Watami Sushi & Sake Bar

When I want non-​ayce sushi, I always end up at Watami. Although its on the pricier side, the quality is good. They have decent lunch specials, I always get the mix bento which is actually pretty filling. If you’re going for rolls, I highly recommend the baked scallop roll (its SO good!), its actually my favourite roll there. Once for dinner I ordered the boat for two, and although it doesn’t sound filling, it is. The portions are pretty good. For dinner, if you pay cash you can get a 10% discount, but not for lunch.

Watami is my favourite sushi place in Waterloo. I’ve been here at least ten times and it is consistent as hell. The service is always polite, the salmon fatty and fresh, rice cooked perfectly, etc. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before if you like sushi, but it’s a wonderful alternative to the ghastly AYCE sushi places taking over KW.

It’s been a year since my last visit. Got to say I am way pleased with this place and have completely changed my mind about it. Service was quick, friendly, and food was great. Will be back again!

Interesting variety of sushi rolls available. Seems to me that a lot of effort goes into food presentation. Overall, it is a nice and quiet place for dinner with good service.

Watami is one of the best sushi place in KW, though it isn’t AYCE. IT’s a bit pricey for sure, but it’s a good treat once a while. If price is your concern, come on sunday for the ramen special.

Went to Watami for lunch and I was pleasantly surprised at their wide variety of lunch specials. In addition to just featuring rolls, they have lunch boxes with grilled salmon, katsu, etc. Additionally, they are all reasonably priced. To be honest, as a student, I would rather come here and get a satisfying meal for under $ 10 than get something mediocre at the university plaza.
I ordered the katsu (pork cutlet) bento box, which was around $ 8. It comes with a miso soup a box with small salad, two deep fried dumplings, a scoop of fried rice, some california rolls, and the katsu. It definitely wasn’t the tastiest katsu or rolls I have, but for the price I can’t complain. I would prefer this over any AYCE sushi anyday.
It was very quiet on the day I went and I was able to have a nice relaxing lunch with my friends!

Compared to real Japanese food this place is not great but it is perhaps among the top in the region. Could use more selection and unfortunate ramen not offered throughout the week. Service is generally pretty good. My go-​to spot.

By far best sushi in town. Fish is always fresh, great variety, and can’t complain about the service. Lunch deals are fair, with decent sized portions of sashimi.

In my opinion, I think this place is overhyped.
I came here based on all the good things I’ve heard, but quite honestly disappointed with my experience. When I went, it was fairly late maybe around 9:30 and there was barely anyone.
I wasnt too hungry so I went with the mixed tempura appetizer, the agedashi tofu and the (recommended by our waiter) fire and ice roll.
Tempura was good, very crispy and had your average mixed vegetables and shrimp. (2 yams, 2 squashs, 2 shrimps, 1 eggplant, and taro)
I found the crunchy exterior of the agedashi tofu quite soft but overall pretty good.
Finally the roll came. It was drenched in sauce and the sushi was falling apart when you pick it up. I think there could have been less breadcrumbs, all I tasted was breadcrumbs and sauce. Where was the sushi?! Couldn’t taste it very well under everything else.
This place is also very expensive. I ordered 3 things and it came close to $ 30.00 ($ 30 with tip). Overall it was okay; although overhyped.

sea urchin was not fresh, bread crumbs on fire and ice sushi roll was stale, the best part was the Korokke… this $ 6 dish was the highlight of the more tham $ 60 night. One of the server was not pleasant, but the other server was extra nice — let’s pretent it cancels each other out and focus on the food. :)
tl;dr — never again :)

Sushi?! What sushi?! Where is it? I only see rice under pungent sauce. You know its crappy food when they have to drown the actual food in some artificial vomit looking sauce. Yuck!!!
For the same price, try out kinkaku and Niko Niko. The quality and service is so much better. For some reason watami always smells like a public washroom that has not been flushed for months.
And ramen?! What ramen?! They are worse than instant noodles. Even kenzos msg filled ramen is better than theirs. Seriously, their ramen is just boiled water with some soggy wheat starch.
The only time I got excited to try their sea urchin, they told me the sea urchin wasn’t even live or fresh.
There’s really nothing good about this place. With the price tag you’re almost better of anywhere else.

Nope, not worth the extra price to come here vs. going to an AYCE establishment. We ordered the baked scallop sushi and ice and fire and the taste was average. The portions were small too, the size of the sushi were the same as take out sushi and the cost was 13.95 per dish for 8 sushi… total rip off right there. The baked scallop sauce wasn’t even hot when we got the dish. We also ordered the unagi rice which the unagi was delicious, which is what saves me from giving this place a 1 star rating. The bill came in total of like 55 with tax and tips shared between 2 people. That’s over 25 per person for lunch while we could have gotten an AYCE elsewhere for only 15. Not coming back ever again.

