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Shota Sushi and Grill is one of the few all you can eat sushi places on the North Shore located just off of Lonsdale Avenue.
I pass by this place quite often but never tried it because the place always looks so deserted. One afternoon, I finally decided to give it a try. For $10.95, it is an all you can eat affair. The quality of the sushi was quite good to my surprise and with no limits on sashimi believe it or not. Well...they do reserve the right to limit quantities...The food came quickly and I thoroughly stuffed myself. The ambience is very nice and tranquil with an indoor Japanese garden and water fountain. There buffet is quite good and all of the items I ordered were delivered to me, unlike some buffets who only bring you some of what you order. You could do much worse for $10.95 for a sushi buffet.
A little pricey and the service isn't top notch but try the "special rolls", they are great. The MAPLE ROLL and the SCALLOP MAGMA ROLL in particular keep us coming back for some more Shota Sushi. Overall, not the best Sushi Place in town but there are far worse!
Ambiance:
As we typically frequent Vancouver restaurants we decided that maybe we should expand our dining horizon and picked the first Japanese restaurant we came across in North Vancouver. From the outside the restaurant is quite appealing and seems quite charming from the foray with a water feature and a private room to the side, unfortunately the food was not nearly as appetizing.
Service:
The servers when they came to our table were friendly and polite but tended to confuse our order. While behind the sushi counter or in the kitchen they loudly joked and hurled obscenities at each other in Chinese, which was quite distracting. The sushi chef also ate at the counter in between preparing sushi without washing his hands.
Food:
We ordered a wide range of nigiri, maki, and hot food but was quite disappointed in the quality. The maki rolls had an overabundance of rice while the fish or whatever roll filling could barely be seen. The spicy tuna maki was both crunchy and oily, which is something I personally would not like to try again. The majority of kitchen food was also oily and less than spectacular.
Overall the food was presented nicely but was not very good to eat. The hot water taps were also turned off in the washroom and the restaurant was extremely cold.
Shota Sushi and Grill was one of our favourite all you can eat Japanese. It wasn't anything fancy, but we liked it.
When we went at the beginning of Nov 2007, we saw a sign "closed for renevations." So we went back this week. Dec 2008. What we knew as Shota is now called I Love Sushi. They must be new owners, cause every thing had changed. We hated it.
I can not think of one good thing we liked. I am sad and shall morn the lost of our special place.
And am now on the hunt for a new place... as we will never return to I love Sushi, as we hate their sushi!
We loved Shota. They had yummy food at great prices. It was always made fresh, and the people there were very friendly. I'm very picky about my Sushi, and this place always made us want to come back. Their Special Rolls kicked serious butt!
Now it's gone, and I Love Sushi has taken over. Horrible. Sterile. Plastic plates and cups. They give you hot tea that is cold in 2 minutes because plastic doesn't hold heat. The sushi rice had an overly salty taste, and some of the rolls were so bad that they were ignored after one bite. They gave us a little plate of wasabi that looked as if it had developed a crust from sitting around, and there was no ginger to be seen until we asked.
My husband did enjoy a dish or two off of their Malaysian cuisine list, but it's not enough for us to give this place another chance.
The service was decent and almost overwhelming - probably because they're new and they want to make sure you try many different things. I felt like asking them to leave us alone for 5 minutes so that we could try to "enjoy" our meal.
Bottom line: Don't bother.
The only thing remotely pleasing about this place was its decor. The restaurant was pretty empty but that didn't mean attentive service. The waiter tried to hurry us to order even though there was about an hour left before they closed. When we looked at the menu that should of been our first clue to get out of the place...exceedling expensive-their "special rolls" can be found at other sushi places for half the cost! EVERYTHING was overpriced...but we hoped the quality would make up for the ridiculous prices. The sushi and tempura was pretty sloppy and not very tasty but what really upset me and my boyfriend was the cheap portion of sashimi. It cost ten dollars and the fish was cut so thinly that it was almost transparent-it was laughable...and we did laugh but we were pretty pissed at the same time. For a meal that would of usually cost no more than 20 dollars anywhere else it was a big WASTE. Our total came to fifty dollars...
Oh and the somewhat nice decor was hard to appreciate with the staff yelling in chinese at eachother.
AVOID! There are so many better sushi places on lonsdale and downtown to settle for this one.
| 1. | Cafe Caribana (47 m) |  |
| 2. | Subway (62 m) | |
| 3. | Starbucks (77 m) | |
| 4. | Kingston 11 Reggae Cafe (97 m) |  |
| 5. | Fiesta Filipino Restaurant (105 m) | |
| 6. | South Castle (109 m) | |
| 7. | LoLo (110 m) | |
| 8. | Coral Court Szechuan Cuisine (117 m) | |
| 9. | Orange Door (120 m) | |
| 10. | Cheers Catering (121 m) | |
