My parents brought us here for lunch on a Sunday and it was a very mixed bag. First off, the interior is nicely decorated with Chinese and Japanese elements, including a bridge over a koi pond (missing fish, but plastic lobsters and crabs were present), artistic pottery, many red lantern lights, and soft Asian music. Even the bathrooms were nicely appointed. The staff were also very friendly. For food, I ordered off the Chinese menu and my wife ordered off the Japanese menu. My parents also ordered off the Chinese menu. I picked the "Sweet Crispy Chicken" which was supposed to be crispy chicken with fried noodles on top. I assumed it would come with some fruit (pineapple or cherries) or vegetable (peppers, carrots, peas, etc.) on the side. Nope, it was literally A LOT of pre-frozen deep fried chicken pieces (like what is part of sweet and sour chicken) with what I think was straight honey poured on top. That's it. It was sweet and greasy but nothing else. When I asked about the noodles, I was told that the kitchen doesn't do that anymore. It was a one-dimensional dish and extremely disappointing. A bowl of white rice came with it, and the rice wasn't cooked properly. That is a shame for an Asian restaurant. We were not offered any hot tea or fried noodles in a bowl either when we entered. Just about every Chinese restaurant I have ever been to has noodles, and most Asian restaurants offer tea. Again disappointing. My wife seemed to enjoy her sushi, and my parents both enjoyed their dishes, so I guess I just pulled the short straw. A picture menu, or an accurate menu description, would have gone a long way to helping me avoid this in the future. read more

This is a great place to go for vegetarians - most restaurants you only get like two dishes to choose from. This one has like 15 vegetarian dishes; I actually can't eat all of them in one sitting and I eat a lot. The all-you-can-eat is a great deal if you're a big eater; I have never ordered off the menu. They also have a good deal on their very tasty Shirley Temples (drinks). That said, the mixed reviews on here also make sense to me: the food sometimes varies between cooks/depending on the day, and definitely varies between dishes. Their maki (sushi) is generally not the highest quality, but their vegetable/ pineapple fried rice is probably the best I've had, and I always get their fried banana, avocado salad, and edamame, as well as their tempura (though occasionally it's too greasy). It's a bit like the Mandarin, where you just learn to avoid a few things when you go. Occasionally you get something not great (in which case, they do seem pretty lenient with you leaving only a couple bites of something on your plate...which you can also slowly divide between your other empty plates so they don't care about the leftovers if you get something bad :P ) They have a great tablet ordering system so you can order several times while eating (esp great for those with social anxiety), and staff are generally polite when you do interact with them. Cute koi pond at the entrance too. Lunch is cheaper so I always go for that. This is the restaurant I eat at the most often in Kingston since I'm a vegetarian who eats a lot - definitely recommended :) read more

Good food came quickly and had a good seat by the sushi making station and kitchen. Tea was hoot and pot was refilled quickly. BUT, the ladies washroom was absolutely disgusting. Toilet paper pieces all over the floor and water faucets were half working. Though the food was good, service was decent but the restrooms were a big fail. read more

Review by James (age 6) transcribed by Dad "THIS IS GREAT. Also it's clean. I'm a fan of the pockets and the avocado rolls and the cucumbers rolls. But mostly the avocado rolls. It uses iPads, and I have one question, how do they keep track of who's who?" read more

My partner and I have visited here a few times in the past, we got sick the last time, this time however was embarrassing and awful. We ordered our apps - I have IBS and certain foods will trigger, I notice the rice was starting to upset my stomach on my sushi so I simply took the fish off and left roughly 6 rice balls. One lady came over to remove our plates and loudly yells out why I didn't eat them. When I tried to explain why, she cut me off and said DO NOT ORDER THEN. humiliated as I was, she proceeds to take my plate and show all the cooks, and other servers. We sat facing them and watched the whole thing happen before our eyes. Another server proceeds to come over and tried to be a little calmer, however still telling me if I can't eat the rice I should order off the dinner menu ( the pre set the tablets up for you when you arrive, so I truly didn't know this was a option). I try to explain again, about why I couldn't eat them (not that I didn't want to, this was all about 6 rice balls). A chef then comes out from behind the counter and proceeds to ask me why I can eat certain things but not the rice, humiliated as I was I'm starting to get upset (tears) my partner speaks up and asks for the bill - we were charged the full amount with no apology for the embarrassment about a health condition I cannot control. I have never been to an establishment that has embarrassed me so much that I was almost in tears. I will never return, and I will never recommend this place to anyone. read more

