Ottawa Foodies

Our experience.... was okay. The food was good and fresh. I thought it was quite pricy for what you got though. What also made are experience a bit skewed was that we waited almost 2 hours for our food. I don't know if this is normal, so I wouldn't completely base it on my comments. I don't think the waitress realized that we had been waiting for so long. We were a table of 6, and the resto was quite busy.

I just kept myself busy with my camera! Here is the picture of their menu, which was very pretti.

So, we started with a complementary appetizer, cucumber marinated in fish sauce and hoisin.

Finally, the sushi came! My usual favorite the dragon roll.
Next up, the platter that my husband and I shared... I know, we eat allot. There is some unagi (mmm...eel) rolls, dynamite roll, salmon sashimi, some mango tango thing (not that great)...

And of course, my routine Green Tea Ice cream! This was delicious! Best part of the dinner ;P
See more pics at theovalley.blogspot.com

Great spot for sushi! I had all vegetarian selections and they were awesome, crisp and flavourful veggies, and nice size rolls. I agree with others that the atmosphere is a plus as well; quiet, casual, comfortable. I also agree that it's definitely not the best I have ever had, but worth going back again!

I have been to Genji about 5 or 6 times, lunch and dinner, and have never been disappointed. Their teriyaki (I've had the chicken, salmon, and beef) are all excellent - char broiled and juicy), the tempura is top notch, and the vegetarian maki and salmon and tuna nigiri are WONDERFUL. I have gone with a friend who lived in Japan for six years, and it is the only sushi in this city she'll eat. I also think their miso is the best in the city.

I have only ever had female servers, so I cannot comment about the male server who received a bad review, but the service I've had has always been simply wonderful.

Would go back in a heartbeat.

dacharle, did your wife by any chance have "butterfish" sashimi? Escolar is being misleadingly advertised in a number of places as butterfish. It is known as the diarrhea fish. As per Wikipedia:

"Like its relative the oilfish (Ruvettus pretiosus), escolar cannot metabolize the wax esters (Gempylotoxin) naturally found in its diet. This gives the escolar an oil content of 14–25% in its flesh. These wax esters may cause gastrointestinal distress in humans called "steatorrhea", the onset of which may occur between 30 minutes and 36 hours following consumption. Symptoms may include stomach cramps, oily bowel movements, diarrhea, headaches, nausea, and vomiting."

"In mid-2007, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, after investigating cases of diarrhea caused by mislabeled fish, decided not to ban escolar or oilfish but instead issued a fact sheet noting the potential adverse effects of consumption and recommending that consumers speak with their retailer, verify fish species and consume the fish in small portion size using preparation methods that reduce oil content."

Since it is well-known that escolar is being misleadingly marketed as butterfish and that it can causes these symptoms, the fact that the chef never mentionned that seems quite suspect to me. If she had the butterfish, I certainly would never order it again, and I would speak directly to the chef about it.

Went there last Wednesday for my hubby's birthday. When we arrived, I found the restaurant quite cute and cozy. I ordered the Nasu dengaku as an appetizer. The sauce was amazing. My hubby doesn't like eggplant and actually asked for a second bite! After, I had the sweet potato maki (since everyone on this site seemed to recommend it!) and of course, it was really good. I also stole a piece of the pork/cream cheese/pineapple (can't remember the name!) from my friend, it was different. I'm not a big pork lover but it was still tasty. My favorite was by far the spicy butterfish roll. Finally, our really nice waitress came out with the tempura banana desert with a candle for my husband and she actually sang with us! My only negative comment was that it was a bit slow at first but I think they were just waiting for everyone to be seated at the same time (the smokers kept leaving the table!)We were a group of 10 though so I wasn't expecting to be out in 10 minutes! And all the couples seemed to get served quickly, so if you're not patient, it's better to go without a group. I definately recommend this restaurant! I also definately will be going back (hopefully soon!).

Were other patrons of Genji the night that you attended sick as well? Was the sashimi the only thing your wife ate that day? Did your wife go to the hospital? Be careful when accusing a restaurant of food poisoning - if you cannot prove it, it is considered slander.

Food Poisoning at Genji!!!

My wife and I have dined Genji several times over the last year and up until the last time the food (as well as the service and atmosphere) was very good. However, the last time we eat there my wife got food poisoning (from the sashimi - I didn't eat any fish and thus was spared a weekend of being ill) - we contacted the owner and although he seemed concerned at the time he never contacted us again as he said he would. Although this used to be one of our favorite sushi spots, we are now looking for a new place where food poisoning is not on the menu.

