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Today is Valentines day 2013 14th Feb. Me and my Girlfriend decided to eat sushi to celebrate this special day. As we live near the boundary way Burnaby we decided to go to Fish on Rice. For all who are dining there for the first time. I'll give you one warning "Do not get fooled by its ambiance".
Basically, this is what happened. I arrive at Fish on Rice at 7:30pm, waited for server to even greet up took 20 minutes. At the time all I thought was because of Valentines Day and the amount of people here it is acceptable for waiters to take that long. LET ME TELL YOU I WAS WRONG!
When the waiter finally decided to greet us she puts on a pissy face, giving no eye contact at all and asked in a rude manner "so you want normal buffet or lite". I decided to go for the lite. At this moment I was shocked, the waiter just took a random menu and just led the way to the table (Note that she didn't show us the table she just took the menu and put it on the table and told us "go over there") I didn't blame her as today is valentines day and she is still working. So we sat down and then i realized she gave me the wrong menu. I kept calling her over but she just looks at me and walks away. After 10 mins of waiting I got out from my seat and asked for another waiter to change my menu. So he did and he just slammed it on the table as if I was being a bad customer.
My and my girlfriend then ordered food and yet it took another 10 mins to catch the waiters attention that we were actually here. So after the order the food gradually came after 20 mins. What was surprising then was the servers didn't seem to care and treated us like dogs. They came over and just slammed the food and left. (I said thank you every time they served, but constantly I got brushed away, making feel unwelcome) I assumed that all servers were having a bad day so I've again ignored the issue. On the first bite of the food it was obviously not fresh. The Sashimi salmon was sticky and the rice was hard. However, their fried tofu was good.
After we had finished our first 'appetizer' I asked for another piece of paper. It was this moment that started annoying me. The waiter ignored me and went somewhere else. After saying, 'excuse me' several times she then looks at me and shoves the paper at me (Yes, I did say SHOVE) Knowing that their service is slow I quickly wrote down the order and gave it to them.
Minutes after minutes until has passed, until I finally got frustrated. It has been 40 min and nothing has showed up on the table after order. So I went to the counter and demanded to speak to the manager. Speaking of the devil the manager was the counter guy. I told him about the 40 min wait and all he replied was "Uhhhhh..... this your order?" I told him that the order he showed me was my first order. He then replied me "Uhhhhhhh......". I then told him that his staffs service and behavior was unacceptable and food wasn't fresh. All the manager later did was stare at me blankly and again said "Uhhhhhhh...." I told him that I want the bill. I later handed over the exact amount because I didn't wanted to tip such service. He then looked at me as if I was suppose to tip him.
All in all, I would NEVER go back to Fish on Rice, as they offer mediocre food and really poor service. For everyone who wants to go there, think twice. DON'T
I went to this restaurant for the first time, for the all you can eat buffet. They waiter sat us at one of the private booths which was really nice, except we had to take our shoes off, and the floors were ice cold. I was wearing high heels, so no socks on :(
I was quite content with the fact that the pop was included in the buffet. We ordered a small amount at first, just to see what we liked best. We ordered mostly sushi containing salmon.
I just really got into the whole salmon sashimi thing without getting a gag reflex, and now enjoy raw fish very much.
After eating the sushi, I spit out two scales. This made me want to throw up!!!!
I thought I would ignore it, so I overcame my disgust and tried an Alaska roll, and low and behold, there were more scales in my mouth!
Are you kidding me? Do you not wash your fish after you descale and filet it? You are a sushi restaurant!!
I have been to many a "holes" in the wall sushi places, and never encountered this. There was this one sushi restaurant in Gastown that purposely put hair in my sushi for not tipping them last time I went, but that was 8 years ago.
I would only go back out of sheer desperation for sushi buffet, otherwise this was the first and last Scaly Fish on Rice!!
So my friends and I went out to eat this Fall 2012 around 5pm..
I haven't eaten there for months and my friends and I were just really hungry.
The last time I came. The service was "okay" because no one else was there for "Happy Time" it's ironic that they're not happy when they serve you your food if you haven't noticed.
Basically for this service It was "awkward" .. Well , it seemed like the workers were disinterested They would only speak to you if it was your about order sheet. I don't understand WHY the workers are rude and distance. I understand work is annoying but you could at least pretend you're having fun, right? Especially if you want an exciting tip.
