Munchie Adventure: Sushi K Kamizato, Port Coquitlam

Guess who just got accepted into Nursing Schoolll?? =D *waves hands around and jumps up and down* --AHEM-- please excuse me, just too excited and happy =) Annyways, family treated me out to lunch as a celebratory meal! ^-^ I got to choose, and this place had pretty good reviews, so I decided to try it, since it was so close. Pretty hidden in the corner though...

Restaurant: Sushi K Kamizato (visit their website here)
Location: 2850-2105 Shaughnessy Street, Port Coquitlam
Cuisine: Japanese, Sushi
Price range: $15-25 per person for lunch

Date of visit: October 13, 2012
Atmosphere: 4/5
Staff/service: 4/5
Food variety: 4/5
Food quality: 3.5/5
Buck worthy? 3/5

It took us a while to find the restaurant, and as we were about to give up, my brother spotted it. We walked in, it's a little store, one waitress (owner?), one chef (husband?) at the sushi bar, and two guys popping in and out of the kitchen. There was one table of people, we were seated by the only other 4-person table at the small store. I looked at the menu, and lets just say their prices aren't average for the area. It's pretty pricey, but I decided to give it a try anyways!

We were started off with some Seafood Tempura (on the house), and they were good! I think it was all salmon tempura, and the dipping sauce went really well with it. Not oily feeling at all, and the batter wasn't thick and overpowering! =)

Not knowing what to order, we decided on their Lunch sets (forgot the name and their website is down ><), which came with sunomono, rice, and miso soup. The sunomono had plenty of shrimp, which I really liked. The vermicelli was hard though, and vinegar was too strong. No picture of the rice, but it was well made, very chewy!! =D

Here's the miso soup, which I found a bit redundant because the udon was miso-based, and tasted exactly the same, but with udon =/ (It was ok for the other set we got though)

We got the Daily Special ($8.95), which was Udon in Miso Soup topped with Salmon. I thought the salmon was chicken breast for a while, since it was such a white color! Udon was nice and chewy, but this is something I can make at home easily, so I don't wanna order it again =/

The second Lunch set we got was the Sushi, Sashimi, and Roll ($14.95). Although I personally prefer the cheaper orangey (farmed?) salmon, getting wild salmon is a nice surprise, since it's usually more expensive. There was five pieces of sashimi (salmon, 2 tuna, 2 hokkigai), three pieces of sushi (salmon, ebi, tuna), and one california roll. The sashimi looked fresh, but I found the tuna a bit mushier and fishier than I'd like, maybe it wasn't as fresh as it could've been. Sushi had small pieces of rice, which I liked, the rice wasn't the only thing I could taste in my bite! Good proportion with the item on top =) California Roll had pink crab! Not the norm, and it was a bit saltier than normal too, which I didn't like. Liked the small size, but you know parents, when they shrink size and price isn't proportionately shrunk, they dislike =P

For rolls, we tried their infamous Ocean Wiser ($9.50). I watched him make it, and it was well executed. Very precise and so much passion he puts into his creations. I don't like amaebi alone, but in this roll, it was good! Although my first piece came apart (because of the sauce, the rice wasn't sticky enough), I loved the explosion of flavor in my mouth. The roll took very little effort to chew, just melted away almost!

Out of ideas, the owner walked over with the specials board for us to look at!

Poco Gunner ($8.95) caught our eye, and we ordered it. We all agreed it was too burnt, it was overwhelming the flavors of the roll itself =( There was shrimp tempura in the middle topped with shiitaki mushroom and seared inari.

Still a bit hungry, and since it was celebratory... we ordered two Tiger's Eye ($3.75 EACH). I saw this online, and thought it looked really good. I watched him mix the scallops, so I knew they were fresh (fresly mixed anyways =P). Rice wrapped by lightly seared salmon topped with chopped scallops-- it was really good. But the scallops were a bit frozen. Rice had a little bit of sauce on them, and it was really tasty. Like the posts said online, this does kind of melt in your mouth, requires some chewing =P These are one of those try-it-once-but-not-again things, since I could get a whole dim sum plate for this price =P Student budget! haha

Family agreed we're just not into this kind of food, or not at this level. They didn't have my favorite Tako Yakis either, so that's a minus point =P For the money we paid, I'm pretty sure we could get a lot more food at other Japanese restaurants in the area =/