I have been here twice and had good experiences both times. I like the atmosphere. It is cozy and warm. The sushi we had was fresh, but I have to agree with other posters. The staff, not so nice.

I went to Genji for the 1st time last night (April 15, 2010) and thought after reading all the reviews here that it would indeed be the best sushi in Ottawa.

Not.

It was ordinary at best. The salmon sashimis were nice but everything else was just okay. We had the mango tango sushi (mango + unagi + cucumber) had so little unagi it didn't taste like it. The spicy salmon maki wasn't that spicy or tasty.

All in all, a totally common, not out of the ordinary night. We chose that restaurant to celebrate a birthday and it fell short of our expectations.

Service was okay. Wine list was not extraordinary but okay. It's really the sushi that disappointed.

I would recommend Kinki or even that sushi place by Lapointe restaurant in the Byward market instead of Genji.

I went to Genji last night for the second time. I was, unfortunately, disappointed with the experience. The first time I went, the food and service were both good.
But last night, both were terrible. The waiter, a stalky Asia guy in his 20s or early 30s with spiky hair, was so bad. SO bad. He was rude and he simply did NOT listen. He got three of our dishes wrong and forgot to bring one of our soups. And, to make matters worse, whenever we would ask him to get the correct food, he would return to the waiter station and make comments, roll his eyes and do all of this within earshot of our table.

I don't know if this is a coincidence or not, but the sushi we ordered was lousy. I had a bad feeling that he had asked the chefs to mess with our sushi. Each roll was SO spicy. We ordered spicy tuna, spicy salmon and sweet potato maki. We had eaten these three rolls in the past and always found them spicy but pleasant. Last night they were utterly inedible! The spice was so over the top it completely ruined the experience.

I will give Genji one more try, but if I'm not pleased, I may have to go somewhere else.

The Sushi is fresh and tasty, but a little expensive. I have had better sushi for much less. Here are some pictures!

I went to Genji expecting the best sushi in town, I was disappointed. Almost all five rolls we had were terrible. The sushi was good, although each piece was too big. Way over priced and I hate to say it, only has better presentation than an AYCE sushi restaurant. They're also slow!

"I'm looking for a good sushi place that allows patrons to sit up close to an open-concept kitchen area and chat with the chef."

MHK on Merivale has a central kitchen that is open to the patrons. There are a few seats right up in front of them, but not too many - most people sit at tables like a more traditional restaurant. But when I've gone solo I sit in front of them and the chefs will chat with you.

I'm looking for a good sushi place that allows patrons to sit up close to an open-concept kitchen area and chat with the chef. I went to a great place in Vancouver like this -- not only had AMAZING sushi, and not too $$, but the place absolutely buzzing because it encouraged this sort of thing.

Is Genji the place for this in Ottawa??

My elder son just returned home from his party tonight and brought me a box of sushi from Genji. This was a nice treat to mom! I ate one piece and my husband ate 2 pieces before I remember to take this photo. Yum!

Hmm,

Genji so far is the most consitent sushi place I've been to in Ottawa. It's fresh and the flavours are pretty close to the real deal. The rice can be a bit vineagary sometimes though.

Sushi is definitely Genji's strength although the Unagi on Rice and the Tempural Udon is quite good. Opt for the buck wheat noodles if you want the extra earthiness of the wheat.

A tip I got from a Japanese friend is to check if the sushi rice is soft. Most Japanese places will take extra care to ensure this and non Japanese usually do not. He's been right everytime so far in this and more often than not softer rice has led to better quality in overall preparation.

my test for sushi is to order Toro, then Uni, but when they don't have fresh tai.... I start to wonder...

The night I was there they only had Maguro, Himachi and Saki.... By the way, Salmon is a recent western phenom for sushi as in teppanyaki....

the sushi chef/cooks are chinese.... sorry I wouldn't try fugoo here....

on the positive side this is a great value restaurant for the price of what you get in terms of their package dinners, miso soup is good, hot stuff not bad... but fish is not good... I had their seared tuna, which sucked....

presentation great, service great, prices great... but not raw fish... or even slightly cooked fish... think the fish is just not fresh enough....something to do with the chefs....

We were supposed to have either tekka (tuna) or shake (salmon) maki from Set Dinner A. But they allowed us to substitute Sweet Potato maki for their menu's maki (sweet potato maki is my favourite).

The photo was a bit blurry since I forgot to use the macro funtion from my camera.

