Shota Sushi & Grill

October 16, 2010
I have visited Shota in Richmond before it closed down, and I wasn't particularly impressed by the food. But I have heard good things about the Kerrisdale location, so I tried it out for dinner with my family. We went on a Saturday night, and it was super busy. We had to wait almost half an hour for a table despite having a reservation. We started our meal with 3 sushi rolls: negitoro ($4.50), dynamite ($5.95), and a famous roll called the Maple ($9.95). The negitoro was average, and a waste of $4.50 in my opinion. I'd rather order a famous roll which consists of 8 large pieces of sushi with interesting combinations of ingredients for around $10. There were only 5 pieces of the dynamite roll because it's bigger than other rolls like the negitoro (according to the waiter). Doesn't make much sense that they're charging more money for it AND decreasing the roll count. It was pretty good though, but I liked the Maple roll more. The Maple was a spicy tuna and cucumber roll topped with spicy salmon.


Next we tried the tobiko fried rice ($14.95). I read about this dish on a blog and noticed that many other tables ordered it, so I think it's sort of a signature dish. I loved it! I'm usually not a fan of fried rice, but this was really good. There were a lot of tobiko and every bite was crunchy.


We also had a salmon sashimi salad ($9.95). For the price, there was very little sashimi. There were 3 slices of salmon curled into a flower beside the salad. The sashimi was fresh, and the salad was pretty standard. But this is not a dish I would order again.


We weren't quite full at this point, so we decided to try another famous roll called the Philadelphia ($9.95) which was a salmon, cream cheese and avocado roll topped with smoked salmon and masago. I can't really tell the difference between tobiko and masago. I know that tobiko is flying fish roe and masago is capelin roe, but they taste the same to me... I liked this roll the most because the salmon and cream cheese tasted really good together. The cream cheese was very rich and creamy, and the sauce was very savoury as well.


Prices were relatively high, but I think the famous rolls were well worth the money.

EDIT: Feb 17, 2011

I went to Shota for lunch with my mom, and found that lunch is a much better deal than dinner. There was a lunch special for $12.95 that included a famous roll, a side dish, a salad and miso soup. The soup was average, and the salad came with sesame paste and a piece of fried crisp that didn't taste very fresh.


Mom chose the flamed salmon for her side dish. It normally costs $4.95, so this lunch special is a really good deal. The salmon was so juicy and it was just oozing with fish oil.


I picked spicy tuna for my side dish. The fish was served on a bed of shredded daikon with spicy sauce and sesame seeds. It was quite spicy, but good nonetheless.


Mom chose the Philadelphia roll and I went for the scallop magma roll. Both rolls were good, but we liked the Philadelphia more. The scallop magma was a spicy tuna roll with scallop and black sesame sauce on top. There were also fried tempura batter bits inside, which made it somewhat dry and hard to swallow. I found the texture of the black sesame sauce to be a bit too thick as well.


We also got an order of hamachi nigiri ($6.95), pricey but good. The hamachi was so soft and full of flavour. I thought it tasted like toro.


After having lunch at Shota, I don't think I'll come back for dinner. I could get the same items for a much lower price during lunchtime!

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