I'm sure that I'm not the only one who realizes that this place focuses on style over function. The decor is incredible the first time but the food doesn't live up to the hype. It's not necessarily bad but there is little value and the service is slow so it's not a place worth revisiting.

On the request of a friend we came here for a late evening dinner. It was my first visit here but I knew what to expect before walking in.

The decor is a mash of Andy Warhol with some strange and loud new wave music in the background all the while a visual art video discretely looping on the tv screen. Complete that ambiance with beat up furniture and you have a classic Kitsilano flavour through and through.

We shared a sushi platter called the Last Samurai, a mix of various rolls with over the top names like Viva Las Vegas and Drunken Monkey. If you've ever had westernized rolls with the smoked salmon and cream cheese, these would be it. Though tasty, there is little distinction between these and what you can get elsewhere. The nori wasn't chewy though I found the rice to be bland, perhaps by design. Complimented with a draft sake and we were good to go.

The waitresses and service resembled more of a pub/bar style aura but fitting for a place like this. Our server was quite friendly though we probably caught her off guard when we asked for menu recommendations.

Like most casual Kitsilano restaurants there is equal (if not over the top) emphasis on being hip, and putting it on a little thick for my taste. Luckily, the food is good is up to par.

When you go downtown for Sushi, this place isn't the norm. It's a hip, edgy location without coming off pretentious that presents itself is a trendy, casual japanese joint. The servers and the inspiration for the food comes from all backgrounds which is nice, you'll get a mix of east-meets-west with many rolls and dishes, while still maintaining the obvious classics (IE california rolls, miso soup, tempura)

For my visit, I got the Volcano and Green Hornet rolls (both excellent), some honey chicken (not too bad) and a curried indian chicabacka-something. The service was a bit slow but very friendly and inviting, and the price came to under $30 for two.

As for ambiance, you'll either hate it or love it. Very dark, a lot of oranges and reds in the lights and a whole lot of Astroboy. There's a level of humour and fun that comes with the place (neon signs that say Miso Horny) and an overall casual attitude from both the servers and the customers. If this sounds your bag, and you like trying somewhat experimental sushi, this place'll probably entertain you well.

Once you walk into this place, it feels like you've walked into a hallucination of some sort. Very ecclectic mix of toys (Astroboy!!), paper mache monsters, light fixtures and other things that kind of throw you off into thinking this is a hip place with sub-par food but the eatery showed me! Their rolls are amazing! I highly recommend the salmon crunch and dynomite rolls! They were gone off the plate in no time. Chicken teriyaki was also very good but needed more sauce. The only thing that bothered me a lot was the miso soup and gyoza that came to us luke warm. These items should be served piping hot so they must've been sitting on some hot plate before they were served to us.

The wait was about 20 min on a Friday night so it wasn't too bad. Once we were seated however, the server forgot to give us menus so we had to track her down to get some menus. "The Zebra" (aka our waitress) was quite nice and came to check on us every so often and was pretty good despite forgotten waters.

The music volume was nice when we first stepped in and sat down but for some reason they turned it up even louder and after that, no conversation could be had without saying, "what did u say? huh?". We sat by the window which was actually a little dirty so I was careful not to touch anything and they need to clean their candleholders cuz the wax started dripping over onto the table and window ledge. Lighting was nice - not too light, not too dark. I would highly recommend to any of my friends but this is def. not a joint parents would enjoy.

It was my first time to this restaurant. We were there for dinner last night and thankfully we had a table on the patio as the music inside was loud and the lighting was dark.

I will say that it was busy while we were there, it looked like they had a lot of regulars and the service was reliable. I won't be back to this restaurant nor would I recommend it to friends. The sushi is too funky for me, and not something I would order again and the music is too loud. I guess it turns out that I prefer traditional Japanese fare.