The food improved , only thing I was pleased but it wasn't "god damn amazing" unlike other smaller sushi places i have gone and spent more.
So when it's time to pay, it was quite ridiculous what happened. I didn't want to wait for my friend who went to the bathroom so I decided to pay like an awesome person... Which is probably my mistake because my friend decides how much we give for a tip.
*** Before I paid , I over heard two girls informing the waitress that there was a hair in their food SO BE CAREFUL! Just mentioning so you know. ***
3 people for around $50 something... And I'm paying by credit card and before enter my pin It says "10%" and I was like "WHAT?! Why does it say that? How can I change that?" I gave a 5% tip... I'm sorry but you have to work for your tip.
Like I know you probably use your tips for important things, like I use my tips to pay for food when I'm starving but I work hard and my customers are always happy and always come back to see specifically me so what am I suppose to say? You can be angry after I'm gone instead of being a douche. Like I spent 30$ at a small sushi restaurant that I go to often and always give a tip around $3-$10 (depending how many people are eating)... Like seriously, calm down. I would only tip the sushi chief if I could choose.
This girl became so rude when I said thank you when I returned the credit card machine. My other issue about the tip was why did you think you deserved 10%? If the roles were reverse would you give me a tip? I hate tipping on a machine, I always give cash so don't assume you'll get a tip that way on a credit or debit card. Just because you did that you totally lost a good tip.
Another experience ON MY BIRTHDAY one of the waiters was being very annoying. He kept asking for tip and wouldn't leave until he got what he wanted...
I have had only ONE good waitress, my friend's and I gave her a generous tip of $10 because her service was amazing!!! I wish I had her again but I think she doesn't work there anymore because she has a Heart...
Summary:
Service: NEEDS WORK >:/
Food: Improving :]
Menu: Changing/Improving :]
Tips: Over promoting, being annoying and asking for something they don't deserve >:[
Mood: Depressing ~ probably need a make over and new staff
Hopefully other people have had better service than me. I wish anyone luck!
I always come to this place in the past, since I use to have frds that working here, and foods are really decent. I dont know if they have ownership change or what is happening. We arrive at 7pm , and start ordering food. all the hot food arrive, the sushi with super thin fish and big lumb of rice arrive. and 30 mins later, we have to ask twice before they give us the sashimi that we order. However, the fish is just horrible. the squids are just totally tasteless, i can tell they are just making it with baking powder, so it is clear, and totally tasteless. the salmon is so blank, and the tako taste just like rubber. Then the salmon belly and the seafood udon both taste like bad fish in the dead seafood place. Even we are sitting so close to the counter and the front door. when i mention to my frds that i am done with the food, since they are so bad, in a not quite voice, it doesnt seem like any of the people actually care. So at the end, we ask for the bill, and the amazing waitress come to us, and ask if we want to pack the food. i say no., and she is like, we are going to charge u, so u want to just finsish it ? i told her, the food is just bad. then they gave me the bill , with $8.00 extra for the foods, which i wont argue with them, since they do list that on the menu. However, they will still just put the 10% tip in the machine, and think that i will just pay it. what a crazy world they live in. Anyway, shitty food, shitty service, and no wonder they are only half full on Friday nite.
This is my favorite AYCE for Happy Hour. It is a good price and what makes this place even a better value than most Japanese AYCE is the free pop/soda! It is hard to come here for happy hour (4-6:30), but if we can, we do. The quality is a bit lower than other AYCE, but it is good enough for me.
I wish I had better things to say because I used to go to Fish on Rice quite often. Each visit seemed worse and worse. If not the food quality (salad drowning in dressing or falling apart / poorly made rolls for example) the service has dwindled to the point where ... well, there was no service.
The last straw was walking in on a Sat. night (yes it was fairly busy) and being ignored for literally 5 min. before someone came just to say "be right back". He came back another 5 min. later and said the wait was 45 min. He didn't take down our names or anything, told us to "wait over there" and walked away. Boy, he sure makes his customers feel special.... even the no-frills restaurants will "pretend" to write your name down on the wait list.
For $20 a dinner, I can go pretty much anywhere. In fact, I'd even pay more just so I'm not here.
