Sushi Friends

Goddamn why do they have to have such good deals?! I guess you get what you pay for though: over cooked rice and flavourless fish. They didn’t even sprinkle sesame seeds on my rolls. Oh well.

Wow. How times change. This used to be a very cool AYCE but hadn’t been in a year and went with a friend for his send off trip. Can’t express the desire I had for Japanese.
While I can expect prices to go up as that does happen, I didn’t expect quality to get so bad. I mean — we are talking about bland and no flavour in the sashimi, sushi or rolls. When we started going there, you could see there was an energy and passion with two chefs making food at dinner time, two servers and just the display and presentation looking fresher and tastier.
The rice single and hand rolls seemed loaded with rice. You can also tell when the establishment is worried about how much someone may order. They bring trays with the battered or rice heavy stuff first vs the sashimi. But like I said, it was all bland.
The single chef that worked that had a serious look and not sure if this was his normal demeanor or just angry. The waitress was by herself but a little loose on the details. Making sure we had water, more tea. I don’t drink alcohol But my friend does. Does that mean you don’t check to ensure we are well hydrated.
No flavour. Very dry and even the sashimi was just missing any sense of flavour. We’ve agreed this is our last time at Sushi Friends. Sometimes it is hard to break a friendship but for the money, I’d say provide less options and focus on quality and taste to keep people coming back.

I’ve been to a million AYCE sushi places in the GTA so I have a good sense of what «average» is. This place has a different philosophy. Their menu is noticeably smaller, but their price is also lower.
IMO this is perfectly fine. Often there are only a few items that I like anyways. I’m happy to pay a few bucks less to get exactly what I want.
In terms of quality, it’s about the same as any other place. Chinese owned. Don’t expect to be pampered by service, which is average.

It was my first time eating full sushi plate in toronto. And i loved it. It was fresh, testy fairly priced and very nice presentation.
I went for the menu rather than the all you can eat. There is so many choices im sure anyone can find what satisfies their needs.

Me and my friend enjoy finding all you can eat restaurants because of how convenient they are.
In over 20 all you can eat restaurants we have visited over the last 4 months this one is the one I’d never go back to, not even if hungry.
The menu is extremely basic compared to other restaurants all you can eat. And for lunch we paid 19.99 each, plus drinks! We have been to other all you can eat restaurants with more variety of food, drinks included and for only 12.99
I decided not to judge based on the price alone and go ahead and enjoy it.
Well, the first bunch of food looked good, promising. Until I got to a cone sushi with spice salmon and all the salmon in that cone was the size of one third of my finger nail. Almost nothing.
The teriyakis were underwhelming.
The sashimi were good, but that’s easy to do, if the cook couldn’t slice fish well, that would be over the top. Lol
The waiter never came back to see if we wanted to order more, even though the place was empty, only our table and another table were taken.
Like 45 mins later a nice girl waitress started being more attentive.
My experience all over was:
I felt like paying their overpriced menu wasn’t enough to get good food and service.
Food was underwhelming. Nothing special and actually less good than average.
Another point: the festival «taste of the danforth» was going on that day, all restaurants were packed, but this sushi restaurant had only 2 tables including ours… That should have given us a clue! Not even offering «all you can eat» in the middle of a food festival the restaurant managed to get people.
My review seems less favorable than other reviews, but I live in downtown area and there are tons of great all you can eat restaurants with amazing food. Sushi friends didn’t seem to care about quality or efficiency, I got the impression that for them, just offering all you can eat was enough to get people into their restaurant… Doesn’t work that way.
In toronto we have options, many all you can eat restaurants with great food quality.
Weekend price 19.99
Each drink $ 1.50

This place is A-​OK. It’s close to where I work and it’s once of the cheaper AYCE locations there (there are a few other sushi/​ayce sushi places nearby). Went with a co-​worker after a shift. The first thing I noticed was the strong fish smell when we walked in. NOT a good sign. I was very apprehensive about eating here. It wasn’t as bad as I feared, the fish/​food, but I will never go back. That initial smell is so unappealing.
We ordered a bunch of stuff. A lot of salmon sashimi, with a few other types of sashimi (it mostly tasted okay-​good with the exception of the «crab» sashimi which came out cold like it was just taken out of those frozen packages from the grocery store. Some of the rolls included Spicy Salmon (did not enjoy), red dragon roll (was okay) and Salmon Avocado roll (again okay). The cooked foods were a bit better. The Beef Tereyaki was overdone, but the beef and onion rolls were yummy. The spicy chicken was too spicy and too hot (temperature wise) but the salmon tereyaki was good.
I think the Danforth has a great selection of places to eat, and while it doesn’t seem to be lacking in sushi options, this particular one does not seem like it’s worth it.

