168 Sushi Japan Buffet is not actually a Buffet

To really enjoy yourself at 168 Sushi Japan Buffet you must let go of your usual restaurant expectations. Like having one attentive server who looks after your table. Or where you pick a single meal off a menu. Or where shoveling food into your face as fast as possible is considered uncouth.

As my title says, this place isn't a buffet, rather it's an all-you-can-eat deal for a flat rate (23 dollars for dinner at the time of writing). The price includes as many dishes, carbonated drinks and desserts as you think you can finish.  Alcoholic beverages are available for purchase.

You order by choosing items off of a picture menu (you may have to request one if it isn't stuck in an office-style inbox at your table) and marking the quantity of each dish you want on a form:

There's a nice balance of sushi/sashimi with other types of meat and noodle dishes (terkyaki, udon, spicy beef, etc). Members of our party who do not eat sushi came away satisfied with the spicy chicken:

Once you've filled out your order form, one of the interchangeable staff will swoop it up and your dishes will begin to appear in random order.  Other posters do better justice to rating the sushi, suffice it to say it ranges from sublime to slightly disappointing. Better than mall sushi or Loblaws sushi.

After placing your first order, your challenge becomes the timing and quantity your second (third, forth...) order. How many dishes do I still have coming? How much more can I eat?  When do I need to submit my form to avoid any gaps in the conveyor belt of food entering my belly?

I can't end this post without sharing a rumour I overhead in the ladies room during my last visit. Apparently 168 Sushi hired a washed-up set designer best known for getting fired from Lexx to style their interior. I think they got it right. Lots of mirrors and faux-modern light, almost like a trip to Japan, if by Japan you mean Ricky Schroder's Bar Mitzvah hall.

And yes (exaggerated eyeroll) the sticky floors are intentional. I'm embarrassed for you that you had to ask. There might have been a fountain too, I was too busy guarding the number they gave to our party on a mini-post it that I forgot to really absorb and fully appreciate the ambiance when we came in. Let me just say that this wall art would somehow have worked:




Bottom line: good value for money, good variety, good place for groups (even if some don't eat sushi), entertaining experience.  The fine people of Ottawa seem to enjoy it too:

Astrolabe is Emperor-Has-No-Clothes Brand Sauvignon Blanc

Now that I'm in my 30s I've decided I need to be more grown-up about my drinking. It's ok to consume an entire bottle in an evening if it's really really good wine, right?

Problem: I'm too lazy and cheap to become a wine expert. Also, I have a vague suspicion that much of wine appreciation is all "the emperor has no clothes" anyways.

Seriously, give these pompous-dick wine experts some baby duck in a sippy cup, are they gonna know the difference? Ok, maybe they would, but I prefer to indulge my laziness, and not pay the 600 dollars to do the sommelier program at Algonquin.

Instead, I signed up for a free registration at Wine Align. Terrible name, right? Sounds like a workforce-reduction civil servant project to me, but I was excited by their list of top 25 world-wide value wines.

I hit the LCBO today, fully intending to get the Two Oceans chardonnay off the list for a resounding 11 dollars. Instead, I was sucked into the Vintages section and started blindly looking at the stock.

This one caught my eye:

Priced at $22 dollars, the modern label makes a statement. Astrolabe. This wine must be manufactured by sentient Japanese robots, and sent back to us through time from the year 2030. Drinking this wine is going to make me cooler than Lois Lane taking her clothes off in Superman's fortress of solitude. This wine will be so amazing it will ruin my taste buds for that shitty Wolf Blast stuff my in-laws serve when they want to impress.

So.

I buy it.

And fuck the clerk for not asking me for ID. I totally looked 25 today, guy.

I rush home and put it in the freezer to cool it quickly to the optimum (?) cold temperature at which one enjoys a white wine. Meanwhile, I check my instincts on Wine Align and I am vindicated:

Everybody loves this wine.

It is described as powerful and complex, with intense aromas and flavours of passion fruit, gooseberries and freshly cut herbs. At least one wine snob calls it his current "go to" sauvignon blanc.

Clearly, I am a wine genius.

Then I taste it.

It evokes hay pissed on by livestock. The reviews are right, it has a long finish, but I don't want this taste to linger.

Like bad sex, I just want it over.

Now. 

Kind readers, you should not trust my judgement. Clearly, I am a wine philistine. Trust the experts.

Please excuse me now while I wash my mouth out with some diet root beer.