Will I go back? I'll check back and see if they can redeem themselves in a year (if they're still in business.)
The ONLY good thing about this place is that pop is included in the all-you-can-eat menu. Wasabi isn't--nor is it included on the fish/rice itself.
The decor? Hole-in-the-wall look--doesn't look like anyone invested in any sort of renovations or simple painting since maybe 2 decades ago. It gives off the vibe of an old office lunchroom.
Food seemed relatively clean. I suppose, non-descript is better than food-poisoningly disgusting.
Never to return again. Ever.
And yes, it is pay parking all around, front and back.
I've been here four times. Two times were regular menu and the other times were all you can eat.
The first time I went, which was years ago, we had regular menu and I was happy. The food was good and service was good.
The other three times gave me some mixed feelings. My family and I came here last yr for regular dinner menu and the food sucked! The sashimi and rolls were nasty. I think they took it from their all you can eat tray or something. My dad ordered meat w/ rice and the rice was DRENCH with some sort of soup or sauce! What the hell? We asked a server why it's like that and she couldn't answer. Then some guy came along and explained to us in a way that somehow made me feel like it wasn't their fault. Overall, we were unsatisfied.
Third time we had all you can eat w/ 10+ people. I don't remember much about that experience.
The fourth time we had happy hr (5:30pm) on a Sunday for $13.95. We thought that was a good deal cuz normally it's $19.95-24.95. The food was acceptable and it came out pretty quickly. The rolls seemed to look better than last time. They also have sashimi and unlimited pop.
This is a follow up review as things have changed. On my last few visits there things have gone significantly downhill in the service area.
I think they have become a victim of their success, being too busy and now too complacent. Not only has the service gone downhill, the restaurant looks like it could use a good scrub down. The food is still the same as before however, which is pretty good, better than many other cheap places (e.g. Kingsway Sushi). The food is the only thing saving me from handing out a an overall 1 star rating.
From the moment you walk in, if it's busy there is confusion as to who arrives first as they don't have a host and they just start walking whoever is waiting in, not necessarily in the order they arrived. This drives me nuts.
The last few visits have been 2 hour dining experiences - and not because we are eating a lot or taking our time. It just takes that long to get an order in and the food out. That's either AYCE or not.
The last visit, 6 of us were sitting there for half an hour trying to flag down anybody to take our order off the regular menu. Some totally incompenent scared looking server finally takes our order - after the first person says what they want, he's like "OK" and starts to wander away, like all 6 of us were going to share one combo? WTF!
I used to heartily recommend this place, but now I warn people away from it unless they are OK with this level of service. It's a shame as there were nice servers there in the past, and maybe we just missed them on our recent visits, but I think 3 strikes is enough.
I'd only ever return after a while if I thought it wouldn't be busy and we'd get some service.
Food: $21 for week nite dinner. quite an extensive menu for AYCE. had quite a few things we dont normally see elsewhere for AYCE (ex. unagi rice). didnt see anything on menu limiting sashimi which is always a plus. food is quite average which is to be expected at AYCE and i think when ppl are evaluating restaurants this should be kept in mind. i would avoid the beef tataki (too thick), tuna tataki (mushy) and beef ribs (fatty). items we enjoyed were bbq blk cod, salmon & tako sashimi (fresh), chicken karage (juicy), red bean spring roll.
Service: standard. sashimi took a while to come out since there was only 1 sushi chef on a wed nite.
Ambiance: wasnt that busy on wed nite which was good. not too loud and plenty of servers. music was a nice classic mix. there are rooms available if you want privacy or for larger groups.
Overall: def will return for AYCE fix.
Another classic example of an all-you-can-eat japanese restaurant gone bad. This restaurant is fairly new in the neighborhood and when it first open, obviously everything was great. Then they got lazy and sloppy. I don't think anybody there likes their job. If you're not happy, don't work there! During our recent visit, our server never smiled once. And gave the huffin' puffin, eye-roll combo everytime we stopped her for some tea refill. Everytime, we put in an order, she didn't seem like she wanted to take our order. She would be very impatient and say "is that all" after every item ordered. And when we discussed amongst ourselves how many of an item we wanted, she would roll her eyes and lean to one side, tapping her feet. After our meal was finished, we ordered ice-cream for everyone and she only brought 6. We didn't even bother asking for the rest since it took her almost 15 minutes to get the first 6.