It's All you can eat here, so can't complain about that! Quality is alright and acceptable for me especially for an AYCE place. The price is by far the cheapest price I've come across in my life. For weekday lunch (AYCE) it was under $20 before tax. Yes, it's a bit far from the university area but if you've got a friend with a car, it's worth it! *Order the sashimi(raw fish) first so you're not stuffed with rice from the sushi rolls etc. **I made a rookie move and ordered shrimp fried rice. Thank goodness that it came in a super small dish and the portion was really small(4 spoonfuls) but ordering fried rice was NOT NECESSARY! read more

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First and foremost it is exceedingly overpriced. All in with tax it was about 70 dollars for 2 people dining. I recognize that it is all you can eat, but given the service and the quality of the food the price is just too high. Speaking of which, the service is practically non-existent. You order via iPad and then are served your food by a variety of waiters. Very limited communication with actual people and the ones we did speak to were unenthusiastic and deeply bored. The food ranges from mediocre to bad. The majority of the food was edible but rubbery and flavourless. If you desperately needed to eat, it'll suffice but I'd be hard pressed to call it good. Bottom line: this was an all-round terrible dining experience. I do not recommend. read more

Not great. The service was fine, but not very welcoming. The food came quickly but was bland. The sushi and sashimi was not the freshest, and was almost rubbery in texture, especially the shrimp. Portions were small and lacked decent presentation. Overall, the atmosphere was like a cafeteria, and the food about as enjoyable. read more

The food is the worst you can ever imagine. Total disaster. Don't recommend at all. The chef could learn something from McDonald's read more

I mean, if you are desperate for Sushi in Kingston and everywhere else is busy, then contemplate going to Sakura. However, also heavily consider something else. The thing is...it's not spectacular but also not terrible. It's mediocre. It's like the Ross (Friends) of Sushi places. I would say that 3 starts is a more than generous rating. Also don't order the shrimp, just avoid. Then again, the Mandarin is literally in the same plaza. read more

Visiting from Halifax, we got taken here by my in-laws. While not immediately taken at the thought of sushi, I embraced it as pet of the trip. Best meal I have had entire visit! Everyone loved! The kids choked down! Bonus, the staff went out of their way to suggest gluten free items for my wife to eat. They seemed very conscious of how important it was to her. Well done! Food was amazing. And price was right. read more

Sakura - All the way from Nanjing, PRC, some habits die hard! I can't figure out chopsticks, but it's like riding a bike for him. - Japanese Near Me - Kingston, Ontario

Service is incredibly efficient, especially considering how busy the restaurant always is. A light started to flicker and I decided to switch seats with my friend so it wouldn't give me a migraine, but by the time we had finished switching seats the lightbulb had already been replaced. Food is consistently yummy and the atmosphere is great. read more

Food quality? Decent. Fairly fresh, though a lot of deep frying. Service? Terrible. No smiles, manners, or gratitude. Overall? Decent decor, location, and alright variety. They could improve a lot by serving more fresh, healthy food instead with a smile and appreciation for their customers business. read more

We went for AYCE sushi here on a Saturday afternoon. The iPads made ordering quite easy and efficient. However, I found that most of the rolls were quite flavourless and mediocre. None of the food really stuck out to me, and the mango pudding didn't taste very good. I didn't think much of it, thinking that it would be justified by a reasonable price, w this did not include alcohol). At this rate, you're better off going downtown for some of the better sushi places in town, such as Saka or Kame, which would serve you for less and the food is worlds better! read more