Went to Watami for a quick birthday lunch. Décor was beautiful, but it took them a while to greet us at the door.
We got seated and waited for a good 15 minutes until they came back to take our order. The only problem to this was that we were the only ones in the restaurant; shouldn’t have had to wait that long for water.
Ordered the love boat for 2; it took them a good half an hour to prep the sashimi and sushi for us. It was fresh and very delicious though. Also ordered a chicken karaage; crispy and tasty. I would definitely go again but would go for dinner, not a quick lunch.
They also have uni, which I’m pretty excited to try.

I’ve had take out from Watami before, but this was my first time dining at the restaurant. Like my first review, I found the rice had a stronger vinegar flavour and is more mushy than other sushi I’ve had. My maki rolls were good otherwise, but the salmon roll was pretty small for the price. My boyfriend loved the chicken teriyaki roll and thought the soft shell crab roll was okay.
I wasn’t that impressed with the service though. It took quite a while to get someone to take our order, and the servers all seemed disinterested and distracted.

My boyfriend and I come here on a number of occasions simply because this is the best sit down sushi in Waterloo. Great ambience, higher quality sushi than most. They are known for their sushi. The ramen and donburi dishes are pretty average, since as others have said, this is more of a Chinese-​Japanese restaurant (as they are owned by Chinese). We like getting the tex-​mex, watami on king, and the ice & fire which are crazier fusion rolls.
We enjoy their sake menu from time to time (house hot sake is great, definitely give that a try!) They do great when it comes to small parties (2 – 4) but we’ve had issues when eating with larger parties.
I’ve reserved for 12 before and they took a very long time to prepare everyone’s dishes. We also came for a student club event (group of 20ish) and it took a long time to serve everyone. Half the table had their mains, and the other half had to wait another 5 – 10 min for theirs. By the time our half was done eating, we had to wait for the other half to finish their plates.
Their chairs have been pretty worn down over the years — you tend to sink into the seat and feel that you are not at the correct height to eat your meal.
Overall though, we enjoy coming here for a normal non-​AYCE sushi experience.

Solo’d Watami earlier this week on a Wednesday evening.
It was a quiet evening in the restaurant — 3 other tables of patrons (2 couples, and another solo diner).
SAKE
Their Sake selection is pretty extensive (which. now makes sense given they call out ‘Sake Bar’ in their name). They were out of cheaper cold sakes so I went with a $ 25 KIKUSUI PERFECT SNOW (unfiltered) sake. It was very rich in flavour and sweet — I wasn’t really expecting that level of sugar and/​or alcohol. I struggled to finish the whole bottle long after my meal was done.
FOOD
I was more hungry than usual this particular evening, so I really struggled with deciding what I wanted to eat. My eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach still. I landed on the BLACK COD ENTREE. I was expecting the meal to come out in a Bento-​style box, but instead it came on a large plate with 3 very generous portions of COD, served with stir-​fried vegetables in a not-​overly-​sweet teriyaki sauce with a (VERY SMALL) portion of rice.
The cod was DELICIOUS and the vegetables were good too. My only complaint would be that I found the rice portion to be rather tiny. I think it is just something for me to keep in mind if I ever want to order another entrée-​type dish.
OVERALL
A good meal. I would like to come back again (on separate occasions) to try their sushi again — and I always like a hot bowl of udon noodle soup especially as summer winds down and it gets chillier.
Check out Watami Sushi & Sake Bar and let me know your thoughts on the place!

