Sherman's Food Adventures: Hanano Sushi & Grill

Hanano Sushi & Grill

After a grueling hour of keeping order while the kids bowled or should I say chucked the ball and did all sorts of disconcerting behaviours, we headed for some eats.  Originally, we weren't aiming to travel all the way to North Road, but my daughter really wanted a clear princess balloon filled with helium.  Trying not to witness a 5-year old begin to cry, I hightailed it to Dollar Giant at Lougheed Mall to discover...  no helium!  Well, I tried!  So we went looking for food nearby and well, couldn't go South of Lougheed on North Road due to a police incident.  Therefore, I gave Sushi California a go to discover, surprise, surprise, no parking spaces!  Fine, a random food adventure this would be.  I proceed North and ended up at Hanano Sushi & Grill.  From the sparse clientele, I should've known this was going to be disappointing.

It started off on a good note as our server provided us with bowls, spoons and water for the kiddies complete with straws.  Very attentive and very astute.  Although the menu wasn't small per se, there was a limited amount of items available.  We started off with the Salmon Sashimi, which we thought was a good value at $11.00 for 15 pieces.  Well, it was too good to be true as each slice was half the size of most other Japanese restaurants.  So we essentially paid $11.00 for 7.5 pieces of sashimi.  At the very least, it was decent with a bouncy texture and a noticeable amount of sweetness.  The meal began to go downhill as the Tempura Udon arrived.  The tempura was soggy in parts and the yam was undercooked.  Furthermore, the udon itself was a bit too fishy due to the copious amount of bonito flakes.  Also, we asked for no onions (since the kiddies don't like them) and that seemed to go unheeded.

We ended up ordering 3 different maki sushi rolls and it turned out we should've done without any of it.  On one plate, we had the California Roll and Alaska Roll.  Um...  That did not look like any Alaska Roll we've ever had before.  Rather than salmon and imitation crab in the middle, there was only avocado.  On the outside, there was a small slice of salmon.  But the weirdest thing was the dousing of ginger soy dressing.  Not a good flavour combination.  And that sushi rice...  That was bad.  It was soft, wet and gummy.  A really poor attempt.  At the very least, the California Roll was fairly large and was okay, except for the rice.  Our last roll was a specialty one being the Tuna Tataki Roll.  We did like the smokiness and the drizzle of sweet sriraccha, yet again, the subpar sushi rice ruined it in terms of texture. Lastly, we had the Oyako Don which, yes came with onions despite our request.  In terms of the positives, the rice was properly sauced, but then again, it was too sweet.  The pieces of chicken were diced so small, there was no way it could maintain any moisture.  We didn't really dig this dish. Actually, as you can already figure out, we didn't enjoy our meal very much.  Yes, it is Korean-Japanese food, so we can't expect too much.  However, it was subpar even with that concession.  The only thing that made our experience somewhat acceptable was the friendly and attentive service.

The Good:
- Friendly and attentive service
- Spacious

The Bad:
- Food is neither prepared properly or tastes very good
- Not expensive, but not cheap either 

Hanano Sushi & Grill on Urbanspoon

2 comments:

LotusRapper said...

Is the place Korean-owned ? The name sounds kinda Korean.

BTW, don't waste your time at Sushi California. We ate at the one on Broadway/Cambie (in space where Kalamata used to reside) and they're meh. Large portions, bright modern space, friendly female servers in Earl's-esque outfits, but food was meh in taste.

Sherman Chan said...

@LR Probably Korean owned, but that doesn't matter. The food is just not very good. Yah, I've actually been to Sushi California on North Road. It's okay... Sorta like Sushi Town.

Search this Site