Sakura's sushi and sashimi can be really nice or bad. It really depends on the time you visit the restaurant. The best sakura is on Friday. As that's probably the time they put the new purchased fish on. If you go by weekdays, it do suck. Also, they don't offer sashimi on lunch but you can ask for dinner menu. They trend to serve you the hot foods first and sushi roll second sushi third and sashimi at last. As they want to fill you up so you won't consume too much sashimi overall. If you want the sashimi, order it first! Don't order any hot food before sashimi come to your table! Only sashimi! Don't drink any soda, drink tea as that's makes you feel better. In conclusion, remember: come at Friday dinner! read more

For a Kingston AYCE sushi place I think this is amazing! Its a great deal compared to the rest of the AYCE places in Kingston. coming from toronto... Kingston does not have many choices. And even within those few places... the selection of food is minimal. Sakura resembles the wide selection offered at bigger cities more than any of its other kingston competitions. Their daily price, even on weekends in 20.95 which is a pretty decent price for AYCE! They even had mackerel sashimi cut pretty thick! They had a wide selection of appetizers and items from the grill/teppanyaki. If you want to have tepanyaki in Kingston then this is the place to be! Its like a show and a dinner with lots of space! The restaurant is also really clean. Washrooms are kept well. It seems the yelpers have mixed reviews on their service. We came on a Sunday evening and service was decent. They cleared our plates pretty fast and brought out food quickly. Staff weren't super attentive but they weren't hard to wave down. Also to note! they have pretty cheap drinks! 3.50$ Long islands and Caesars on weekends. And they also have weekday specials. but even without these specials the drinks are cheap. A tom collins would be under $5. read more

Sakura - Bacon wrapped asparagus, edamame beans, grilled shrimp, seaweed salad - Japanese Near Me - Kingston, Ontario

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This place is the pits. The service was grumpy and all of my rolls fell apart. Kingston has better sushi places so I would recommend that people go downtown instead. If you're staying up town, than go to Mandarin instead. I was pretty upset at how full my soy sauce became with rice because my rolls kept falling apart. It's pretty expensive for how terrible the food was. Also, the bathroom wS gross and smelled like tar. read more

I'll admit, I'm more conceptually attached to Sakura then anything else. The challenge of a 12.99 all you can eat buffet inspires a certain part of me. That plus the added penalty of being charged extra for not finishing anything you order and I've already started fasting in anticipation for stuffing myself full of tempura and green tea. That aside, the menu is pretty lack-lustre (especially for veggies). Nothing out of this world, but if you plan your day around it (and a trip to VV next door) it can be a pretty exciting little sojourn out on Bath Rd. read more

Food is pretty good - service is usually rude and/or unprofessional. We have eaten here several times for both sushi and hibatchi. Today was finally enough to merit a review. One of the bartenders working tonight, Tristan, took the order over the phone. When we arrived, our name wasn't on the order because Tristan misheard my name. Rather than a simple apology or excuse, he stated, "That's what I understood"... Ok... I guess that's my mistake on how I pronounce my name? Awesome service. From there, things went further downhill. Tristan was one of the rudest bartenders I've had the displeasure of being helped by. After several incidents over the years with service being sub-par, I was motivated to write this review to help others. Please support businesses that hire the right employees and take good care of them. Sushi: Shiki, Next Door Grill, Shema Hibatchi: Plum House, Sumo read more

I was disappointed to see your website advertising Teppanyaki...but I called for a reservation and found it is no longer available. Please update your info. read more

