Nice to see Pickering is getting more Asian restaurants popping up.
We decided to give this place a try after it's been opened for a few short months. We made a reservation and didn't walk in with much expectations. Over all, it was ok. I probably would opt for a different location. The food was average, but there's things that just sent a message of lack of quality/ care.
I won't go through the whole menu, but I will say that a lot of the foiled stuff was just swimming in a pool of oil. I couldn't eat them, but based off the feedback from our fellow diners, it wasn't great. Overly salty, very oily, and oddly lacking in flavour. I don't usually love the foiled stuff anyway at bbq.
The meats were ok. A lot were really fatty, so we had crazy fires. Our grill was also really frustrating. Half of it worked and the other half didn't. So even if we lay all the food at the same time, i had to keep spinning the rack to get it all to cook. I really hope they fix that up. The little safety rod that stands on the tables (presumably to spray the thing down incase of grease fire?) were also crooked at many tables. Not sure if they plan to fix those but it's quite awkward.
The marinated meats didn't taste much like anything but luckily, they had ssamjang and garlic and lettuce so you can make your own flavour and wrap combos. I really liked their kimchi. I think they just made it fresh so it didn't have the super sour flavour yet. It tasted amazing with every bite of meat.
The pre-cooked items were not really great for us. Again, very oily. The sashimi were okay. Definitely not the freshest tasting or texture, but for AYCE, it's what you expect really. The sushi's were not great though. Really loose rolls and nigiri, and really a TON of rice for each piece of fish. I wouldn't order those again. I think they could easily improve on the sushi part of their menu.
They didn't have a ton of veggie options, but I was happy to get zucchini and pineapples. Those are pretty much my staple BBQ requests and so I was fulfilled. haha!
Dessert was disappointing. Not a ton of options. The creme brule was not bruleed fresh, so the sugar was kinda cold and wet. That's suppose to be the best part! I was so sad. And instead of the usual melona bar, they offer the chapmans individual ice creams. They literally didn't have the one flavour everyone wanted. It was so sad. So we opted for jello which was really not great. It didn't have flavour.
Service was nice though. The team did their best. A lot of our orders didn't show up (so if we order say 4 of something, they might bring 1 or none). It was a bit frustrating and we didn't want to put in another order incase it suddenly all came at once. They had to run back and forth a lot to check on missing things. We felt so bad. They were so nice about it.
All in all, as much as I complain, it's an average BBQ spot. It's not terrible or anything. Personally, I know my friends and I would not come back here. I think we're just a bit pickier when it comes to Korean/ Japanese bbq. Selections and quality just didn't hit the spot. read more