Ajito — Restaurant in Calgary

I really wanted to rate this place higher, but upon reviewing the experience as a whole, I think my rating is fair. I was super excited to try this ‘secret’ restaurant after all the hype buzzing around the city about this vintage coke machine that serves as the door to this restaurant. I’m sad to say that this was the highlight of the whole evening— opening the door to a vintage pop machine.

My kids tried the Ramen & the udon carbonara, and my dinner guest and I had the smoked tuna carpaccio, the tartar, duck, and hell’s chicken.

Ramen had a nice broth— noodles seemed to be made in-house, which I appreciated but didn’t quite have the ramen noodle texture. We asked the server if the ramen was spicy— he responded that it wasn’t. It came with shredded dried chilli garnish, which was easily removable, however, to a 7 y/o every rogue piece of chilli that ended up in a bite of noodles— not pleasant. would have been nice if the server would have suggested omitting the chilli garnish altogether.

The udon carbonara read well on the menu. Upon its arrival in a stone bowl, bubbling away— we were all very excited to dive in. My 10 year old is a fan of creamy/ rich dishes but after 3 bites she gave up. Noodle texture was lovely but it was drowning in a VERY rich sauce. The dish could certainly benefit from some sort of acidic garnish to help cut thru the richness. At this point, my dinner guest and I were still hungry after our 3 dishes, so we were waiting on the hell’s chicken, however, after two bites of the carbonara— the heaviness of the carbonara made me not want to eat anything else.

The smoked tuna carpaccio was theatrical and lovely— everything from the swirling of the smoke out of the cloche and the smokiness it added to the carpaccio was unique. The sauce could have been brightened with more pronounced citrous notes, because the smoky flavour was very prominent and didn’t allow the other flavours to shine.

The duck had nice flavour profiles, however, the fat hadn’t been rendered properly and the texture was soggy.

The hell’s chicken seemed to be promisingly spicy. I was hoping that the heavy weighing carbonara that remained on my palate would be pleasantly forgotten by a punch of spice on my palate. Unfortunately this dish also fell flat for me— the flavour of the sauce on the chicken seemed to lack umami and all I could taste was Yuzu and a hot sauce resembling Frank’s hot sauce.

The highlight of the meal was the tuna tartar— mixing in the quail’s egg was a nice interactive touch, and this dish had all the umami elements.

The atmosphere was unique— nice date night vibe. The service was insanely slow with the room being only 2/3 full.

Not in a hurry to go back to this place, unfortunately, but worth a try if you want something cool to post...

If you're a fan of gimmicks, you'll probably like this place. If you like good food, you probably won't. First off, you've probably already read that this is a restaurant within a restaurant and you have to enter through a secret door located at the back of the first restaurant. We had reservations, and upon entering, the hostess asked our information then picked up the phone to enter a takeout order that took 10 minutes. When she was finished, rather than seating us, she just told us to go to the back of the restaurant and let ourselves in. I'm not sure why we had to wait 10 minutes just to tell us that. She could have just said that before picking up the phone.

While in the restaurant, the service was excellent and very friendly.

Now onto the food:

Ajito Ramen: This was relatively plain tasting for a bowl of ramen. It had no real complexity to the flavour and some of the noodles were stuck together and not cooked properly. Overall I would give it 1 star.

Melting Charshu: The pork was not seasoned in any way. The only flavour was in the sauce, which itself was fairly mild. You had to roll it around it around extensively in the sauce to get any semblance of flavour. Otherwise you're just munching on a plain piece of pork. 1 star

Yellowtail Parmesan Carpaccio: Presentation was good, but like the above two, there was very little actual flavour. Didn't sense any amount of Parmesan. 2 stars

AAA Alberta Beef Tataki: The oriental chili sauce just tasted like diluted kimchi. They also had what looked to be fresh ground wasabi as a sauce, but I'm almost certain it was just dyed radish. Worst of all, the beef was cut too thick and had large chunks of fat which made it a poor choice for this kind of dish. 1 star

Stone Grill: Yakiniku Beef: Again, beef had no seasoning of any kind, not even basic salt and pepper. It's just plain pieces of beef that you cook yourself on a heated stone grill. Good gimmick, but poor result at the end. 1 star

Hell's Chicken: Quite spicy and cooked well, beyond the spiciness, not too much to write home about. 3 stars.

Overall, the food is plain, underflavoured and underwhelming. The presentation of each dish was excellent. I would not recommend this restaurant except for...

I've been wanting to try this new Japanese restaurant since it opened in late January.. called them the first week of Feb and finally got a reso for yesterday night! Do call for a reservation if you want to visit during the weekends as they are super busy right now. I'm hoping one day they will get on Opentable so their phone lines won't be tied up as much!

Located inside Sho Sushi on Macleod behind a cute vintage coke vending machine door is this hidden izakaya spot. Such cool vibes in here!

Between the 2 of us, we got 5 dishes to share. It sounds like a lot but neither of us left feeling very full. However, this place emphasizes quality not quantity! And the quality is definitely excellent. There are so many more dishes that I want to try!

Wild Scallop Sashimi ($11.80) - comes with 3 scallops, which were super sweet and fresh!

Yellowtail Parmesan Carpaccio ($13.80) - seared yellowtail, japanese mayo, parmesan, onion, seasonal greens, fish egg, goji berry, soy dressing - definitely one of my favourite dishes of the night. I love some nice fatty yellowtail, and the searing elevates it that much more! I would order this again.

Smoked Tuna Tataki ($11.80) - tuna, sliced onion, seasonal greens, sesame dressing, chili oil, lightly smoked flavour - I really only ordered this for the wow factor of the smoke haha. It was good though!

Small Fisherman Bowl ($7.80) - today's assorted sashimi, pickled daikon, shiso leaf, sweet soy, sushi rice - in my opinion the best bang for your buck dish of the night. Came with ~4 pcs of sashimi. I would definitely order this again.

Stone Bowl Carbonara Udon ($13.30) - japanese thick noodles, onion, bacon, cream sauce served in stone bowl - this was soo good! I don't normally order carbonara as I feel it's too heavy but this was perfectly creamy without being too heavy. I would order this again!

Overall, I was very impressed with Ajito. I'm coming...