make their tamago in-house, but I still dig it.
Another of my favourites is the salmon skin roll, which is wonderful when the skin is cooked to a crispy perfection. At its worst, it can be slimy and fishy – but this was fortunately not the case at Wasabi Asian Cuisine. This roll was tasty and well constructed.
The only hesitation I have about the sushi is that the rice seemed a little dense and starchy to me, whereas I think it ought to be a little more airy and light. With that said, the rolls held together just fine and the rice was proportionate to the fish/filling.
We REALLY liked the sushi pizza. We tried the spicy salmon and the unagi (freshwater eel), and favoured the latter. The breaded fried rice patties were spot on – crispy with a bit of chew.
We also really enjoyed some of the veggie fusion rolls, such as the Caribbean Sweet Potato Roll and the Bananayama. These, of course, are unconventional sushi rolls but delivered a fresh tropical flavour that broke the inevitable monotony of fish, rice and soy sauce.
The Spicy Salmon and Spicy Butterfish rolls were solid. As you can see, the fish doesn’t take a back seat to rice and tempura bits.
Spicy Butterfish Roll
Favourite Rolls: Dancing Eel, Spicy Butterfish, Spicy Salmon, Caribbean Sweet Potatato, Bananayama, Salmon Skin
Other Favourites: Sushi Pizza, Salmon Sashimi, Butterfish Sashimi, Agedashi Tofu, Tiger Shrimp Teppanyaki
The Good: atmosphere, service, freshness of fish, deep fried items
The Not-So-Good: starchy rice, limited selection, location (unless you live in Sackville!), no black sesame ice cream!