This has been my Go-​To sushi place since 5 years ago. The service for dine in is not the best but could be better. The reason why i love the place is because i love the deals that they have for lunch and dinner, and i’m talking about the $ 5-​$ 12.50 bento boxes that really fills me up. The cheapest lunch bento is around $ 6 with tax and it comes with miso soup, salad, 3 pc of sushi, fruit, rice and bean sprouts with teriyaki chicken, ect… which isn’t bad for $ 6. For dinner i usually get the bigger bento’s that ranges around $ 9 which includes veggie tempura, 2 spring rolls, chicken teriyaki, rice, soup, salad, 6 pc sushi, and fruit. I haven’t tried the AYCE or all you can eat but my nice cheap/​filling bento gets me coming back for more!

I’ve eaten here a few times. It is just steps away from Pape station. The dining environment is great and the service was decent. The Sushi was decent but nothing spectacular. What I liked most about this place was the prices, you can have a decent filling meal for less than 15 dollars.

Tried the AYCE menu on a Thursday night. The selection is not as extensive as some of the other spots. They only have the basic maki and handrolls, and only four types of sashimi — salmon, red snapper, butterfish and crab. The quality of the sashimi is nothing to rave about either. I prefer AYCE places with more sashimi options so this wasn’t for me.
The service was a little slow at first because there seemed to be only one person preparing the sushi, but the servers were friendly and attentive.
We paid 18.99 and my friend got a bottle of Sapporo for 4.50

Two stars for overall experience. Food would have scored three stars, not outstanding but okay. Unfortunately the food was dragged down by a very unfriendly staff, quite remarkably unfriendly… I guess they get by on foot traffic since it’s hard to imagine coming back.

I was here a few weeks ago, and we decided on the AYCE dinner. The price wasn’t bad, and the quality was ok. To be honest there wasn’t anything particularly memorable. I do remember having the sushi pizza, and we ordered a number of pieces of sushi and rolls. The company was great, so I can’t complain. Also, I felt like it was clean.

Pretty dece sushi restaurant. I rolled in here to pick up some takeout in celebration of being recovered enough from throat surgery to eat solid food again. I didn’t have to wait too long and the food was good. Not amazing — but good. After all that time away from sushi though, I didn’t care. I loved it. I was happy, and with a salmon bento for 11 bucks it was worth it.

This is now my go to place for lunch. They have a large selection of set meals to choose from and the bill is $ 10 – 11 including tax and tip. My favourite lunch item is the salmon sushi combo which comes with 8 salmon rolls, 4 pieces of salmon sushi and a salmon hand roll. I have also tried their tempura and sushi pizza. The tempura is good but the sushi pizza not to my taste with pieces of chopped green pepper and onions underneath the salmon.
This place is great for lunch — the service is great and fast. They also accommodate strollers for those that have infants.

The service needs improvement. Being a server she should atleast try and accommodate the restaurants customers. Food wasn’t great at all… Sub the salmon rolls + cali for tempura shrimp rolls, and paid +3 and was so bad. Cold, not tasty. I got the bento box… I forget what it’s called. Sushi pizza that came with it was dry and tasted bland. Asked for spicy mayo sauce instead of the regular mayo on the pizza and they were pretty cheap on that. Spent a total of $ 18 on a $ 8 bento box… and extra charge for the sub x2. The menu and its paired bentos are great deals. But eh… Might give it a try again, but I highly doubt it. Everything looked good, but looks are deceiving

This used to be a good local AYCE restaurant. Over the last year or so it has gone down hill significantly.
The menu has very little to choose from and the food is not fresh. Our sushi was discoloured and 3 pieces had hair on them when it arrived.
Our servers were nonexistent. They did not provide us with plates or soy sauce.
The washrooms were pretty and functional but it looks like haven’t been cleaned in days.
It was a great place to go and we use to frequent it once a month but we will be looking for a new place since this has been going on for a while now.