I really write reviews but the manager of this restaurant was so rude and terrible, I felt it was my duty! He insisted that the voucher I had purchased had expired despite the fact that it clearly stated that 2013 was tge expiry. He was unapologetic - and incredibly rude. Don't ever go here!!
Today is the second time I entered this sushi place, and figured not to come here ever again..
note this is during the so called "happy hour" for dine in.
Lets start with the food: (The most dislikes for me and my friends)
ROLLS - taste like crap, too much rice, and the stuff inside feels like left overs from the day before. Even my favorite California roll was disgusting at this place...(and another problem is ITS WARM, rolls taste really bad when it's warm)
BBQ - Meat ball is okay, I just don't like the others, some are uncooked, but this is very personal..
others are kinda okay ( I cannot comment on the raw fish(sashimi) stuff since I can't eat them, but my friends says it's horrible )
Now the most horrible service that makes you forever regret coming to this place:
So, as usual, the waiter took us to our table and we sat down, filled the sheet with stuff we wanted to eat. And the food came fairly quickly, as they finished delivering food to our table, we said thank you to the waiter, and she ignored us and went away. Later on, when we asked for a refill, we said thank you again, this time another waiter ignored us as well and left. So the conclusion is they don't respond to thank yous.(This is absolutely annoying, but there are about 1 or 2 new female waiters that actually greets people and responds to thank yous)
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********Important********
In the end, when we asked for our bills, a male waiter came up to us and asked for 20 dollars/ person but we thought the max for this place should be $16ish/person even after tax. I always gave tips to waiters who actually responds to us, but this place has horrible service, why should I tip you? (Personally, I would call up the 2 girls who actually talked to us during the "dinner", and give them the tip, not the guy who ignored our thank yous, and I really hate servers that asks for tips, it's annoying, as if I owe him)
Here's the reasons he gave us to tip him:
"It's thanks giving, come on!" - Really? That counts as a reason? We are Asians, and we don't really celebrate it..
"Hey, I'm working at a minimum wage here!" - It's thanks giving, you should get a lot more than a normal day, plus we are all students here, we get paid as the same as you..not a reason to complain here..And if you studied harder, you might as well have a better job!
"It's the tradition guys, come on!" - Wow..just wow! This is the only place that asks for tips like this..so rude.
It's the tip us or else attitude which really ruined our night today, I came home and calculated the amount of money we should be ended up paying without the so called "tip". The total came around to $46.87(after tax) for us 3, but instead, we payed $60. Addition to that even if we pay the 12% tip, it should be $1.5/person, which results in $16-17/person for the "happy hour" therefore, that guy just robbed us for tips.
As I looked through the reviews today, I found out I should of read it earlier...
We went to the restaurant right at 4:30pm for the happy dinner hour all you can eat, and the restaurant was empty and dark inside since there was no costumers there. We saw the manager sitting in the waiting area reading newspaper while completely ignoring our presence until we asked if the restaurant was open. At this time, around 4:35, he said it starts at 4:30 and told us to wait while walking into the kitchen. The wait wasn't long before the lights and music came on, then we were seated fairly quickly. Food came at a reasonable speed and was pretty good, except there was constantly 2-3 flies flying around the food. The waiters do not respond to thank you's and completely ignores it, so we gave up our politeness after about five times. One waiter accidently spills some soup on the table and in a cup of tea when serving the udon and did not say a single word before leaving, no one came to clean up the spilled mess or even bring napkins to us. Quantity of food wasn't all that great either, for example the sashimi was extremely thin and the prawn in the dynamite roll was tiny. And the last order of sashimi never even came. At the end the waiter automatically came to our table with the bill and tells us the total of our food (which was later found out to be 3 dollar more than it should be) and also asked if we wanted our change back (I have never been to a restaurant where I was asked that). Overall, food tasted good and the selection was also good, but service was extremely unacceptable and the quantity the food came in was small.