I was incredibly hesitant to come here after hearing VERY mixed reviews, but after my friends and I found that our usual spot was closed, we decided to give Sakura a shot. Coming from Toronto, I'd like to believe I have a pretty good idea of what is good AYCE sushi, and what isn't. Surprisingly, my friends and I found Sakura to be an overall good spot to go to in Kingston. (How it would hold up in Toronto, however, is an entirely different story) Compared to Kingston's only other AYCE sushi spot, Sakura (at least tonight) was world's better. Staff were friendly and attentive, food was fresh and flavourful, and we didn't leave feeling sick off overuse of MSG. We also received everything that we ordered (lost orders are usually an issue at most AYCE places) and the variety of maki and other dishes was great. I especially liked how, rather than providing us with standard order sheets, we were given proper menus with item descriptions, and a sheet of paper on which we could write out order out. This helped my friends and I try out different rolls! read more

Exceptional value for sushi in Kingston. All you can eat sushi menu has a decent variety but nothing stellar. Food quality ranges from average to slightly above average, but you're definitely not getting top quality fish here. Service used to be really bad, but I actually had a good experience here today. If you're craving a lot of sushi on a tight budget, this is the place for you. read more

The sushi was mediocre and the customer service was below average. Probably will not return.

Was a normal sushi place. Nothing outstanding or bad. All the food tasted good.

My sushi took 2 hours! Servers are rude!! Beer was warm! Their was flys in the soysauce!! Gave me the wrong order 6 times and wouldn't even give me my beer free! And forgot my spicy mayo!!! IM SHAKING! read more

Have driven by Sakura restaurant several times on Bath Road, thought I'd stop in and have some sushi that was reasonably priced during their lunch all-you-can-eat. I'm not a super picky sushi eater but I have to say I was disappointed with the poor quality of food in this restaurant. My main complaint is that the maki and sushi was not cold, but instead rather warm or lukewarm to touch which is pretty gross. Excessive amounts of tempura flake was used with very small pieces of fish in my maki. The rice used in the rolls and sushi was warm and not very sticky - it did not withstand being placed in soy sauce, just fell apart quite often. Also, a great deal of the lunch menu is off-limits as dinner items including about half of the specialty rolls and other items. Overall, pretty disappointing compared to some of the all-you-can-eat establishments I have visited elsewhere that charge the same type of prices. I would not come here again and I would not recommend this restaurant to others. read more

Rude servers, very bad service , most of them don't speak english very well. The sushi quality overall for an all you can eat restaurant is not bad; however there is too much rice in their rolls, and sashimi is not available for lunch. We couldn't finish all the rice and the server stopped by and made a comment that this is not " acceptable " for you not to finish the rice!!!! This was very rude and also may be since they don't know how to speak english very well they make inappropriate comments to customers. read more

Excellent value but nothing special. The place is clean and the service is quite good. That big gold fish poster confused me a bit, but then again i've never had gold fish sushi before... read more

The food was amazing. All you can eat on the menu for $20.99 was not bad. My husband and I loved the sushi, however the service was horrible. The way this restaurant works is you write the number of the food you want on a piece of paper and the waitress/waiter comes to pick it up. This did not work so well because they had 3 servers through the whole night for the whole resturant. It was the worst customer service we have ever experienced. This restaurant distinctly doesnt care about customers just solely about making money. The reason for the 3 stars is because the food was good. But it did take 2.5 hours total to get all our food. read more

Since I'm not much of a sushi kinda guy I'll keep this review short. At the end of the meal I think I managed to devour approximately 30 pieces.....for not being a sushi guy it was pretty tasty stuff. Very clean and the service was great. Price was great, $25 for all you can eat and the menus is quite large. read more

I have been several times. The food quality is under average, the service quality is even lower. Most of the time, the waitresses don't serve sashimi or serve it after 30 mins for dinner. read more

From an all you can eat sushi/Asian buffet standpoint this is a phenomenal restaurant!! IMO all fresh and delicious and would def pop in again if in the Kingston area!! read more

This is my favourite Sushi place in Kingston, We have been going here for over 3 years, this is our family's first choice for eating out, our kids are in high school and they frequent this restaurant with many of there friends, the staff are friendly and attentive we like the food ordering system writing it down on a piece of paper and giving it to the server is a no pressure system we like, if you don't know what something is just ask and the server will tell you, the fish is fresh with huge selection a must try if you have never been, we have tried many other sushi restaurants and this is one of our favourite. The pricing is reasonable and the food is freshly prepared with a high quality, we recommend it to all our friends. read more