Finally got to try Genji on Friday. I ordered the 14 piece sushi plate. I wanted to try the sweet potato maki, which wasn't offered on this plate, but they cheerfully substituted it for a few of the fish ones instead. I was glad they did, because I really enjoyed it (Good call, Ashley!) but I have to say that 14 pieces is a LOT of sushi and I ended up having to have 5 pieces packaged for me to bring home. Everything was fresh and nicely presented, and what I could see of the open kitchen in front of the sushi bar looked clean enough for my ailing grandma to have surgery in. Service was friendly and efficient...the salad course did puzzle me though...was I supposed to eat it with chopsticks?...with my hands? I asked for a fork, and was brought one right away. Also the lettuce and other vegetables were cut very small with a gigantic tomato wedge sitting on top.
One of the cooks chatted with me about his experiments putting fruit into sushi. The philadephia roll with strawberries sounded more like dessert than dinner, but I have to say that the 5 berry sauce works well with the sweet potato maki. I liked all of the nigiri except for one that had a texture I didn't enjoy...I think it was squid. This was actually my first time ordering sushi in a restaurant. I make vegetarian sushi for my daughter sometimes, and I've had it prepared for me by the chef at work and gotten it as takeout. I'll definitely go back but I think I'll order a smaller dinner next time!

After having so many rich meals during the Christmas holidays and knowing that we are going to have New Year Brunch Buffet the next day, I really want someting light and healthy on New Year Eve. Here is the refreshing Canadian maki with lots of goodies (e.g., lobster, advocado, Boston lettuce).

This is the shrimp & vegetable tempura (part of Set Dinner A). Two shrimps, one slice of sweet potato, one slice of zucchini and one slice of eggplant. Very cripy batter! However, after the sweet potato sushi and this dish of tempura, my stomach was already full at this point.

The vegetable tempura here was among the better I've had. The batter was really light and crispy, the vegetables were great; all around thoroughly tasty. It came with a good whack of enoki mushrooms, which turn out to be delicious tempura-ed. Notably un-greasy. I was very happy to find it still quite crisp and, well, tasty when I was nearing the end of the plate and it wasn't quite so hot.

Not the cheapest, at about $16, but that was a full dinner with rice, salad, and soup, too. I wish they had a little appetizer plate, but, then, their salad and soups were excellent -- genuine appetizers, nothing like the big plates of heavy blah found under "appetizers" on a lot of menus these days.

The most succulent and moist shrimp tempura I've had. Not quite as flavourful as some (e.g. Takara) but so juicy I didn't mind.

Here is the shake (i.e., salmon) sashimi my friend had.

I recommend that you sit at the sushi bar so that you can talk to the sushi chef. This is part of the fun.

Green Tea icecream is always a must, not matter where you eat sushi!
This one was excellent!

Try their fried banana with ice cream (aka FBI). Very yummy dessert. Suggest that you ask for Lichee Ice cream instead of vanilla.

This is the Salmon Teriyaki from their Set Dinner A. By the time I had this dish, I was very full that I didn't enjoy this dish that much any more. (I should have brought my husband!)

NB. My colleague also told me that she had no room to eat her chicken teriyaki. So, we asked the server to put her chicken teriyaki for me to take home and it became my son's after dinner snack!

I found the edamame here to be good, but those loving lots of salt may be disappointed: it was served relatively plain, salted minimally. (Consider it edamame for the hypertensive!) A good-sized portion, enough for two, is $3.95 -- very reasonable.

I had the beef ramen noodle soup and I was so happy to finally get to taste this egg noodle because I have been looking for it ever since I saw that stupid movie "The Ramen Girl"! I know I have nothing to compare it to, but the noodles were thick and a little chewy, which I liked. The broth was flavorful and the beef was so tender. They also put sprouts in. The portion was perfect - not outrageously big but big enough to fill up this hungry lady. I think the soup cost $9.95 which is quite reasonable.

I asked the waitress if the noodles were made fresh there and she said that she thought they were packaged. But then she went to go ask the cook and he said the noodles were made on-site but then they were frozen. Either way, they were freaking excellent.

Excellent Nabeyaki Udon here as well. Make sure you don't burn your tongue. It is very hot (temperature hot)!!!!

Excellent soba here -- good flavour and texture, served in a broth with just the right amount of saltiness.

Tried their lunch special (curry pork with rice). Very delicious. Finished my lunch within an hour and my tummy felt great!

NB: Photo by Genji upon my request. Thanks!

Yaki-Tori was one of the food items from Set Dinner A. Yummy food! (Too bad that the photo was over-exposed.)