Isami Sushi — Restaurant in Burnaby

Isami Sushi is a small Japanese Sushi Restaurant located on Kingsway, Burnaby. The location is easy to find, but it’s no parking beside. A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I had a dinner at this place. We arrived at the Isami Sushi around 6 pm. It was super busy. We had to stand outside and waited for a while to get into the restaurant.

Once we got into the restaurant, it has already passed 7 pm. We sat down at the Sushi Bar. The server noticed us that our food would take a little bit longer to come. We were fine with that. We have ordered Beef Tataki, Jo Sashimi, Una -Ju, and Eskimo Roll to share. Actually, it was faster than we thought to be. Jo Sashimi was a little bit pricey, which included 7 different kinds of Sashimi. They were all very fresh. Beef Tataki was different from other places. The beef slices were very small, but the taste was very delicious. I enjoyed the crispy fried onions on the top. My favorite dish is Una-Ju. It made by BBQ fresh water eel basted in demi-glaze sauce and served on rice. It was my first time having this food. The rice was soft, which was a great combination of BBQ water eel. The demi-glaze sauce was very well used on eels. I love it so much. It was very tasty. The last dish was Eskimo Roll. It was California roll, topped with BBQ salmon, green onion & special sauce. I like the BBQ Salmon and Green onion on top. The price of the food was a little bit expensive. The taste of the food was very authentic. It was owned by Japanese people and all the servers and chefs are all Japanese. It was a great place to eat...

I, unfortunately, did not get to try the food as the restaurant was very busy and my party of 3 could not be seated. I am hoping this review would prompt a change in customer experience.

My party had put our name in the queue when the restaurant opened during the evening at 5:30 pm and all of the available 3-4 people tables were taken with the exception of a few tables and the bar. We had thought that eventually they'll seat our party in the empty table or provide us the option of eating at the bar, but the hostess did not let us know and was catering to those already seated. 30 minutes had passed by and there was a few other parties who were also waiting (one that was a family with two young children who were getting more and more listless). We finally got the attention of the hostess who then mentioned that the empty tables were reserved, the remaining seats at the bar were reserved and could not give us an estimated time of how long we had to wait. By that time, we were due to eat to make it in time for our other commitment and so we left. I felt very bad for the other family and their children as the waiting area did not have any seating.

It's unfortunate that I couldn't try their food because I heard a lot of great things. Please give a heads-up to those in the queue about the situation to let us decide if we should...

It’s been a while since I last visited Isami Sushi but I had made a special trip to the Metrotown area so I could try the new Soft Peaks location and figured it’d be a good idea to stop off for some sushi while I was at it. While their address is on Kingsway, this Japanese restaurant is actually located around the corner on McKay Avenue.

I ordered the Special Assorted Sushi ($16) which includes a tuna roll as well as 9 pieces of various nigiri sushi.

They do a really good job with their fresh fish here and the temperature was perfect. The chef’s selection of nigiri included real crab, ikura, tobiko, tuna, salmon, hamachi, scallop, and ebi.

If you’re looking for a solid sushi place around the Metrotown area, check out Isami Sushi.

Update: Mar 2024. It's been another 5 years since our last visit here. Glad to see the food was still good. Their lunch menu isn't as big as I remember it to be.

Ordered the chicken teriyaki and the unatama roll (unagi and tamago) which was nice and creamy.

Fresh assorted sashimi with scallop, tuna, salmon, hokkaigai, and maybe tai or madai?

Finished our meal with appetizer tempura and spinach gomae. Food came out fast and...