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Zen All-You-Can-Eat Sushi & Grill
Categories: Restaurants Japanese Restaurants Sushi Bars Japanese, Sushi Bars [Edit]
7618 104 Street NWEdmonton, AB T6E 6B8
(780) 757-8816
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Attire:
- Casual
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Wi-Fi:
- No
- Noise Level:
- Average
- Has TV:
- Yes
2 reviews for Zen All-You-Can-Eat Sushi & Grill
2 reviews in English
-
Review from S B.
Edmonton, AB
4/11/2012
I went with my sister last week for dinner. I would definitely return. The dinner price seems a bit steep ($26.50, I think) but I haven't been to a ton of AYCE restaurants in Edmonton. Lunch would definitely be better value for your money, I think. The menu seemed to have slightly fewer items than you might expect, but has all the standard fare.
All the food came out hot. The tempura especially was burn-your-mouth steaming and seemed less greasy than other tempura I've had.
Good miso soup, little heavy on the seaweed for me. Edamame was good. Excellent teriyaki chicken, flavourful, tender. Steak also looked and tasted like steak, had a distinct grill flavour. Pork cutlet was also awesome; great light, crispy breading on it.
The stir fried rice was rather greasy. Ditto the mixed vegetables (which was mostly bean sprouts).
Can't comment about the sushi, as I don't eat it. They do limit the number of pieces a person can order.
Decor is nice. Service was generally good, though a tinyyy bit faster bringing more order sheets would be nice, especially since there's a 2 hour dining limit.
Overall, I would recommend this as a southside AYCE restaurant. -
Review from Jenn C.
7/4/2011
Please forgive me and correct the info if I have the address or exact name wrong. I haven't been able to find any information as to whether this is the same Zen as the one downtown, but there is no "Shabu-Shabu" in the name that's outside the restaurant, though I think there is "Grill". It's located on the west side of Calgary trail, in a little strip mall just north of the 7-11 at the corner of 76 Ave. I'm pretty sure it's where David's Burger Bar used to be, because they still use the same drinks menu...
Anyway, they have a $15 lunch and $25 dinner all-you-can-eat deal. Two hour sitting limit, and they reserve the right to charge for any uneaten food (as most AYCEs do). We went on a recent Saturday night for dinner, and my boyfriend, who has been there for lunch, said that the only apparent menu difference is that sashimi is not offered at lunchtime. The menu is not too big but it's pretty tasty. They have a photo version of the menu as well, which is fairly accurate in terms of the way the food is presented, and serving size.
For sashimi, they have salmon, surf clam, red snapper, and tuna - limit of 15 pieces per person but it's unclear if it's 15 of each, or 15 in total. The salmon was nice and fresh, but unevenly cut - the first 5 pieces I had were long and thin-ish, the next few were a little thicker and half the size as the first 5 pieces. The surf clam pieces were small but tasty - good texture. The red snapper was nice and resilient, quite fresh as well. The tuna was a little fishy, but I'm starting to think that I just don't like tuna sashimi as much.
I didn't order any nigiri so I can't comment on that. There were about 10 choices for maki - the spicy tuna and spicy salmon ones were very small maki, whereas the soft-shelled crab and california ones were more normal-sized. I didn't think there was anything too special about them. I prefer when I can see the small chunks of salmon/tuna in the rolls, which I couldn't in these rolls. There are about half a dozen temaki (cone) roll choices, including eel and salmon skin. I ordered my favourite, chop chop (scallop), which I quite liked. It's too bad they are so hard to eat.
There's quite a few other choices that are not sushi. The miso soup was pretty good. They have edamame beans, gyoza (pretty good), tempura (shrimp and vegetable, batter was a little heavy but still good), teriyaki chicken (skinless; I'd pass on this - it's kind of boring and fills up your stomach!) and new york steak with teriyaki sauce on it (a little overcooked for me). They also had stir-fry veggies (mostly cabbage with a little bit of broccoli and carrot), stir-fry udon (this was quite tasty, reminded me of shanghai stir-fried noodles), udon with soup (clear tasty broth with some wakame and lots of resilient udon noodles), and my favourites, barbequed short ribs (a little chewy but right up my alley, very Korean-short-rib-like) and grilled squid tentacles (looks gross if you don't like squid, but it was perfectly grilled, not rubbery at all, and drizzled with a sweet-salty teriyaki sauce).
Service wasn't too bad, though they did make some mistakes even though it wasn't too too busy (including bringing a rose wine when we pointed to the sauvignon blanc on the menu - the waitress exchanged it without any issues). For the most part they pretty much brought what was ordered, though one time I received the wrong sashimi, and another time they doubled our maki order. They didn't force water on us like many AYCEs do (to get you to fill up on water); in fact, I had to ask for a glass of water. Overall it was a good experience and I would definitely go back again (especially if I had the chance to go for their wicked lunchtime deal!). Fyi, they are open until 10pm on Saturdays.
