Koi Sushi on Westminster Hwy, Richmond

Updated on 17th June 2010: This restaurant has been replaced by Happy Sushi.

There is one thing we know that our boys would always like — sushi. They don’t really care about the quality at all. All they want is quantity. The more the better.

When I suggested that we check out the new All You Can Eat sushi restaurant, they were delighted. But there is a problem … Suanne just don’t like Sushi and raw fish. She will go along as long as his boys enjoys their food.

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We went to Koi Sushi which is just next door to the ever popular Shanghai River. Specifically, it is on Westminster Highway just west of No 3 Road. We recently knew of this place because they had ads on the local city papers announcing their grand opening.

We remembered that this place used to be called the Shota Japanese Cuisine.

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The interior was clean and decor was well coordinated. The chairs was comfortable and it was certainly spacious. Not many AYCE sushi places are like this. We were quite impressed.

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Service wise, it was slow. It took a while for our hot tea and menu to come … and even that we had to flag the waitress down.

Koi Sushi’s AYCE Lunch is $11. It is $1 extra for Friday through Sunday.

Koi’s AYCE menu selection is large and spread over two pages. Unlike a lot of other Sushi AYCE, Koi has Robata too. Needless to say, Suanne was really happy to see that.

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The above was what we ordered … lots of sushis for the boys and lots of Robatas for Suanne. We thought we would order this as our first order and then order some more afterwards. Nope … it turned out that is too much food.

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Their sashimi is $2 extra. I really don’t know how this all works out but regardless, the sashimi is small. I don’t think we had seen sashimis cut this small before.

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It is kind of hard to judge their servings. For instance, we had no idea that this one order of the Teriyaki Chicken came with … a full serving enough for two people.

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And then there also is the salmon head. We ordered 2 servings but it came in a large plate. They gave us TWO complete salmon heads. Not that Suanne complain at all. She was just delighted that it is so much salmon head. I find it way too fatty.

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We all love this dish which we had never seen before in an AYCE. It is chicken skin … deep fried crispy chicken skin.

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The robata was quite decent. Granted this is not high quality food as some of you foodie readers will come to expect. But it was very edible to say the least.

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One of Suanne’s favourite is the oyster motoyaki. For the first time, we had this served in a dish not on an oyster shell. While this is not a problem but it just feels weird eating this from a dish.

Do you know to make this? We have the recipe here. It is easy to make at home.

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The rolls were really some of the worse looking and tasting ones we ever had. But our boys love them and gobbled them down in double quick time. They even fought over their favourite ones — the spicy tuna.

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The mushroom maki is something else. First time trying this, it has an intense flavour and looks like they are marinated mushrooms. Do you know what this really is?

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Here are the rest of what we had. Overall, I find this an OK AYCE place. But Suanne declared that this is her favourite AYCE in Richmond — simply from the fact that Koi has Robatas.

They do not have desserts on the AYCE though.

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Total bill is just $52. For an AYCE, the price is quite OK.

Remember I said that Koi Sushi used to be Shota Japanese Cuisine? Well, it is true. This is because when our credit card was charged the statement shows that this charged by “Shota Japanese Cuisine”. So I think it’s the same company. They had perhaps just rebranded themselves. As to the reason, I can only speculate that Shota was not doing well. Just so you know that Shota has pretty bad reviews on Urbanspoon … see here.

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Koi Sushi on Urbanspoon

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  1. Ed Lau

    I hated this place when it was still under a different name. Everything tasted off to me and the “specialty” sushis like “lobster”, “abalone” and “shark fin” (I think…but doesn’t matter since they were all imitation anyways) all tasted like rubbery garbage.

    I did see that the name changed and hopefully the food got better but…I just can’t eat enough anymore to make AYCE worthwhile. Maybe when I was 16 but at 26, I’d rather sit down to some good sushi…especially after spending so much time in Japan eating the best sushi on the planet.

    However, I guess you do have two growing boys that can really pack it away… 🙂

  2. Jeffy

    I went to this place last month and it’s got the worst service for Japanese All-You-Can-Eat. I will never go there again if I can help it. I saw the name change so I thought hmmm, new restaurant and we’d try it – big mistake!

    Half the stuff we ordered didn’t come and the ones that did show up on our table are half of what we ordered! If we order 2 rolls, they would give us 1 roll. It pissed me off so much that on the 2nd round, I ordered for triple the number of people on our table. Even then, not everything showed up as we ordered. 🙁

  3. SushKing

    This place is a hit or miss when it comes to service. There are times where, food comes in 10 mins all at once. And times where food comes an hour after. There are times where two orders of something serves 1 and there are times where the exact same order serves 5. The food is really good, too bad the service sucks.

  4. Will

    Overall I thought this place was not too bad. Of course when going out for Japanese food, I usually would not select an AYCE place as this is not Japanese.

    Large menu, no complaints about service when I was there 2 weeks ago. Paid the extra 3 dollars for premium and got a lot of sashimi….taste was good. I am one to point out right away if something does not taste right, for $24 AYCE dinner was better than other AYCE places in and around the Greater Vancouver Area.

    Real sushi it is not……you always get what you pay for and understand that there are many reviews that complain about service and that I feel is warranted. That many complaints mean something…….will think again before going but my 1st exp with this resto was great. Quick service, no food complaints. Also alot of the reviews posted online were for when it was Shota…..diff name poss diff chef…I dunno

  5. iLUVSushi

    This is the same ppl under diff name — nothing changes except for the new brand — same tasteless food, dirty kitchen, crappy services…

    I saw a rat running in the long hallway leading to the parking last time I was there!

    Dont waste your money & time.

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