Ryu — Restaurant in Montreal

Final Meal Stop on the 1100 mile Jon Batiste, Uneasy Tour, Toronto/Montreal Stops Road Trip!!

I drove into Montreal the afternoon before from Toronto see Jon Batiste at MTelus (YIKES! I was pretty sure that place might collapse on our heads during the concert…). Spent the night and (of course!) I decided to have lunch in Montreal before heading back south to Vermont.

So I looked for a sushi/Japanese spot. Because thats my fave. And Montreal did seem to have a Japanese “presence.”…

“Seemed” being the operative word here….

Look. I’m that person who spends actual TIME doing all my due diligence/online research regarding everywhere I’m going to be dining out and I did all that for Montreal and I chose Ryu. I looked at photos and menus online. Place seemed legit. But, then again, this would be my first foray into Montreal sushi…

And I should say that Ryu is my ONLY foray into Montreal Sushi. But I am here to say that Ryu is NOT legit.

I don’t know if Ryu is representative of the Montreal sushi scene ?? I hope not. Because that would not be a good situation.

Ryu is located right in the beautiful downtown area near the Cathedral etc. Gorgeous. Street full of restaurants full of business people on their lunch. It was given Upper East Side…

So my expectations were kinda high.

They should not have been.

Ryu is GORGEOUS. Beautifully designed interior! Except for the bathroom?? That was fine entering - since the door pushed in. But the space is tiny and then you need to figure out how to pull that door in AND somehow fit yourself beside the sink…??? This is NOT a “larger bodied” safe space and that is NOT OKAY…DO BETTER QUEBEC. #eyeroll

The thing is they’ve expended all their energy/capital on the gorgeous design of this spot and they’re cutting corners on the food. Which is super not cool.

BECAUSE it was such a beautiful looking place I ordered Avocado Tacos. Because I “assumed” they were using legit, fresh ingredients. They are not. I took one bite and realized they’d used “pre-smashed” avocado and some sort of horrible, premade taco shell. Awful. That was the only bite I took. I set them aside. They deleted them from my bill. Bar food. For drunk people. Yuck.

I pressed on. As on does. Got the seaweed salad. Because it had so many “additional ingredients” I didn’t think it would be predominantly store bought seaweed salad. It was predominantly store bought seaweed salad…

They denote the type of salmon on their menu for each item. So I asked what kind of salmon was in the handroll. “Atlantic” Which means that they’re using the most basic, terrible, factory farmed Salmon from Chile for most of their dishes and I just cannot stress how GROSS that is. The worst quality fish. In this spot passing itself off as super fancy. They told me I could get the good salmon on a handroll.

I also got a Shiitake handroll. Which may have been the best thing I had at Ryu. DELICIOUS.

I cannot recommend Rye. All show. No substance. Typical chain type restaurant just trying to turn a profit and cut corners wherever possible.

Those tacos tho. SHOCKINGLY HORRENDOUS. Sports stadium...

Hanging out in Montreal for business and it's dinnertime! I'm a huge fan of dining downtown because there are just so many choices so close to each other and it just makes things easy! Here's how dining at Ryú went!

Atmosphere/Appearance: This place is BEAUTIFUL. It's an elongated restaurant with the most awesomely decorated ceiling. I wish I knew what all the 3D wooden crosses represented, but they were so cool. The bar rail/sushi counter stretches almost the entire length of the restaurant and looks so modern/futuristic. I can't stop harping on how much I loved the aesthetics in here.

Service: Julie took excellent care of us as we sat at the sushi counter. Everyone knows that the bar rail or sushi counter is the best seat in the house! Lol. However, the food did take an excessively long time for some reason. Luckily the couple of Suntory Toki Whiskeys had me chilled out.

Food: I'm a huge fan of when restaurants create unique Maki rolls so I checked out 2 today! First up was the Truffle Salmon Maki. In it is salmon, shiitake mushrooms, avocado, black tobiko, truffle oil, nori and spicy mayo. I didn't taste much truffle and there was a lot more shiitake in it than I had expected. However, the roll was still excellent and I could tell it was made with a high-level of skill. Next up was the Wasabi Scallop Maki. In my opinion this roll was better. It was a bit smoother, had a good bite from the wasabi and just worked better together.

Value: ALL PRICES ARE IN $CAD. A "pour" of the whiskey I had was $18.00. The salmon maki was $19.00 and the scallop maki was $23.00. Absolutely worth it. The food is high-grade, filling and "felt" authentic, though I have never been to Japan. Lol.

In conclusion, I loved it here and will absolutely be making another visit whenever I'm back in Montreal! Check this place out if you're...

Awful experience on a recent Sunday night. Walked in with reservations. The restaurant is not that big, so even a full house shouldn't be so overwhelming. Ordered two rounds of drinks, some apps and 3 rolls, just two of us, not that large of an order. Received the apps within 20 minutes. But it then took 45-50 minutes after ordering to receive small order of 3 sushi rolls - Unacceptable! Waiter said that there was an issue with take out meals, issue with communication, thought we were sharing and that he incorrectly punched in our order....? Regardless of all that; As a waiter, HOW do you not look into a table's food when you see that they have nothing for 30-40 minutes??? Our table was right in the main walkway, even the woman manager walked by our table constantly, but never stopped to ask how were doing, nor did she check in on our food until I asked 40 minutes later. After that the apologies started flying, but we wanted food, not apologies. Additionaly, the "sommelier" told me the wrong price for Sake, but then the manager forced me to pay the actual price - error after error by staff and management. To add insult to injury, to make up for it, they offered a measly dessert. Like many other restaurants in tourist areas, they want your money, but do not delivery on service. I accepted their dessert as we had been here for over an hour at this point - majority of that time was just waiting for food- and I just wanted to get out of there. Will definitely NOT be returning, and don't advise you to dine here unless you enjoy frustrating service with your meal. Try Hidden Fish for MUCH BETTER service and excellent sushi &...