Ottawa Foodies

Last Wednesday my lady and I went to Genji for late-ish bite to eat. Having heard good things about the sushi here, we thought it was a no-brainer. The restaurant was quiet; however we did arrive 30 minutes before last call. We started with the Genji Appetizer which consisted of four rather small fried shrimp and seaweed dumplings. Meh, I wouldn’t order it again. It wasn’t bad, but it was a small portion (granted it was only 5 bucks) and taste wise, it was unmemorable.

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For the sushi we ordered Spicy Salmon (green onion, cucumber, tempura, and mayo), the Spicy Tuna Tempura (tempura fried tuna roll with green onion, cucumber and mayo), and the Boston Roll (Lettuce, shrimp, Alaska crab, avocado, green onion and mayo).

The Spicy tuna tempura (pictured on the right) was by far my favourite. It was delectable! Very lightly flash fried to give the entire roll a nice crunch; however the innards were still fresh and moist. The quality of the tuna was stellar, and the whole roll just melted in my mouth!

The Boston roll (the over exposed one) was disappointing for a few reasons. Granted it’s a bit of an unorthodox roll, but lettuce is weird in a sushi roll. It makes it extra chewy. Secondly, the menu advertised “Alaska crab”, but what we got was crab stick. Not cool, especially because it was more expensive than other options. It was on the speciality maki page, so I assumed the premium price would reflect real crab, so in reality we paid at least three dollars extra for fricken lettuce. I wasn’t in the mood to kick up a fuss about it.

The salmon roll was decent (to the left). Spicy salmon roll is my girlfriend’s favourite "Japanese-ish" dish, and she wasn’t overly impressed. The salmon was of very high quality, but there was too much rice, and the she found the outer ring of seaweed was much too thick and chewy. After pointing it out to me, I tend to agree with her. Towards the end, she unrolled the roll, and ate the salmon on its own.

Ultimately, I may return to Genji, but I would much rather get sashimi or nigiri options since the quality of the fish was top quality. I really liked the tuna roll, but otherwise their maki options aren’t anything to write home about. The service was fast and friendly and although the prices were a little high, I felt the price matched the quality of the fish. Three rolls, the appetizer, 2 cokes came taxes and tip came out to almost 60 dollars. Worth it? Not sure…

5

Great sushi - especially the spicy salmon/tuna/butter fish options. I'd also recommend trying the Medusa tempura. I'm not usually a tempura fan but this one is worth it! Would pass on the seaweed salad however, the flavour just isn't there.

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Having spent the last 10 years in Toronto, one of the items on my list to figure out was a good sushi joint. I've visited more than I'd care to mention in the Ottawa region, and so far Genji has been my go-to place for sushi the last couple months. The quality and consistency of the food has always been excellent, and even though it may be a touch pricier than some of the competition (keeping in mind we normally go for dinner rather than lunch), I wouldn't think twice to recommend this place.

Service itself has generally been excellent, but we tend to go on a Saturday afternoon just after they open at 4pm, so it tends to be fairly quiet.

They've also recently updated their menu slightly to add a few new items. And, I'd suggest you give the Sea Treasures a go ... it's the one item on the menu my fiance has to order every time.

3

We visited last night and I hesitated before posting comments here because I'm not quite sure what to say. The food is uniformly inoffensive, but the whole experience lacks the lustre of when this place opened 5 years ago! Very hard to say if the restaurant has changed or if our tastes have. However, when it's less than 1/3 full at 8pm on a Saturday night, then something is not going well. It's entirely possible that the all-you-can-eat sushi restaurants are stealing away potential customers.

In the photo is the Kaiso Salad. My wife likes seaweed salads and we were both impressed by the size of this ($8.50). The dressing was a very mild sesame concoction, too mild even for the already-mild seaweed flavours.

Service was friendly, efficient, and wonderfully polite. No complaints there! Tables and chairs had some slightly sticky spots, which is something that seems to happen to some Japanese restaurants over time.

We mostly shared, and together we had the following items. I ordered the generous "Set Dinner B" for $31, which accounts for many of our dishes.

* Amuse-Bouche - nice spicy marinated bean sprouts with tofu and mushrooms.
* Kaiso Salad - described above.
* Miso Soup - very good, but it usually is.
* Salad - okay ginger dressing, okay lettuce.
* Genji Appetizer - Shrimp wrapped in seaweed and tempura-fried. More unique than good.
* Shrimp Tempura - Excellent, with a nice variety of vegetables!
* Beef Maki - Grilled beef wrapped around asparagus. Very nice!
* Waving Unagi Roll - Pretty good.
* California Roll - Good.
* Sashimi - Tuna and Salmon. Completely tasteless but that's a good thing for sashimi. ;-)
* Teriyaki Chicken - Tasty, nicely browned, on a generous bed of zucchini and asparagus.
* Mango Ice Cream - Generous portion, okay taste.

Nothing really bad. Flavours were somewhat underseasoned. The tempura, beef maki, and teriyaki chicken were the high points. Genji is still a solid contender in Ottawa's Japanese culinary scene, but with the passing of Ichibei I'm at a bit of a loss to say which place is now best.

I had the Chicken Teriyaki from the Genji take out menu a couple of weeks ago.

It's $10.50 or so, and it comes with a little bit of soup (not sure what its called, is it Miso soup? - I do know however that it is the standard sushi restaurant soup), a teriyaki chicken breast which is placed on top of wilted lettuce and a few vegetables. It also comes with a bowl of white rice and a very tiny bit of salad.

All in all, it wasn't anything special. The chicken was bland and just OK. I'm not a fan of lettuce once it has been wilted too much. In this case it was wilted too much. The rice was just white rice.. The soup was good, but again, I didn't even know it came with soup, so it was nice to have, but nothing special either. Lastly, the salad had an awesome dressing (again i think it was miso).

I will not order this again. However, I have yet to try genji sushi, and I hear good things. So I will have to try their specialty.

I would much rather get the "thai special" from the now non-existent So-Go. But I guess this is a redundant comment.

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

1

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!

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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.

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

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@ossBASHA
That's too bad. I find the food affordable and very tasty. I only go there for lunch, though, when you can order a sashimi platter for $16-$17, including miso soup, salad and a small bowl of rice.
Can't beat it.

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!

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.)