Akira Restaurant — Restaurant in Ontario

First off, I rarely have an experience where I have to share this kind of rating. But as a sushi lover, and a devoted fan of Japanese cuisine I feel I owe it to the next customer who has to drop $80 for a lunch for two + a sm takeaway.

I don’t share this rating on a light hearted note. I debated for some time, but I shared what I had hoped to be a special lunch out with my 84 yr old mom, and she didn’t say anything until dinner time. Then my husband gagged on his dinner takeaway and was offended I brought him this “special dinner” that was in his words “prepared 4 days ago” and the “fish was funky”.

So we ordered a California roll lunch special, rolls were chewy and not fresh, salad had no dressing, 2 strange tasting dumpling things that again, I apologize, were not edible.

The tempura was greasy and simply a homogenized deep fried hot mess. The tempura sauce was definitely watered down.

The sashimi was not fresh, was chewy, and frankly tasteless. The soy sauce was also definitely watered down. I was deeply saddened by this meal as I rarely eat out these days due to the expense, but it was supposed to be a nice lunch out and this place had a very high rating compared to neighbouring restaurants.

So to say that we were disappointed is an understatement, and again, I don’t write this lightheartedly. I love sushi, and I admittedly was fortunate for many years to live in a larger city which had some great establishments.

And for the record I have had great sushi in Kingston, but not here.

If anyone can recommend where I can go next time when in town, I would greatly appreciate it 🙏🙂

And again, I don’t write this flippantly. It is with a saddened heart. I work hard for my money and I wouldn’t want someone else to be so disappointed. That’s...

First let down was the service. We sat and waited and waited for the one and only server to come and take our order as he served people coming in for take out, while the other staff sat and watched him. When he finally did come and take our order, we could see that visibly large bits of dried skin clung to the corners of his mouth and face. While I am sympathetic about someone with a skin condition, I dont want it falling off into my food. A little "how's she going" in the mirror prior to coming to the table would have been in order. First course and drinks came at the same time, not because the food was quick, but the drinks were slow. Maybe that is a tenant of Japanese cuisine to have your drink later, but its a tenant of North American cuisine to have a drink to play with while you wait for your food. I ordered a Sashimi lunch. I appreciate that they want to give the customer the perception of value with the size of the pieces of sashimi, but when eating raw fish, there is a delicate balance of the fish to soy sauce to ginger ratio to be achieved. I would rather have five smaller pieces than the three hunks I got forcing you to sit there working through a mouthful of raw fish. It left me feeling a little gross after a while. The octopus slices reminded me of being a kid and chewing on a bath toy. The tempura, however was some of the nicest, crispiest, freshest-tasting we have ever had. Finally, the service let us down again when I had to finally get up to get the check and be...

I’m a bit disappointed as this was my first time ordering from Akira. I decided to branch out from my usual go-to sushi restaurants and try somewhere new, and this place had good reviews.

It took over an hour to get my food but it could have been a busy night so that’s ok. But, the miso soup was literally all broth, not even a single piece of tofu. I ordered four kinds of nigiri, the maguro and ebi were decent but the salmon wasn’t great - and in all cases, there was a ton of rice but I’ve seen more generous portions of fish elsewhere. As for the tempura, the batter was extremely thick and again, more batter than shrimp, and the variety of veggies was kind of lacking - basically just sweet potato and onion. The rainbow dynamite roll was not my favourite. Normally, rainbow rolls are one of my favourites in terms of maki - but on top was mostly avocado and not much fish, and it was not indicated that they would be slathered in a kind of sweet sauce - I think that should be mentioned even on UberEats. I wasn’t a fan of the sauce. I generally don’t like mayo based sauces on sushi anyway, but the sweetness was a bit misplaced.

I’ve seen some reviews say it’s hit or miss, so maybe I caught them on an off night. But I’ll likely just stick to the other two places i...