Samurai Restaurant

Sad to say I returned recently and the quality has gone downhill. Not the same place it used to be.

One of the better sushi restaurants in the city. Though not my favourite, it is definitely worth the extra walk and risking being late on my lunch break.
A coworker and I come here for lunch often in the summer even though there are a few sushi places closer to our office. Great lunch box selection and reasonable prices! Also always friendly service and nice atmosphere.

40%-50% over priced. Had the Black Cod as a main and some nigirisushis.
The fish is tasteless… Could be tuna or fake crab… All taste the same. The main course (Black Cod) was a 2−3oz portion for 16 $ and was soaked… As if warmed up in a microwave… On the flip side the Waiter/​Sushi Chef, was very nice and offered me a seat and drinks. He didn’t ask me what I thought of the food, which I really think is for the best. Definitely won’t be back.

I really like this place, the food is really good, sushi is fresh. Service is excellent. Waiter very nice and very attentive. Really great downtown sushi place!

Excellent sushi, some of the best I’ve had but a bit too pricey though. I spent $ 100 for two of us during lunch, with no alcohol. You gotta give it a try though if you like good sushi. If you like bad sushi you’ve got other problems…

I ate here when it first opened a few years back but I didn’t have the best meal so I am glad I came back because I think I might be doing more sushi lunches here. They have a fair number of lunch combos and bento box meals that start from $ 9.50 to $ 14.75 and run from 11am-2:30 pm. The bento boxes come with miso soup and salad while the combo just comes with a salad.
I opted for the sushi combo which is $ 9.50 but on Mon/​Tues, they have a special where you can get an extra roll (chosen from a specified list) for only $ 2.95 extra. So for $ 12.45 before tax, you get 3 rolls and a salad. And to my surprise, the rolls aren’t just vegetarian or cooked rolls. They do offer the aforementioned but I was happy to see sushi rolls too! I chose salmon maki, golden roll (tuna, avocado & tempura) and salmon bakudon (salmon and tempura yet missing the sirracha?). Anyhow, the rolls were a good size but I was surprised with the generous portion of the salmon and tuna inside the rolls. It’s nice when it’s not all rice in the middle! The rice was perfectly cooked and seasoned and the fish tasted fresh. Despite the missing hot sauce in the salmon bakudon, it was still good — good crunch in the tempura. The salad consisted of mixed greens and red peppers with a nice yuzu dressing. Great lunch combo as I was very full and I didn’t even finish the roll I added on. I liked the generous portion of wasabi and ginger though unfortunately the lid on the soy sauce was not tight and there was spillage in the to-​go bag. Oh well.
Service was nice and welcoming. And I got my food in 15 minutes which isn’t too bad as they had a decent lunch crowd. The ambiance is nice and subduded though it hasn’t changed too much from the old Fyxx décor except for some of the Asian decorative items and the sushi bar installation.
Lots of interesting rolls on the a la carte menu and I think the «samurai bento box» ($ 14.75) has definitely piqued my interest. Great sushi option if you’re downtown especially during the weekday lunch!

The décor was nicely updated from the coffe shop that was here before. The service was prompt. This day I had the lunch special for about $ 12 you get 3 sushi rools, and a salad. The salad was fresh and a very nice taste. The rolls where all good, but I think they were not a 100% likely because I was here on a monday. Yes I will be back, but more likey later in the week to see how they do.

I hope that the next time I enter Samurai, it’s packed, with a long wait for a table. These folks deserve the business, and personally, I’d be willing to camp out on Portage if that’s what it took to eat there again. This restaurant provided one of the best meals I’ve had in years.
I agree with the first reviewer on all points, and will add my own two cents to her commentary. The tea is indeed delicious; even my fiancé — who doesn’t usually like plain hot tea and especially not the usual green tea — drank it heartily. Our meal started with an appetizer of tako kimchi: octopus, cucumber, tomato, and kimchi sauce atop a bed of fresh greens, and it was an intriguing mix of textures and tastes. We shared some of the maki, the scrumptious firefly maki and the perfectly spiced spicy tuna. He also ordered unagi nigiri, which is his usual yardstick to measure Japanese restaurants, and pronounced it the best he’s ever had. I had the marinated saba torched with lime, which packed a delicious punch of fresh-​smoky-​tart flavour, and the lobster roll, which was eye-​closingly, mouth-​wateringly, please-​observe-​respectful-​silence-​while-​I-​eat-​this decadent — and just in case it wasn’t enjoyable enough, hey, there’s more! It’s TORCHED at the TABLE, so you can silently mouth «awesome» to your dinner companion while waiting for your dinner to emerge from a jet of blue fire.
Our waiter was polite, unobtrusive, and pleasant, the music was perfect to set a mood of excellent conversation, and all in all, the experience was marvelous. I’m only rating five stars because Unilocal doesn’t go any higher!

Upon entering the place, you won’t be stricken with any sense of difference. It looks like you’d expect any nicer sushi joint to look — tasteful, subdued, and relatively intimate (i.e. small), with a sprinkling of kanji and other traditional Japanese décor. Where it becomes different is both the menu and the service.
The menu is fairly extensive and offers everything from super-​traditional bentos to inventive rolls to actual edo mae zushi. This is what got me. Some of the best nigiri in that style that I have ever had. Beats out some places in the Bay Area, even. Without a doubt, I have never had better kani nigiri before, even in Japan! Blasphemy, I know, but it’s true. And that’s my personal yardstick when it comes to good sushi, so the place already had 4 stars right there. Add to it that the default hot tea is a fabulous genmaicha that appears to be made with sencha-​style green tea leaf, and you’re well on your way to Awesometown.
The staff is also phenomenal. Efficient, knowledgeable and nice. I asked the server if I could arrange with the sushi chef to have something that didn’t appear to be on the menu, and they were fine with that. The chef asked me what I wanted, and to my embarrassment, it *was* on the menu under a name I wasn’t used to seeing. Heh… so… um… props to the staff for being accommodating and gracious, willing to work with a small special request and for not making me feel stupid when it turned out not to be special at all.
As far as atmosphere goes, the place wasn’t packed on the weekday night that I was there, so it felt very private. Quite nice. There was no rush with the service, and the prices were surprisingly great, too. Nearly half of what I would have expected at a comparable place back home in Austin, and better to boot!
I think this might just be my new favorite sushi place in the Unilocal-​reviewable world.