Restaurants
Spring Sushi
Spring Sushi aims for modern glamour and design, amped up by a serious devotion to technology. Located in the labyrinthine mall across from Dundas Square in the former Woo's Chinese Buffet spot, Spring Sushi is bringing new meaning to fusion; Thai, Korean and Japanese all co-mingle on gleaming iPad menus. With both AYCE and a la carte offerings, Spring Sushi is going with the 'something for everyone' philosophy--I'm just not sure it always translates.
While the restaurant has a steady stream of diners, I'm left wondering if it's for the fish or for the novelty of ordering off an iPad. Already in use in Europe and Asia, iPad menus have been praised for their accuracy; you order, and the onus is on you to get it right.
While wait staff aren't entirely replaced, they are merely relegated to food running, and it would have been better to have more information available on the iPad. Vague descriptions of the food were rampant, and while most sushi is self-explanatory, some of their menu items (such as the sushi pizza) could have used a better write-up.
We opted for the AYCE menu and while the portions were almost all certainly for one or two people, the AYCE was literal, and food was ushered to us repeatedly with no second glances. At $25.99 for an adult AYCE option, the price was a bit steep, but you're not just paying for fish here; the location is prime and the iPads necessitate some expense. Drinks are not cheap either, but the list is replete with frozen cocktails, wine, Japanese and Canadian beers as well as sake.
Ordering was easy enough--mash some buttons, press confirm, and food swiftly arrives. We started with a mango salad, which oddly came as thinly-sliced and limp mangos with a few scattered spinach leaves and red and green peppers; noticeably absent was any dressing or seasoning of any kind. Definitely a miss, but Thai food isn't supposed to be their forte. The pineapple fried rice was overcooked and mushy, and the canned diced pineapple were few and far between.
While they don't offer tuna sashimi of any kind, the salmon sashimi was buttery and rich and the preferred temperature (not the half-frozen kind that is commonplace). Also sampled were the snapper sashimi, surf clam sashimi (Hokkigai) and crab meat (Kani) sushi, which were all respectable, considering it was AYCE.
The spicy salmon rolls featured diced salmon, where I much prefer a solid hunk of fish with a smear of spicy sauce, and maybe the odd avocado; this is too reminiscent of a salmon salad sandwich gone awry. The salmon sushi was rather flat, beaten into submission, but flavour-wise just as good as the sashimi. The BBQ eel sushi was well-seasoned and hit the mark.
The salmon sushi pizza was disappointing. Served with chopped red and green peppers and chunks of white onion, the flavour of the fish is lost in the dish. Fune's stellar sushi pizza is my absolute favourite, and I have yet to try one that comes close. Spring Sushi's is mediocre at best. The deep fried dumplings (Gyoza) filled with vegetables came out a little cold and crunchy, but the shrimp tempura were fluffy, crispy and utterly inhalable.
The soft shell crab roll jams tempura style crab meat with avocado, cucumber, lettuce, and flying fish roe into one overstuffed maki. While certainly on the messy side, it's worth the extra napkins.
AYCE is hard to execute with a distinguished level of culinary prowess, so go in with slightly lowered expectations for the service and quality of the food. While Spring Sushi sometimes excels, you should approach it with a nod towards its novelty. I think it's a great way to explore different types of fish, and certainly the iPad is a clever way to get people in the door--just remember, you get what you pay for.
Spring Sushi takes reservations of all sizes, and also has another location in Hamilton.
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The "service"
While in theory ipad ordering is a good idea its execution here is lacking at best. You punch in your order and then have to flag down one of the few waiters in order to review, confirm and submit. Good luck getting the attention of the waiters who manager to keep their eyes fixed either on the floor or in the distance as they breeze by table after table with patrons waving frantically trying to get their order in, drinks refilled or just to find out why they have been waiting an hour and none of their food has come out (tables on either side of ours got up and left after waiting 45 minutes with no food or explanation). We managed to hang in until most of our order arrived although one of our party needed to leave which meant unfortunately we got stuck with his excess which leads us to....
The “food”
You would think a restaurant that calls itself "Spring Sushi" would at least focus a bit on doing that right. Wrong. Rolls with tuna are made with the canned variety and salmon is chopped up and swimming in mayo and/or "eel sauce". All rice had the taste and consistency of Minute Rice and I would not be surprised in the least if this proved to be accurate.
The cooked food is hit and miss. The first order was edible with a couple of dishes bordering on the tasty side and warranting a second helping after it was determined that the sushi was all but inedible. Unfortunately the second time around anything that we remotely enjoyed no longer had any semblance to our first order. Mango salad went from a light crisp and refreshing dish to a warm, mushy tasteless ordeal. “Grilled” beef items like short ribs, sirloin steak, and teppanyaki beef with garlic, while made fresh and tasty at first, had the appearance of being microwaved and were swimming in liquid for our second order. We ordered the pineapple fried rice which was ok at first but a subsequent order was dry, overcooked and completely tasteless.
I won’t even get started on the Thai Food menu except to say, save your money and go somewhere else.
You have been warned
"So, instead of serving tuna we get an iPad gimmick. Not the kind of trade-off a lot of sushi lovers will be interested in."
"Sushi lovers": hahahahaha. "Sushi lover" don't go to AYCE. Enough said.
If you want authentic sushi/Japanese food, stay away from this place. (Actually stay away from all AYCE)
simple:
no service.. aweful service..
food is not fresh.. taste funny..
i will never go again..
the ipad order.. alwayz freeze.. you press it.. and it does not response.. freeze on the screen does not move.. and then you order 3 items.. and only one come..
Worst sushi, service, and dining experience ever. this is my first comment on a restaurant - it shows how horrible the experience was.
Was starving and I love sushi so I was looking forward to the meal. I ordered a set with three rolls, and was impressed by the low price.
But when the food came, I regretted even stepping in the restaurant. The sashimi pieces were so thin, and smelled stale, so fishy. The flavours were just so off. Our servers were rude and forgot one of my friends' orders.
I don't understand how they are still in business.
I get my water I took a sip and I see there is a hair in my water. HAIR IN MY WATER. I do not appreciate having short men hair in my water. I could have drank it. EW. Anyway I told my waiter and he got me a new one and I didn't make a big deal of it.
Then I'm waiting for my food all excited since I hadn't eaten all day and just as I'm about to take my first bite I SEE ANOTHER PIECE OF HAIR IN MY FOOD. That is not acceptable. I told my waiter and I was furious as to how they can, not only have hair in my water but also in my food. Thats really gross. My waiter tried to convince me to stay and he'll get me a new one but I was like FUCK THAT. Why would I want to stay when theres HAIR everywhere. This place is disgusting. The food didn't even look like how it did in the pictures.
I SUGGEST TO ANYONE WHO DOES NOT WANT TO EAT ASIAN MAN HAIR NOT TO GO HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you do, be my guest.