All-you-can-eat Jap buffet @ New Island Sushi, Saskatoon, SK

After last week disappointing sushi lunch buffet at Nagoya-owner change ? different chef ? trying too hard to be like Go For Sushi ? Expecting too much since the previous visit for their dinner buffet was good ? (Check out my previous post on their dinner buffet), I couldn't wait to try out the 'best' sushi buffet in Saskatoon as reviewed by many people. My friend had a visitor from BC, so we decided to try this place out together. I will let the pictures do the talking. Photos were not of the best quality since it was taken with my S3 in a very quick manner (since there were sooo many little plates and bowls being served and everyone's waiting to chomp then down). 

Bottom half is sakura sushi; apparently one of the more famous items as I see many tables having this. One of my favourite!

Restaurant was full when we got there (place not as big as Go For Sushi or Nagoya) but we were seated within 10 minutes. Ambience was just ok; but the cubicles gave more privacy.

First look on the menu and I already got excited because what I have been craving for, were all there (tempura, udon and green tea ice cream-all three not offered in Nagoya's lunch !). Anyways, we ordered a variety of stuff and many had pictures on the menu in case you have no idea what is that. First up was the teriyaki beef, which totally did not look tempting and came in a really miserable looking portion. But thats the good part I guess, so that you will not have to stuff yourself silly if its not nice. Just pass this, nothing spectacular.

Grilled beef….just skip this...

Japanese curry chicken. Miserable looking for tasted ok

Then came the japanese curry chicken; something not offered in other sushi buffets. Portion was small but surprisingly, it tasted good as it was crispy and yet with the taste of the japanese curry. I kinda like this but it was gone within a few seconds (#regret should have ordered a second piece) lols...Another good part of this restaurant is that they offer stir-fry udon, udon soup, and fried rice from the menu. So, it came hot and thankfully, it came in small portions. Picture above was the seafood udon while below was the spicy seafood udon ( ok, basically they are the same thing with the exception of some sriracha chilli sauce mix in the soup to make it spicy @__@).  Very little udon ( good so that you are not stuffed with carbs) and came with generous slices of fishball, crab meat and prawns. We also ordered unagi don ( rice with grilled eel with teriyaki sauce). I did not get to try this unfortunately but it did look presentable. You can also order the sushi version.

Spicy seafood udon soup. Small bowl, sriracha-kind-of-spicy, tasted ok.

Unagi don

Finally the sushi we ordered arrived. Some of them was not presented in a very organized way since we ordered only a few of each; so one big plate and a variety of sushi. Loved the sakura sushi ( bottom right) which is basically little lumps of sushi rice with salmon encircling it and topped with japanese mayo and fish roe. I used to order this alot when back in Malaysia. Overall, the sushi were quite fresh, presentable and nicely shaped. Awesomely good with wasabi and pickled ginger.

Loved their mango maki rolls ( which what some other friends kept recommending me before this) and its totally superb (yup, just mango and crispy crumbs). Something not common in other japanese restaurant I would say and I have no idea who started this creation but it was definitely something good! We ordered this twice :)

I realized lots of tables were ordering shrimp tempura and that was what I came here for anyways ( so disappointed that Nagoya do not even offer tempura in their lunch menu). Satisfied my cravings here with some super crispy (but oily) shrimp, squid and stuffed eggplant tempuras.

They had their own fare of chinese food as well such as the won ton soup and sweet and sour chicken ; which I think you should just pass these since I think any Chinese restaurants would have served better ones. They also had dumplings, shrimp dumplings and siu mai newly added in their menu but unfortunately, after ordering them for 3 times and reminded the servers, none of them came. Ah well, if they didn't have it, they should have just informed us @_@

Wan ton soup. Skip this. 

Weird sweet and sour chicken. Chinese restaurants can do better

More maki rolls such as shrimp tempura rolls, mango rolls (again!) and white dragon roll. ALL of them were super delicious and their rolls were not as crude as Nagoya's. Look at the pretty platter of salmon sushi, unagi and more sakura sushi. They were definitely worth ordering and I could see the tables around me ordered more or less the same items as well. 

My favourites. Mango roll and tempura roll!

Done with sushis and tempuras. Next up was dessert. Other sushi buffets that I've gone to usually have a self-service dessert counter but not here. Their dessert options were limited; vanilla, green tea, red bean and mango ice cream and fried banana. Thats it. I'm not complaining though because even with their limited choices, they had the best dessert compared to the rest of the sushi buffets. We had 17 scoops of ice cream (#sugaroverload) to be shared among the 4 of us and I also had a piece of fried banana ( super oily though). Which flavor was the best ? I'm not entirely sure because I thought all 4 was pretty good especially the green tea and red bean. Mango was ok but my friends said it tasted weird.

Overall, after trying four different japanese restaurants in Saskatoon ( of which 3 buffets and 1 ala-carte), I vote this restaurant to be the best. Location is slightly further away from the rest but totally worth it. Servers were quite efficient even on a busy Saturday ( we did not meet with terrible service as some others had reviewed-apart from the 'lost' dumplings!). For lunch, it was $14.99. Now I feel tempted to see what they have to offer for their dinner buffet;P. 

Address : 2036 Quebec Avenue, Saskatoon, SK S7K1W5

Website : New Island Sushi