The team behind Juvia have opened a new 100 seat Japanese restaurant in the Sunset Harbour area across from Fresh Market. Sushi Garage is located at 1784 West Avenue off 18th Street. Set in a former auto body shop, they have kept the original garage doors – hence the name. It’s an attractive room in avocado greens and blonde wood, with dangling koi fish sculptures from the ceiling, and handmade tiles. We sat at the sushi bar and found the seats there to be quite uncomfortable. There is not much of a back to the seats, i.e., no support. There was also nowhere to hang your handbag. Hopefully, they will figure it out to put some hooks under the counter.

The place looks cool and there was quite a buzz. That may die down once the excitement of a new place opens, especially when they are not delivering a good product.

So, you know how I have a pet peeve about the food coming out too quickly? We ordered 4 dishes and in 5 minutes they came out all at once. REALLY!! I like to enjoy one dish at a time. We ate our dinner in 15 minutes and it was time to go home.

They call this traditional sushi with an edge, but I didn’t find it traditional at all. We had a birds-eye view sitting at the sushi bar and I can tell you the fish did not look fresh. The shrimp looked dried out, as did the octopus. The fish should glisten. The spicy crispy tuna was not spicy and the quality of the tuna was certainly not like the big eye tuna at Pubbelly Sushi just around the corner. There was also not much tuna on the roll and the crispy rice tasted like it was made yesterday. The Scottish salmon with honey yuzu mustard, tasted of spice but not much honey. The Alaskan king crab roll was watery and tasteless. The crab was obviously frozen and not thawed properly. The Kampachi yuzu tiradito was the best of the bunch. The shrimp tempura with avocado roll was average. Sorry if this sounds harsh but the food really was mediocre. There were no distinct flavours and the quality of the fish could be much better.

So high marks for design and low marks for food.

Happy dining,
Shanea

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *