Sherman's Food Adventures: Take Sushi

Take Sushi

When you live in a particular neighbourhood long enough, you begin to discover local favourites. Most of these places are not well known to other people unless by word of mouth. Finally, I decided to try a local Japanese restaurant called Take Sushi. Technically, it's a Chinese-run Japanese restaurant; but I'll reserve judgment until after I try the food. Whatever the case, after the meal I had at Kawawa, there really can't be anything worse. Formally Jun Sushi, Take has quite a simple; yet attractive awning in front. For some reason, I love the simple white-on-black signage. I can never understand the red-on-yellow signage of some Chinese restaurants. Did they ever look at it and consider that it's just plain ugly? I digress.

Inside, the place is not very big; but they effectively use the space. We were warmly greeted by the staff and immediately seated. One scan of the menu and I noticed that the prices were quite reasonable, especially the combos. However, we decided to order individual items since the combos came with California Rolls (not really our favourite). We started with an order of Salmon Sashimi. The pieces were pretty decent in size and the fish itself was quite fresh. No sliminess, fishy taste or mushiness. In addition to the sashimi, we ordered some Nigiri. I gotta tell you, ordering it was quite comical. It went something like this, "I'd like 2 pcs Inari...". "What? Ina..ri?" "I'd also like 2 pcs Unagi". "Un... what?" "Unagi". "Okay, 2 pcs of Toro". "Uh, can I check the menu?" "Alright, finally I'd like one piece of Uni". "???". "The special, behind you on the menu board"! That was a bit painful. You know you're not dealing with Japanese staff when I know Japanese better than the server.

The Nigiri was pretty good with well-prepared sushi rice and fresh toppings. I liked the Uni; but Viv really didn't care for it. She said the aftertaste resembled garbage. I never knew she ate garbage before... If I had known, our dates would've been a whole lot cheaper! We also got a Chopped Scallop Roll and a Spicy Salmon Roll. Thankfully, this was ordered in English and the server didn't have any trouble with that. The rolls stayed in one piece and there was a minimal amount of rice on the outside. However, the spicy salmon should've been called the sweet salmon since the sauce was quite sweet.

As per usual, we got an udon for the kiddies. We decided on the Nabeyaki Udon. It was a pretty solid bowl of noodles with plenty of ingredients. However, I thought the soup was a bit sweet and lacking depth. But other than that, the meal was quite pleasant and the prices were reasonable. Despite the ordering difficulties, the service was very friendly and attentive. It's not great Japanese food; but it's decent for Burnaby North.

The Good:
- Warm and friendly service
- Decent eats
- Reasonable prices

The Bad:
- Some staff don't know the menu or Japanese food???

Take Sushi on Urbanspoon

5 comments:

KimHo said...

Man, I hope you either:

1) Have a good couch,
2) Your kids won't be rushing to thank you for the new dog after seeing the doghouse...

BTW, what is that roll with a red dollop on it?

Sherman Chan said...

Kim, that was the spicy salmon roll. They shoulda called it the sweet salmon roll instead. Nah, I already gave her grief at the restaurant about that comment... LOL...

Anita said...

Ahh...this restaurant! *shakes head* I've been there and the food was pretty good. Not exactly Shima-Ya but still good. Sorry that I'm a bit biased on this one. It was quite unfortunate that you had a waitress that didn't know what was on the menu. It's better that you order from the chef instead. If you want to have a re-do, I'll ask my dear friend to make some good recommendations for us. :p

Sherman Chan said...

Hi Anita, yes I would go again, it was not bad. Haha, yah, maybe I'll order from the chef next time. The waitress was struggling.

Unknown said...

Here's another one I'm fond of! If you give Take another chance, I'd love you to try their calamari salad: basil, garlic chips and if I recall correctly, sun dried tomatoes - delicate and flavourful.

Also very fond of the Tako-su; I'm not sure it's listed on the menu, it's basically a Tako sunomono but without the glass noodles and more tako.

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