I went there on a Friday night, and I must say, this definitely isn’t one of the best sushi places I have been. They have both AYCE options and a la carte options. We ordered a Bento box and the Black Pearl Roll.
Let’s start with food. My friend who lives in the area told me only their rolls are good. I didn’t believe him until I took the first bite. The Black Pearl Roll consisted of deep fried goodies (I think it was shrimp?) wrapped nicely with avocado and fish roe on top. It tasted good and didn’t totally fall apart when eaten. The rest of dinner was disappointing. The bento box was really mediocre at best. We ordered the special bento box they had. The fish for the bento box was no way near fresh. The beef was over cooked, the dynamite roll that it came with was loosely wrapped and was not good at all.
Service was not great either. I understand this is a Friday night and you might be busy with customers who are ordering AYCE, but it would be nice if we could actually get our water filled for once without having to flag the waiters down multiple times.
Overall, Black Pearl Roll is decent for takeout.

I came here for dinner during the Taste of the Danforth. Considering that they were very busy, I thought that they did a good job handling the customers inside the restaurant. However, we ordered tempura twice and verbally asked for it a couple times and we never got our order. I think the part that irked us the most was when we saw them bring out a bucket of tempura out front to sell as part of Taste of the Danforth. Also, I saw that other tables got their tempura so it’s not like other tables were neglected. I would not be coming back here.

absolute worse sushi place to go to… dont believe me? go there and try the food.
if you have tried any uptown sushi buffets, prepared to be disgusted.
i have never tasted more bland food in my life… for 17 dollars ayce you really feel you wasted your money. first off, the selection is the weakest AYCE sushi selection ever (see pic if you dont believe). BTW no dessert as well.
No seaweed salad was a big upset for me. they basically only have the cheapest things on the menu + salmon sashimi… everything else is a joke.
the chicken wing was by far the worse chicken wing i have ever tasted in my life… it was like someone took a rotten chicken wing and threw it into flour then into the deep fryer. no seasoning, no salt. Not even a granule of anything… presentation was disappointing.
definitely no one is tasting anything and the owners have given up. either that or no one purchased salt or any seasoning including black pepper in the last 3 years there.
pretty much any cooked food you order will come out looking the same, tasteless, bland and just plain bad. The tempura was a big fail, the sauce they used. literally tasted like water. They watered it down so bad it tasted like it had a ratio of 1 teaspoon soy sauce to 1 gallon of water. i mean u cant even smell the flavor. it was literally light brown water.
the service was slow (2 waitress/​no more than 6 tables)… i wanted to show a time lapse of a paper i accidentally dropped in the dead centre of the walk way and how 15 mins later, no one even picked it up. If you look around you see 4 out of 6 tables are looking for a waitress. and nowhere to be found.
Edamame beans took 2 orders and 1 hour to come out… ONLY saving grace if any was that they have salmon sashimi.
wont be coming back for sure…

As far as all you can eat sushi goes, this place is a solid value for the money.
Yes, service is not brilliant, but it doesn’t suck either. Food comes out quickly and water refills (if slow) do happen. Everyone at my table was pleased with how quickly our orders came out.
The fish is quite fresh. The sushi rolls are not so thick with rice that you fill up on the rice. The hand rolls were fresh, but a bit heavy on rice and low on fish.
The restaurant is a small, yet clean space. I am glad I discovered Sushi Friends.

Great Lunch Special !!!
This is one of the best lunch deals in the city.
We have visited Sushi Friends a few times.
For an unbelievable $ 5.50, I ordered the Combo B, you get an excellent meal which includes:
* Green Tea and water to drink
* Miso Soup
* Green Salad
* California Rolls
* Vegetable Tempura
* Teriyaki Chicken
* Steamed Rice
* Fresh Fruit
* They even top it off with Ice Cream dessert: I like the Mango
If you are inkling for some Japanese Sushi and are on The Danforth, you can’t beat Sushi Friends.