We use to go to Fish On Rice regularily, and enjoyed it. We found a place out in Port Coquitlam (KOI) that we enjoy, which is closer to our residence so we started to go there instead. A few Saturdays ago, we decided to go back to Fish On Rice for some variation. What a mistake!!! I am not sure what has happened since we last went byt the quality of food had gone down hill SEVERELY!
The karage (chicken wings) were nasty, almost like small drums instead of wingettes.
The gyozas were OK.
Spicy salmon rolls were absolutely disgusting, in fact I can't even say that I know IT WAS salmon in them! No color, all stringy and just a whole lot of rice with very little filling.
The chopped scallop rolls were very similar! A tonne of rice, very little scallop and whatever mayo they used was the bottom of the barrel... to be honest just their appearance could have caused us to become nauseated. YUCK!
The salmon sashimi was a terrible texture, stringy and I had one peice- which was enough!
The beef sashimi was the best item we had!
The prawn tempura was also ok.
It seemed that the rolls were more rice than they use to be, and just not at all appealing.
The quality of food is very poor. NOT worth spending your hard earned $$$ on at all.
The washroom was FILTHY. (females)
We WILL NOT EVER go there again.
Stay FAR FAR away! YUCK.
Two of my close friends and I decided to go in for the lunch AYCE menu at about 3 in the afternoon. We've been there once or twice before and thought that it was a deal because they provided a drink in the $11.95/person offer.
Food was okay, seeing the price we're paying. Their nigiri were just embarrassing; they were literally the size of my thumb. But again, $11.95...
The seating booths provide privacy and comfort.
Their service however, was down right unprofessional. Servers slam your dishes down when they bring you your food/drinks, they don't react to "Thank You's", never smile, don't seem to be happy, and did not look presentable(hair was messy, manager/owner had on casual clothes). We found it very uncomfortable interacting with the workers. We felt like because we're students, they expect us to tip poorly anyway. I must say that my friends and I are generous tippers; a standard 12% anywhere. When the bill came without asking, we were a little ticked off. We were enjoying our food and was having a great conversation. We've realized that they were changing shifts and needed to close the lunch shift. The server that slammed the bill onto our table gave us no explanation of this. The bill came to $40.15. My friend had only a 50 on her so we decided to pay with the 50 and my other friend and I could just pay her back instead. Already planned, we were going to have our friend take back the rest of her change and we would each tip however much we want because we had some coins. The owner we assume, came over to collect our bill, sees the 50 and asks us, "How much would you like back?". I answered, "All of it." And she looks at me rudely and exclaims, "Tip is not included." Hearing her intention in her tone, I replied, "I know, but I would like all of my change back." Looking pissed off, she brings us a tray loaded with small change that screams "TIP ME!!!". We found this experience to be a very poor one and will not be back again.
I've been reading the reviews about this place, and I'm actually surprised how bad everyones has rated it. When I go for ayce, I don't expect much service, I just expect efficiency and my food to come out. The food at Fish on Rice is definitely better than most ayce places in Vancouver. However, I have to note, the manager is a real sketch guy. On few occasions, he has tried to charge us extra money, making up lame excuses. On a side note, I hate how they replaced the mushrooms in the oyster motoyaki with onions. It makes it taste really oily and weird.
My friends and I went to eat there for dinner. It cost $24 for AYCE. When paying, the waitress waited behind us and stared us down making sure we paid our 10% tip. Worst experience / service in Burnaby and Vancouver. Next time, if there is a next time, we will make sure they are not getting tipped.
Food there is pretty decent, but the service there is absolutely ridiculous!!! A little bit of a smile would not hurt, I'm sure. They have most of thier stuff as sushi (with rice). If you don't finish all the rice, you will need to pay for it. I was there and left 3 pieces of rice, they told me that I had to finish it, or else I will need to pay for the rice. Not impressed.
No smiles. They look like they hate working there and that they are doing you a favour by serving you. Why are they working there, if they hate it so much???
The value is quite decent, but for the attitude they give you and the stuff that they make you pay for if you don't eat as it comes, is it really worth it???? It's really up to the individual to judge.
We have tried out this place as it has been advertised numerous times in the local papers.
We were expected sub-par quality compared to other AYCE jap restuarants. But were we wrong.
The food was good. The service was great. Food came quickly and finished dishes were taken away in a prompt manner.
For the price you are paying it is good value. Would consider coming here again.
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