Honestly folks this place is terrible. It is NOT good even by Kingston sushi standards (there are other, much better, places to eat namely Akira and Sima). The all-you-can-eat menu is paltry, and small. You know a sushi restaurant is of questionable worth when the menu is broken down into 'raw sushi' and 'cooked sushi.' Uhh... yea. Not to mention there are like four options for 'raw' sushi. This place caters to ... how should I say this politely ... 'white' people who like 'sushi.' There I said it. It really is just a place to indulge in vast quantities of 'Japanese food.' Not to mention the service is downright AWFUL, like bad bad. My boyfriend and I were sitted right next to another group of chatty guests and the rest of the entire restaurant was EMPTY. Could you not have spread us around a little bit? and it still took 25 minutes for our meal to come to the table. The fish is NOT fresh, it is frozen and pulled out when said menu choice is ordered. I really don't know what those sushi chefs were preparing but it was probably tomorrow's lunch. I was appalled. I am no sushi snob but I have eaten at a number of sushi restaurants--a la carte and all-you-can-eat--and this was by far my worst experience. BEWARE. The sushi gods have delivered a runt of the litter. Stay away. read more

If I'm standing there waiting to be seated and, after five minutes, you still haven't acknowledged my presence then I'll take my money to another Japanese restaurant. read more

out of the 2 sushi places in kingston, its the better one. a little less options, but i enjoy the food, and the service is normally pretty decent, even when its a busy friday i recommd this AYCE sushi rather then the other one in kingston. I really enjoy their sushi pizzas, and their tempura is always on point! read more

I 've had 2 visits to Sakura and both have been disappoing. Problaley never go back there! The food quality was poor. Tempura and cooked sushi tasted like oil. The worst part of all was the service which was very disorganaized! First of all it took long until someone approached me to at least greet me and provide an appoiogy for the waiting time to be seated!! So I was standing by the enterance for about 15 minutes with no one approaching me! After I was seated, there was no napkin and cultery on the table and I didn't get any even after I recieved my first meal unti I asked for it! Moreover, they didn't bring my orders in order and I waited until the end of my meal to maybe receive the salad and I only could get it after I asked for it again!! OVERALL, POOR POOR QUALITY OF EVERYTHING... read more

Sakura sucks. I've been there a few times, and it was generally mediocre, but the last time I went with my family it was an unmitigated disaster. The drink server took our order, which he promptly lost but we only found this out after waiting close to an hour to be served anything. So, we flagged down another server, who asked us to write out the first part of our order, implying that she had the second half of our order. The food arrived pretty quickly but then we never got the second half. After we complained, they made a half-hearted attempt to explain themselves, and took off a whole 20% off the bill (big deal!). We will never go back to Sakura, and I told them so as we were leaving. As we turned to go, I saw one of the waitresses with a big smile on her face, as if the whole thing was a big joke. read more

the service at this place is absolute TRASH. the servers make you write your order down on paper cause they can't be bothered to even talk to you for more than two seconds. then once we've finished writing down our orders they snatch the paper off our table and walk away without a word. the calamari we ordered was undercooked and slimy. after we finished eating they never cleared the plates off our table. one of the servers was staring us down the entire time we were trying to eat and when our water glasses were clearly empty they came around multiple times without refilling. finally when they walked by i asked them for more water and as she was walking she glanced over her shoulder and yelled yes. once we were finished eating they threw the bills down on the table and we got up to pay. the lady at the counter didn't say a word to us and we thanked her and she gave no reply. overall the sushi was not fresh and the service was the worst i've ever experienced. not worth the cheap prices at all i'd rather spend the money and have a nice fucking server. save yourselves the headache and don't bother coming here. read more