Sushi Sky

Restaurant: Sushi Sky

Cuisine: Japanese/Sushi/Fusion
Last visited: November 1, 09
Area: Vancouver, BC - Downtown/West end
1661 Bute Street (Just off Davie Street)
Price Range: $10-20

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

Food: 2.5
Service: started at 3, ended at 1
Ambiance: 1
Overall: 2
Additional comments:

• Hole in the wall sushi place
• Japanese owned and operated
• Extensive menu
• Lots of creative rolls + pictures
• Creative rolls around $9
  
• Fusion items
  
• Homemade sauces
• Brown rice available
  
• Over-priced, more expensive than average
  
• Very cheap wasabi, not spicy at all
• Eat-in/take-out

**Recommendation:

This review may be super biased. I waited a while to post this review so I could cool off and write the review as fair as possible without letting the unfortunate experience get in the way of the food. My service started at good, but it went sour very quickly as soon as I took out my camera to take my usual photos of the food. There was no sign that said "no photos". If there had been or if they had told me that photos were not allowed I would have respected that and put my camera away. The meal ended off with the owner ripping the menu right out of my friend's hand...she didn't even give us a chance to explain. It was horrible!

Focusing on strictly the food now...

I was very surprised to see such an extensive menu and so many creative/fusion rolls at this hidden hold in the wall sushi place that seats no more than 10. However, the creative rolls are about $10 each making it very overpriced. Between 2 we ended up spending almost $25 each. At a hole in the wall restaurant that is not cool. I could have had better rolls at a nicer place for the same price. If the rolls were $2 less I would consider coming back to try more things, but after the way we treated...I will never go back again...and their wasabi sucks. I was basically eating paste at the end because it wasn't spicy at all.

On the table:

• Japanese Sushi Pizza 2/6
• Deep fried sushi rice patty topped with your choice of tuna or salmon, avocado, mayo and masasgo $11.95

• Sounds and looks better than in tastes. They serve this at Goldfish Pacific Kitchen and it's better there.
  
• The "pizza crust" was a deep fried sushi rice patty, it was really oily, mushy and bland. They needed to flavour the sushi rice more.
• They put chopped spicy salmon on top and it got warm from the hot sushi rice. That was very unsettling trying to eat it.
• It's just too mushy, they need cucumber or radish on it to give it some texture and to break up the flavours. You need to eat this with a lot of soy sauce and wasabi.
• Overall the dish is really rich and hearty, I wouldn't order it again and I definitely wouldn't want the whole thing to myself. It's a creative idea, something different, and nice to try.
• For $8 sure, not for $12.
• Bute Roll 3/6
• A deep fried roll with deep fried scallop, salmon, crabmeat (no rice). It's drizzled with mayo and a Teriyaki-like sauce. $11.50 for 5 pcs.
• This was a substantial roll. It's quite fishy tasting though. I would get sick of eating the whole roll. It's too hearty even though there's no rice, and it's too seafood tasting even though I love seafood. There's too much deep-fried stuff in it - the salmon, the scallop and then the whole roll.
• The deep fried scallop really stands out and I was surprised by how much they used in the roll, but for almost $12 they should. I could taste all the ingredients and there was a good balance. However I feel like there was another fish in the roll, but I can't pin point what it is.
• Black Eel Roll 2.5/6
  
• Unagi tempura, mango, avocado, cucumber $9.95

• The size of the roll was pretty good. The unagi was on the smaller side and they used a green mango instead of the more expensive yellow ones. It's harder in texture, almost like an unripe mango except it's not tart. I prefer the sweeter Philippine mangoes that you usually get in your mango-sushi rolls.
• They drizzle the roll with this homemade sauce - which was actually a banana sauce. I would have much rather preferred a mango sauce. The banana sauce tasted like fake bananas, a really artificial flavour. They also drizzled a Teriyaki-like sauce on it. I did like the sauces on the roll, but just not the banana one.
• House Roll 2/6
  
• Tuna, salmon, tomago, crab meat, avocado $5.95 (the only decent price)

• The house roll was ok. I wasn't a fan of having romaine lettuce in it, the lettuce wasn't very fresh either. They used brown rice and they didn't use the rice to make the roll big which is good. I would have preferred more sashimi though, they skimped on that.