This review is for the Ryu location near gate 79 inside Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport. This airport Japanese restaurant straddles the three-to-four star line for me. I'll bump them up to four because I like their menu offerings which include sushi, poke, and smoothies plus other healthy options like toasts (e.g. avocado toast, almond butter and banana toast) and acai smoothie bowls.
Ryu is a local chain of sustainable sushi restaurants with currently five locations throughout Montreal. The airport location actually consists of two locations: (1) near gate 50 in the Canadian departures terminal and (2) this one near gate 79 in the US departures terminal.
This location is counter-service-only with no dedicated seating, though there are small, common area dining tables nearby. This location has a simple yet nice build-out with a sushi bar, smoothie bar, and appropriately-themed Japanese decor. In addition to the made-to-order sushi, poke, and smoothies, there are shelves filled with grab-and-go snacks and other food products.
We visited on a Sunday around 11am and were told the toasts ($9.25-13.00 each) and acai smoothie bowls ($13.50 each) weren't available. Sushi was available in rolls ($6.75-15.50 each), nigiri and sashimi ($5.00-6.75 for two pieces). Unsurprisingly, given the size of the shop, the sushi selection was limited to imitation crab, shrimp, salmon, tuna, and variants like smoked salmon and tuna tataki. There were four different kinds of poke bowls starting at $14.50-18.00 each and you could choose the base. No completely customizable poke is offered here. Smoothies started at $9.75 each and there were four varieties.
I had a Hawaiian Classic poke bowl ($18) and an "#Acai" smoothie ($9.75). After a long weekend and before boarding an early afternoon flight, these both hit the spot. The Hawaiian Classic bowl came with tuna, cucumber, avocado, green onion, shallots, tempura, soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds, and nori (dried seaweed). The bowl was made-to-order and neatly prepared. It was compact and the portion size was small (at least, for me it was). They offer only one size of bowl. I'm used to larger and tastier poke bowls back home (Atlanta) that include more types of protein and food for about the same price. However, I realize airport restaurants can charge a premium so I think that may be what's happening here. The quality of the ingredients was fresh/A-OK. My only real gripe with the bowl is how hungry I still was after eating it.
The #Acai smoothie was delicious, satisfying, and helped to fill me up. It was ice cold, sweet, and refreshing. I felt good drinking it. The smoothie was made with acai berries, blueberries, strawberries, banana, almond butter, and coconut milk. Like the sushi and poke bowls, Ryu makes their smoothies fresh to order at the counter. The #Acai smoothie had great flavor and consistency. It was a little bit on the icy side, but that's what I was craving at the time. I think some people may find it too sweet, but the sweetness level was just right for me.
My buddy got a Balance smoothie ($9.75) made with mango, pineapple, banana, and coconut milk. He sucked it down pretty fast so that should tell you how good he thought it was.
Service was good. It looked like a mother-daughter combo working together. The mother was taking care of the sushi and poke and prepping/cutting ingredients while the daughter handled the register and smoothies. The counter wasn't very busy, but neither was the airport terminal. read more