Kyoto House — Restaurant in Toronto

I walked by this Kyoto House many many times but I didn't visit either it's a long lineup of people or the decor doesn't look appetizing.

However, today, I finally decided to give it a try after playing some outdoor app games with my friends.

AYCE lunch here is $20.99 CDN + tax which is very reasonable at today's inflating pricing around all restos and if a bowl of pork bone soup down the street is $19.95, I rather have the AYCE lunch.

Mind you, I checked the Dinner AYCE here, for the price of $29.95 CDN + tax, just $9 more for dinner, I rather have dinner as you can order sashimi, shrimp tempura, BBQ short ribs.

For lunch AYCE, they don't offer any of the aforementioned items, it's purely sushi, hand roll, sushi rolls, udon, fried rice, miso soup, the basis. Anyhow, I was there at around 2:00 PM, which is long way from dinner time, so I ordered the lunch AYCE.

To my surprise, the hand rolls were very good especially the BBQ salmon skin with avocado (although I prefer they put less seafood sauce in it). Fresh sushi rice, hot steamy miso soup, really clean crispy fried pork cutlet, teriyaki chicken soup udon was great as well. Ice cream were great.

I have to emphasize how attentive the staff were, they were all very competent, responsive, hardworking. They takes your orders right, always check if you have enough water or hot tea and they automatically fill it up without you asking.

I do have to say that the resto somewhat does look a bit like a cafeteria with not much a vibe or atmosphere. There are no music being played, super quiet where everyone just sit & eat, which is fine.

Food comes quick and they don't miss your order.

Of course, the quality of the raw fish and sushi are better quality at other AYCE uptown such as Richmond Hill or Markham but then again, those charges almost double, so you get what you pay for.

I would say this, if you have no expectations but just want a standard lunch that fills you up with rice, udon, sushi, this is the place, you have the peace of mind to order whatever you want and at $20.99 CDN, it's one of the cheapest AYCE lunch offered in the expensive...

Kyoto House was an utter disappointment. It was clear from the moment we entered that the focus seemed to be less on the food and more on customer turnover. We generally don't set the bar too high for AYCE Sushi restaurants, but this place significantly failed to even measure up.

Child-sized portions, lower quality ingredients, sloppily put together maki rolls that were skimpy on the rice, poorly hand-formed nigiri that fells apart as soon as you pick it up, soggy nori on the hand rolls, no refills on drinks (you have to pay again), free Wi-Fi stickers on the door, yet doesn't appear to actually exist (no SSID broadcast), a huge misleading sign in the window saying "ALL YOU CAN EAT - 100s of Menu Items - Lunch price, Dinner Price", neglecting to note that the lunch menu is maybe half of that at best, and to top off the experience; pretty gross bathrooms.

Kyoto House made my wife -- a Japanese native -- literally begin to cry because she was so embarrassed that other customers were being subject to such poor quality food and presentation. She felt it gives non-Japanese people a poor impression of Japan.

For an expected low to average AYCE Sushi place, Kyoto House was particularly underwhelming and I place it very low on that scale. Sadly, the best part of the meal, for me, was the canned Gingerale.

There are several other Japanese and Korean restaurants in close proximity that you may want to first consider if taste is just as important to you as price. Cheap & delicious does coexist; just not at...

TL;DR: Dirty restroom and kitchen, slow service, sashimi with ice crystals, rude staff, noisy environment. Worst sushi experience I’ve had in years.

I decided to try this sushi place today because the online reviews looked decent and the price seemed reasonable. Unfortunately, it turned out to be one of the worst sushi experiences I’ve had in recent years.

First impression wasn’t great — I went to the restroom and found it very run-down. I also caught a glimpse of the kitchen, which looked messy and unclean. That already made me lose a bit of appetite, but since we had already ordered sashimi, I decided to give it a try.

We waited over 20 minutes for the first plate. The salmon was just okay, but the other sashimi still had ice crystals in it. When I put it in my mouth, I ended up spitting it out.

The staff’s attitude was also disappointing. They looked unfriendly, spoke loudly among themselves while preparing food, and the whole environment felt noisy and unprofessional.

In the end, my friend and I just couldn’t continue with the all-you-can-eat. We told the server we wanted to stop and just pay for what we had ordered. To their credit, the server handled that part quickly, which makes me think they might get this request often.

Although the final bill wasn’t much less than the AYCE price, we honestly didn’t want to waste any more appetite here. Overall, this was by far the worst sushi experience I’ve had in years. Just sharing my genuine experience here so others can avoid the same...