We ordered:
Tuna Tempura - The saving grace of our whole meal. 4 pieces of tuna in tempura batter with a drizzle of sauce. A great appetizer.
Red Sanja roll- From the funky creations page. Seemed to me like it was a regular spicy tuna roll, half of which was topped with a thin piece of tempura salmon and the other half with mashed avocado, and then priced at $6.95.
Ebi fried curry - 7 prawn tempura on a bed of rice and then covered with too much curry sauce that tasted like the Glico curry that I sometimes get from T & T. The prawns were good, unfortunately they were drowning in that Glico curry sauce. We ordered it to be medium spice but it was not spicy at all.
Salmon maki - An item from the 'regular' sushi page and it did taste very regular.

I would guess that there are 30-40 tables in the restaurant. Can you believe that there is only one unisex bathroom for this entire restaurant?

The sushi is... okay......... the sushi rolls have refridgerated-cold-semi-hardened rice. Better to order any of the other selections. Lots of food to choose from on the menu! Fun, lively room though most of the seatings are a little too close together giving it a more crowded feeling.

Avoid the banana ice cream desserts! Both of them (a Malay-type and the banana split variety)! Little banana, and lots of melted (not melting) whipped cream and, well, some okay ice cream. So I guess it is possible to go wrong with bananas & ice cream in desserts.

I find it funny how a lot of people go into The Eatery expecting amazing Japanese food. Don't get me wrong I've eaten here a bunch of times but not once have I ever expected authentic rolls, bowls, teryaki etc.
Last night was a perfect example: we ordered a bunch of food, including donburi, teryaki bowl, a variety of rolls, miso soups, green salads, sunumono etc... everything was below average. The rice was hard and I'm pretty sure it was basmati; the green salads came with ranch dressing not the traditional dressing, the rolls were bland, the soup was the luke warm.. etc etc...
Overall the food tasted good but that's what I know what I'm going to get. For the diners that go in hoping that a place with a sign that says "miso hungry" and Astro Boy hanging from the ceiling will serve incredible sushi, don't get your hopes up. The servers are really nice, as helpful as possible and as organized as they can be, the room is cool; dark,a bunch of kitchy crap to look at. It kind of reminds me of Nevermind.
Overall a decent place to eat but not for japanese food.

Wanted to try something different for my bf's b-day, so we headed out to The Eatery after someone mentioned that it was in the neighbourhood. Even though it was a busy Saturday night, we got a seat in less than 2 minutes. The tables were definately close together, and there was definately a LOT of people in the restaurant, but we lucked out and got a corner table. We got a few different things off of their menu (some wings, donburi, tempura) and enjoyed some drinks. The style of food there is definately jap/fusion inspired food and well worth the money. I would definately recommend this restaurant to someone who just wants to try something a little different :)

The first time we tried to go to the eatery, we stood around in the front area for a few minutes without being greeted by anyone. Several servers went by and totally ignored us. We ended up leaving, upset. Who likes to be ignored?

Apparently, we do, because almost a year later, we tried again. This time only a few employees ignored us before someone took care of us. The decor is very funky and with the music and live video displays it really feels like a cool rave/club type of atmosphere. The menu is very large, overall my assessment was "interesting items, kinda overpriced" we ordered drinks and sushi. The sushi was very inventive but it was overpriced and the roll I ordered did not have flavors that melded well together. Overall, we spent $50 for a sushi dinner for two with a couple drinks, a lot of money for not a lot of food that wasn't anything special. I felt like we were mostly paying for "cool factor" here.

Went here earlier this year, and remember really enjoying it, so decided to check it out again. Got a nice table towards the back- love the atmosphere of this place. The server pretty much forgot about us, so didn't come around to take our order for at least 15 minutes. I ordered the Andy Warhol and salmon crunch rolls. The Andy Warhol wasn't that great- a few of the pieces were mostly rice and the rice was kind of packed- tasted like it had been pre-made. The salmon crunch roll, however, was amazing and the pieces were presented like they were petals of a flower. Didn't find it spicy though, like it was supposedly to be. I'd check this place out again- they have so many different and creative rolls to choose from, I'd never have to order the same thing twice. Also, I'd like to try their avocado salad.