Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Katsu-Ya Sushi

Restaurant: Katsu-Ya Sushi
Cuisine: Japanese/Sushi
Last visited: August 29, 09
Area: Richmond, BC
#101 -7900 Westminster Highway
Price Range: $10 or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very Good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 1.5
Service: 2
Ambiance: 1
Overall: 1.5
Additional comments:
  • Quick & cheap sushi
  • All specialty rolls $4.25 - they all taste the same though, all just blahhh to not good
  • They're "spicy sauce" that comes on all specialty rolls is sweet and sour sauce - not spicy at all
  • Expensive for sashimi - $9.95 for 6 pieces of salmon
  • Japanese owned and ran
  • Made upon order, but ingredients are not fresh
  • Frozen fish
  • Chewy seaweed, and rice is bland and wet
  • Poor quality explains cheap price
  • Really weak and cheap wasabi
  • Eat-in/Take-out
  • Closed Sunday


**Recommendation: n/a


I went to this place purely out of convenience because I was craving sushi and really hungry and wanted to try a place I've never gone to - traffic was also bad and I didn't want to drive around. I was hoping it would be good, and when I discovered the place was ran by Japanese I got excited. I was SO disappointed.


Cheap rolls - yes. But that's all this place has to offer - is cheap rolls. A lot of their specialty rolls have no sashimi and that's why they're so cheap. The specialty rolls are almost all the same too - some type of tempura with avocado and masago with "spicy sauce" on top, which is sweet and sour sauce...? NOT spicy. It's a small place and an open kitchen so they don't have the facilities to make good sushi or carry fresh sashimi. They were using the microwave to defrost who knows what and I saw sashimi in the freezer - it was really awful. The rice was really poorly made sushi rice, not flavourful at all and wet, which made the seaweed a bit soggy and chewy. It attracts people working nearby that are looking for super cheap sushi within walkable distance for lunch. I guess you pay for what you get...and it's not much.


On the table:

  • Gomaae 1/6
    • It tastes better than it looks - it looks pretty bad, I know. I mean the presentation was really poor and you can tell they rushed it. They just clumped up spinach and poured a ready made sesame sauce on top. It's only $2.95 and I felt ripped off.
  • Sunset Roll 2/6
    • Deep fried prawn and yam, cream cheese, masago
    • This is their most popular roll, but it's still not that good. I think it's only popular because the people that go are people that like cream cheese. I've had way better cream cheese rolls though. This is just the b est roll they serve - but not the best sushi roll by any means.
    • it's the only roll that kind of tasted different fro m the other specialty rolls.

  • Prawn Mango Roll 1.5/6
    • Deep fried prawn and mango, masago, spicy sauce
    • The mango isn't fresh or even canned! The mango is DRIED mango. I couldn't believe this - I saw them take it out of the Dole bag. Then they deep fry it so it gets a little "re-hydrated" - it doesn't even shine through in this prawn and MANGO roll.
  • Y-Roll 1.5/6
    • crab meat, salmon, avocado, masago and spicy sauce (sweet and sour sauce).
    • *sigh* - tastes all the same. The masago isn't even good on these rolls - it's cause it's frozen and when they defrost it it just gets too wet, and it's hard to fix this. The owner is a nice Japanese lady and I feel bad for giving such a bad review, but I can't help it.

  • Crazy Roll 1.5/6
    • crabmeat, deep fried gourd aka squash, avocado, masago, hot and spicy sauce
    • Tasted the same as everything else. Really...enough of the sweet and sour sauce - it isn't even good - it's just spring roll sweet and sour sauce - the kind you get at Save-On Foods not even the kind at T&T! Tastes and looks packaged.
  • Spicy Tuna Roll 1/6
    • Look at the picture. Have you ever seen it served this way? This is possible one of the worst spicy tuna rolls I've had. Worst spicy tuna sauce - it doesn't even look like a spicy tuna roll. The presentation was awful, putting spicy sauce on top of the roll? Major no no. This is such an old trick - it's to hide the tuna sashimi so they can use less...we barely had any.

Katsu-Ya Sushi on Urbanspoon

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