Zen Sushi — Restaurant in Greater Strathcona

I have been a regular customer of Zen's for about 9 years now. Throughout all these years, I have introduced dozens of family/friends/acquaintances to this restaurant and I have always vouched for this restaurant. I have spent thousands of dollars on this restaurant over this last near decade and have likely generated thousands more in revenue for them through word of mouth, etc... I have always tipped at least 20% (sometimes even 25%) because this was truly my favourite restaurant...

Never again.

First of all, as a regular that has been coming to this restaurant for nearly a decade (and tipping way more than the average customer), you would expect that the waitresses would recognize you but nope, nothing of the sort. Over the years I have seen several waitresses come and go, most of them are the quiet/rude type but there were a few gems among those who really valued the customer and made you actually feel welcome. Unfortunately these were few and far between.

Of late the service has been really dipping. Plates arriving cold (sometimes not arriving at all). The sashimi pieces have been getting steadily thinner and thinner, sometimes they'll even bring you less sashimi pieces than what you ordered. The bathrooms have clearly not been cleaned in months, I am not exaggerating. I made a mental note of keeping track of a stain on the ground in the men's bathroom beside the toilet; it has been there for about 3 months.

Now normally, I can overlook all that, I don't realllly mind. But what I can't overlook is how absolutely rude the waitresses are. They absolutely do NOT care about you as a customer.

The last nail in the coffin was during my last visit about 3 weeks ago when I was there with my wife, daughter, and two sisters for the all you can eat lunch.The waitress was very rude in seating us at our reserved table. I waited about 15 minutes before she came back with the all-you-can-eat order forms.

Ok no problem, I can overlook that.

I quickly jotted down the order and put our order form on the edge of our table, in clear sight of the kitchen. It took another 15 minutes before the waitress came back to pick it up.

Okay..so a total of 30 minutes to get my order out to the kitchen.... hmmm... ok i'll overlook that too, I mean hey, it's Zen, my favourite restaurant.

And then it took another 30 minutes for the food to actually start arriving. So that's a gap of 1 hour between being seated at our table and starting to receive our food.

The sashimi pieces were so thin that, if you held them up to the light, you could practically see the light coming through them. The food trickled in very slowly. Much of it was very distasteful. Their teriyaki beef was, quite literally, all cartilage.

All this while our waitress made us feel like a burden as opposed to valued customers.

Our last order finally came in and then the waitress had the audacity to come back literally 5 minutes later for last call. She seemed annoyed when I asked for another order form.

And then finally, the absolute last nail in the coffin, when I got slapped with an automatic imposed 15% tip for the first time since my 9 years as a regular. I looked at the waitress and asked: so you guys are imposing tips now? She didn't make eye contact and just mumbled something under her breath.

That's it Zen, that was the very last cent you're getting out of me. I've put up with your horrible customer service long enough.

I would strongly recommend that anyone reading this review re-consider this place if you don't want to be treated like dirt.

I can also recommend you another place, it is called Sumo Sumo Sushi Bar & Grill in Sherwood Park. They do Sunday All you can eat lunch buffets at around $30-35. This is a little on the pricy side but IT IS SO WORTH IT. Their sashimi pieces are HUGE. I mean one piece will easily fill half your mouth. The size of one Sashimi piece at Sumo Sumo Sushi Bar & Grill is equal to about 5-6 Zen pieces. I am serious. The customer service there is also fantastic with very courteous waiters.

So long Zen... it's not...

