UME SUSHI — Restaurant in Caledon

I was craving some sushi so decided to visit Ume Sushi for lunch after seeing its reviews online. The interior is small, but clean and atmospheric. I was greeted fairly quickly and was seated shortly after I walked in. Things unfortunately took a turn for the worse from here-on though.

I had Miso soup which tasted very plain, with almost no seaweed or tofu in sight, leading me to believe that it's basically a pouch Miso soup that's commonly served in AYCE. As for the maki sushi, it was incredibly sweet, something that I don't typically look for in a sushi. Specifically, it was their crab meat that attributed to this flavour. It was difficult to eat without dipping generously into wasabi and with pickled radish.

The server was also not too attentive. There were total of four groups of customers in the store (that I was aware of), but outside of dropping in once shortly after all my food was brought to me, I did not observe any waitressing from the server. This was quite annoying as I had finished drinking my tea in the midst of my meal, and my attempt to have her refill it was ultimately unsuccessful. It also took solid 5 minutes for me to grab her attention to pay the bill, so there is that as well.

Given how others have rated this place, I would like to think that my experience was an outlier to an average dining/service at Ume Sushi. Perhaps they are better known for their nigiri sushi, and may be there were more customers in the store than I was aware of. As such, I am definitely willing to give this place another try, but probably not...

The decor and atmosphere is nice and cozy. I really like their private booth seating, there's buttons installed on the table when you need to call your server. If you want to dine-in, you have to call and make a reservation. There's limited free parking spaces available: some roadside parking at the front and a small lot at the back of the building. Service was also friendly, welcoming and they practice safe COVID measures.

We ordered the Maki Boat for our date: it was decent pricing - especially with their current 10% off with cash payments only promotion.

I saw pictures of sushi being served on wooden boats, so I was hoping to get our maki boat order served on them too but unfortunately the lady said they stopped serving sushi on them so that was a minus 1-star for me.

We actually decided to come here based on the many reviews indicating the quality is great and that it's the best sushi they've had. Unfortunately, that expectation was not met and that's where they lost another star: the quality was quite average (definitely wasn't the best sushi I've had); the rice was served cold - typically when I order sushi, the rice is at least warm and of the maki rolls we had, nothing in taste stood out.

Other than the mediocre sushi, this place is great for dates and catching up...

I love sushi but this place i couldnt stand it. The sushi rolls were oversized with cheap fillings and less of the main ingredients.

I tried spicy salmon and it felt like im eating kids snack with very little salmon inside and the dynamite roll was so sweet that half of the people we went with couldnt finish the whole roll because it was too sweet (we ordered 1 combo each. Not a lot of food).

I also had their black dragon roll and beside the fillings having the same issue, the eel on top was cold and chewy and again, small compared to the roll size. Eels on black dragon rolls are supposed to be soft and tender.

And this was after waitting 40-50 minutes for 4 dishes. The wait was that long when there were only 4 tables in use.

Another was that the sashimi combo we ordered had ALL salmon, the absolute cheapest type of sashimi. I expect at least 3 different types of sashimi if its called a sashimi combo. Otherwise it should have been said salmon sashimi or salmon combo.

Price wasnt cheap or anything. 3 adults and 1 baby came out to almost $90. Im actually very shocked at the rating here.

We were all very hungry and this was our experience with incredible disappointment. Will...