I was lured here by the Sunday Ramen special. They start making ramen at 1pm until they run out. It seemed that a lot of the other customers also ordered ramen.
I got the ramen and beer special for $ 20. A bit pricey, but it came with some chicken karaage. I thought the style of food was actually more chinese-​japanese rather than pure japanese. The chicken karaage seemed very similar to Taiwanese salt pepper chicken nuggets. They were tender and tasty but didn’t explode with flavor and juice like the kind I’ve had elsewhere. The outside batter was also minimal, so there was no crispy crunchiness to it.
The beer was great. How can you go wrong with Asahi Dark?
The ramen was meh. The portion size was huge, and I had trouble finding the noodles under all the stacked ingredients on top. The main problems for me was first that the broth was not piping hot whereas some of the other components were hotter in temperature. This was a bit odd. Usually the broth is ladled out of a big boiling pot that’s been simmering all day. For the broth to come out just slightly past warm, meant it was probably cooled off by something or maybe the broth pot wasn’t at boil. Very confusing.
The noodles, I couldn’t figure out if they were overdone or underdone. This might have be related to the broth temperature issue. I would have expected fresh noodles to be placed in a boiling pot of water for about 3 minutes, run under cold water to stop the cooking process and placed in a warm bowl. Then the broth would go in, followed by the other ingredients. Some places will stir fry the bean sprouts with garlic and add the miso broth to it to add more umami flavour, before adding it to the noodles. The noodles should be just al dente and chewy still. Something went wrong in this process.
The chasu pork was cut the previous night or in the morning, I don’t know. It felt flavorful but dry and not as tender as I wanted. It tasted similar to Hong Kong style roast pork. This may be a plus or minus depending on your taste profile, but for me, it was a minus.
The other ingredients were fine. The fish cake was a highlight, surprisingly tasty. I thought the chef’s true calling might be in oden rather than ramen. The soft boiled egg was ok, but I don’t think they used the more expensive heritage organic egg that has more flavor, but the soy marinade was fine. The menma and seaweed were unremarkable. At least they didn’t taste off, like i’ve had at other places.
Service was remarkably enthusiastic, although the head server placed me in the worst seat in the house next to the entrance atrium, even though the restaurant was half empty. Seriously, why do I always get the worst seat.
If you have to get ramen, and you can’t go to Toronto or figure out how to cook it yourself, then Watami will half scratch that itch for you, but I probably would go to Toronto instead.

Watami is beautiful.
I’ve been to sushi bars and ayce in the past, but this simply stands out as the best. The dragon rolls are meticulously crafted to perfection and the sashimi melts your heart. At first the prices will look daunting, but with some reasoning you will understand that it all adds to bliss. Let’s do some math. For the same amount of money as you would spend at a sushi buffet, you can enjoy premium sushi that will fill your stomach and make your taste buds fall in love.
Like a lot students, most if my sushi experiences were from the variety of all you can eat sushi places. If you asked me how they tasted or if I liked it, I would tell that I really enjoyed it. At these places we have the instinct to order as much mediocre sushi as possible. Do you remember the time you almost tipped over? Don’t you remember pushing sushi down your throat? You can’t forget the time you ordered too much and had to hide it all in the teapot! In the end, AYCE sushi leaves you 5 pounds heavier and full of regret. On the other hand
Watami truely is a different experience, it really is something everyone should try. You will cherish every bite and remember every moment.

I didn’t even get to try their food because the server was so awful to us.
Firstly, our table still had bits of food left on it. The two of us sat down and got our menus. After 15 minutes of tracking down someone, a girl that was not our original server finally cleaned our table and took our orders. She was nice, you could tell she was just a bit flustered because she was doing everything. The girl that sat us down, however, had made eye contact with us several times, smirked and just whispered to her co-​worker. Otherwise, the only real work she did was slowly walk around in a circle.
I was so confused. Looking back, I wish I had asked for the manager. Having worked in food service before, I honestly believe that good and honest customer service is key for the best experience. We waited for around 40 more minutes then hungrily realized our food was probably never going to come. We left a toonie for the one drink that made it to our table. We never even got water. The SO said that they hated students, because he came here with his father before and the service was decent then. I was so shocked and angry. I will never come back.
The prices were a little up there, but we heard the quality of the fish was great so we decided to give it a try. At least the Sprite was good.

They are closed on Mondays. The first time we tried to go, they were closed. :(
Party of 2, weekend dinner. Service here is good.
Ordered
1) Baked Scallop Roll: Look at a picture, and it’s not very appetizing. It looks like slop on top of a california roll (which I guess it is). There is not much scallop, there are overwhelming amounts of mushroom in it (I like mushrooms fortunately). This is by far my favourite roll (ever), the mixture of mayo, scallop, mushrooms, california roll and soy sauce was very very delicious. Too bad about the $ 12.95 price vs the lack of scallop though, but I would still recommend it despite this.
2) Salmon Salad Roll: This is cheaper than the othe maki because there are four pieces (note there is no rice). Very large chunks of salmon and finely cut cucumber wrapping the roll on the outside. It is very delicately made and quite impressive. It is good, but I personally prefer the taste of the baked scallop roll more.
3) Unagi-​don was very dry, both the eel and the rice and was not enjoyable. I would not recommend this.
4) Chicken udon soup: It was good. The chicken is tough, the soup tastes good and it also comes with a few chunks each of broccoli, mushrooms and a healthy amount of onions!