Zero star. We had “all you can eat” lunch here quite a while ago & we definitely DON’T recommend this restaurant. “One” of our servers was very courteous and pleasant but the other server was extremely rude. Sushi wasn't very fresh as they actually smelled and tasted fishy. Sushi came with so much squashed rice and the thinnest slices of fish you have ever seen. Good fresh fish is not supposed to smell fishy. Egg sushi had a peculiar taste. It actually had no egg taste but rather tasted fishy and smelled unpleasant as if it was stored together with a bad fish. I've been eating sushi all my life and I know how good sushi should taste. We’ve been to Zen at their downtown location years ago & had a good experience. But that location has been closed so we gave it a try at this location. A big Mistake. One of the tuna sushi had a piece of BONE in it & the surf clam had SANDS in it. After having these two incidences, We were pretty much disgusted & lost our appetites. We notified the nice server about the bone in tuna & grinding sands in a surf clam sushi. The server apologized & told me that she would let the kitchen know about it. I thanked her. I was there to discuss a business with my business partner. We received a wrong order & got a shrimp tempura maki instead of shrimp remora which we ordered. We ate the wrong order anyway & then ordered the shrimp tempuras once again. When the order finally came, we looked at each other in shock as we were surprised to see how skinny the shrimp tempuras were. It looked like a joke. It appeared that a shrimp was sliced in half which means that they made two shrimps out of one. There was no good feeling of eating a pencil thin shrimp tempura. Then tempura yam wasn’t cooked through & unpleasantly hard. Disappointed. When I got a bill, there was $6 extra added on which stated "1 plate left". I questioned the other nasty server and she rudely said to me that it was because we left a plate of food. I told her that was because we lost appetites after the bone was found in tuna and unpleasant sands in a surf clam so we didn't feeling like eating them any more. She rudely told me that I should have told her then. Well, we did! At that point the rude server still did NOT apologize about the fact that they served us such a poorly prepared sushi and about accusing me for ordering more & not eating and wasting the food. We ordered only two more items additionally after the Incidence which were the tempura shrimps that they didn’t bring and a new order of two pieces of salmon sushi which my business partner's favourite. Since we came to eat sushi so he wanted to give it another chance & try just one more order of salmon sushi hoping no more bones in them. The additional orders were eaten so there was no wasted food from our additional orders. I don’t usually complain & was not even expecting any kind of compensation for serving us such a horrible food with bone & sands but it infuriates me that she got some nerve to charge extra $6. Any restaurants would apologize to their customers & remove the charge for the dish under that type of circumstance but obviously this restaurant doesn't take a pride in their business & do not appreciate their customers. It is quite clear that the sushi chef at Zen has no proper training handling fish/seafoods. The most vital part of preparing sashimi is to remove bones & that’s as important as fish is fresh. The rude server wasn't stepping back over this argument with me, so I told her, "That's fine, Done deal. But you are NOT getting any tip from me. " I paid the whole bill including the ridiculous $6 extra for "1 left plate " for the disgusting inedible sushi & I didn't leave any tip which they didn’t deserve. No doubt, we will NEVER return. By far they serve the worst sushi in town. If you are a foody & enjoy good sushi, this is NOT where you want to go. You will be very...

Zen Sushi is one of only a handful of “all you can eat” sushi places in south Edmonton. Given the price tag of only $40 per person and the surprisingly large size of the sushi, sashimi and kitchen plates, it’s well worth the money and everyone should be able to find enough items to choose from. Additionally, service was amazingly fast and friendly on the night we visited.

Having said that, here’s my personal opinion on dishes we had. Sashimi is limited to 30 pieces per customer. Tasted good but not great. Maki sushi was fresh and good; better than some places that charge way more. Rolls come three pieces to an order. Acceptably good for all you can eat but no specialty stuff with crab, tempura shrimp or fancy fish.

One standout item was flying fish roe and chop chop which came wrapped in real paper rolls and had more filling in each one than most other sushi places that charge $8 for two pieces. Another standout is mussels in ponzu sauce which would be $15 elsewhere.

Kitchen items; seaweed salad was good. Gyozas had no flavor with burnt bottoms and need dumpling sauce. Squid was tasteless. Fried scallops and wontons are big but average tasting. Tempura was all OK but not up to quality restaurant standards with light breading and watery sauce.

Odd for sushi include a “fruity” maki roll which doesn’t work because strawberries and rice is dumb. And there’s a buffalo chicken choice. Didn’t try it. Finally, teriyaki beef was a generous sized portion with decent quality beef and good sauce.

Overall; highly recommended but don’t expect high end sushi choices like you’d get for twice the price in a place like Mikado in south Edmonton Common (which, by the way, has deteriorated drastically post Covid). Great choice for two for under $100 including tip. (We didn’t order drinks and they should add the ice cream without...