Ichiban All You Can Eat

I tried this restaurant on the advice of a friend who works in Scarborough. I quite enjoyed my meal. I enjoyed the salad bar and the sushi. The torched sushi was excellent. The beef tataki was very good and the white tuna tataki was the best that I have ever had.
My only reservation is that the I-​pad menu is not as easy to use as the I-​pad menus used by other AYCE restaurants.
I had a 4.5 star experience but rounded it up because I disagree with some of the more negative revues.

The customer service wasn’t that bad in my opinion, I actually enjoyed eating here. The food is pretty good, will come here again

We came here as a group based on the marketing/​advertisement and it came with 10% discount (newspaper advertisement or you can obtain it from
) which was a bit attractive to come and try this place out…
I usually don’t have extremely high expectations for AYCE due to the fact that you’re paying for quantity instead of quality… so I was expecting subpar quality…
I guess a lot of places are implementing the iPad order yourself which makes it look tech savvy… but I didn’t like the fact for this place. after entering you had to click on «call server» and your server comes to «approve» your request with their password, that was a bit inconvenient…
The Yeah (s):
— nice and spacious tables
— go grab your own semi-​appys (I.e. soup and some salads and desserts)
— small pieces of sushi… so you can get more variety
— thinly slices of sashimi (too many places cut way too thick)
— each person was allowed 2 Alaska crab legs
— torched sushi (not crazy reservations like KaKa @ fmp)
The Naah (s)
— minimal English and Canto spoken by servers
— subpar freshness
— soft drinks add $ 1 per person
— overpriced ($ 28.99 pp@adults, $ 12.99 for kids 3 – 9, kids @ 3 really can’t eat that much)
The restaurant itself had a contemporary design and it was quite spacious. Everyone only knew how to speak mandarin, which didn’t help, as my mandarin is very bad. English and Canto was not widely spoken. I think only the manager or the boss spoke minimal of both languages.
If the 10% off stays on as a long term promo, I may be more tempted to come back.

I went for dinner on grand opening night. It was super busy and unorganized. This was probably due to lots of advertisement on the radio and grand opening. Food was good and the waitresses worked very hard. They have a self serve soup and dessert table too

Inside Spledid China Tower (use Restaurant entrance)
They only take CASH and CREDIT (No debit)
Coke not included (starting at $ 1)
No liquor license yet
iPad ordering
Fast service
Spacious arrangements with private rooms
Clean
Good service
Weekend Menu ($ 28.99):
Cold dishes, salad, soup, stew and dessert is available at walk up salad bar
They have Jelly Fish 海哲 and cooked mussels in broth at the salad bar
Small pieces
Some unique creations
Typhoon style fried shrimp is good esp if you like garlic Lamb skewer is good
Beef tongue is okay but usually ayce don’t have
They have CRAB LEGS
Unique rolls
They have Jelly Fish Sushi
Torched Sushi is pretty good (hey have duck sushi too)
Sashimi was meh … it’s okay (herbal white tuna and beef sashimi is served with a citric sauce in case you don’t like sour)
They have frozen yogurt
Pistachio frozen yogurt has cherry taste (I hate cherry)
Overall decent place, I’d come back. Seems to be better than the previous restaurant that was here.
They also serve weekday set lunch special starting at $ 6.95.

I normally give good reviews but I cannot if were to be subjective about this new opening.
For the first time, was below expectation.
Second time to give it a try to see the change, same expectation did not exceed or improve upon.
Reasons:
1. Poor customer service, long waits both server to send order and receive dishes
2. Loud atmosphere and staff unorganized
3. Lack of interest in providing welcome to new guest tables
4. Location wise, not well known and design layout unnecessary
5. Unreasonable quantity size
6. Quality: freshness level below average
7. Pricing is off especially small selection choosing
8. Fail to observe tables, no duty of care
9. Slow pace, rushed at normal times when not busy
10. Unwelcome greeting of guests

Maybe they are just starting out but the service is no good. Super slow. Very unorganized. And they constantly speak mandarin to me when I don’t speak it. Pieces of the sushi are tiny. Good for ayce. Def not good for ala carte. I left hungry. The price for ayce is pretty high for the menu. I much rather go to other ayce restaurants with a bigger menu.

I just came home from Ichiban and boy was I disappointed. First impression of the restaurant, very modern and a HUGE space. They use iPads to order, like a lot of japanese AYCE restaurants as well. There was a area where you could get your own appetizers, soups and desserts near the sushi bar. I would have to say that the noise level there was pretty high as the place got more full. Their service wasn’t as fast as I would’ve hoped. They seemed to be understaffed for such a large restaurant. Everytime we had to submit our order through the iPad we would have to wait for someone to come to us with their password to send it off to the kitchen. To think that they would have some sort of notice that someone wanted to send an order in… yea, no.
We took a good look at the menu, they had some Dim Sum, some Korean dishes and some Thai dishes as well, but none looked appealing to me so I went for my defaults: Sashimi and grilled foods. They didn’t have a huge variety of foods as their menu was pretty small or maybe just a lot of things weren’t appealing. I would say the price is not worth it for what they have to offer. Their fish is not really fresh and they are cut in REALLY thin slices. They had a lot of interesting foods like the «Jellyfish sushi» and «sashimi chip» (which is pretty much bits of sashimi like you see in sushi rolls on top of a pringles chip) it was gross by the way. We also order a «torched duck sushi» which legit looked like smoked ham when it got to our table and it didn’t taste that good. Everything seems overly-​refrigerated, my saba sashimi was pretty much breaking as I picked it up with my chopsticks. Their beef tataki had a sauce which it was drowning in that was really sour. It seemed to have a lot of lemon juice in it which totally ruined the taste of the beef. Nevermind you can’t even taste the beef.
All their grilled foods have a really sweet teriyaki sauce that ruins all the natural flavours. Their skewers … (we tried lamb and shrimp) had a really bad odour to it. Perhaps it was the spices they have chosen to use, it smelled like someone’s B.O. (like they haven’t showered or anything)
I heard some music start to get louder and louder and I was wondering what was going on, apparently it was someone’s birthday and they were playing the birthday song (which the beginning did not sound like it at all) and they brought out a cake with a candle and had a camera ready. I thought this was pretty cute.
Based on my overall experience, I probably will not return here but it is worth a try. Perhaps it was just my opinion on their food but hope they are successful.

This restaurant in the Splendid China Mall just opened today (November 8). I would describe it as a primarily Chinese restaurant that also serves interesting sushi. I have probably eaten at close to 30 AYCE Japanese restaurants, and I found this restaurant to be a treat due to its different menu. The food in the soup and salad bar was primarily Chinese. The Sushi had some interesting twists. There were 2 different types of sushi that used duck. The Ichiban Special Roll contains asparagus.2 different types of soft ice cream are available. I also tried the Cherry Fruit Slush.
The lunch price is slightly higher than most AYCE restaurants; however the lunch menu contains items that are not normally on a lunch menu. For example, I was surprised to see beef tataki available at lunch. Update: It appears that they were also surprised to see it on the lunch menu. I understand that it was supposed to be only on the dinner menu.
Since I have eaten at so many sushi joints, I was not surprised to be greeted by 2 people that I knew. Obviously, I was well treated by the managers and the servers.
In summary, I am glad that I ate here and will return.