Sapporo Restaurant

Sapporo is located in Hamilton at 96 Main Street (e of John Street S). The interior isn't bad though a bit dark, and the writeups I've seen on it, seem to peg  it as the best Japanese AYCE in Hamilton, or close to it, but my experience wasn't exactly that.
We almost didn't go there at all.  

We had initially stopped off at Spring Sushi, in a suburban area of Hamilton, but the $16.99 price for lunch sent us looking for alternatives. 

Sapporo was the one I found, but that $3 difference says something to me I don't hear often, having had good luck with AYCE: You get what you pay for.My first impression while waiting for the meal was not a good one, as the green tea was weak. This is the least  expensive component of the meal so there's little reason to skimp on it. I'm used to the usually weaker Japanese style of tea but in this case it was little more than hot water.Salad was crisp, but the dressing was (like the last place I reviewed) too close to Thousand Islands... this is another mystery to me as I can knock off a passable Japanese-style dressing at home with little more than wasabi paste, vegetable oil, rice vinegar and soy sauce. Miso soup was missing savour and had a vegetable floating around in it that standard miso soup doesn't... I only had one bowl which is totally unlike me. My next bowl of soup was wonton, but I though I'd misordered at first as it was too much like udon, practically indistinguishably.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, the good stuff: chicken teriyaki was tasty and the sauce was good. Although ordering the beef roll with green onions was accidental, I didn't mind it and it was flavourful; not completely to my taste but some quite enjoy it. Sapporo has numerous special rolls for different occasions/themes, and I tried the Red Dragon Roll, which is a large rice roll topped with salmon and well-placed shrimp... I liked it a lot, so I would recommend to try the other special rolls as they seemed equally appetizing. The salmon sushi was acceptably good.

However, my favorite part of the meal was when it was over... not to say I didn't like it, but the ice cream was fantastic. I had the mango, and it must have been just-received and was the tastiest I've ever had.

So, although there were a few letdowns, there were still other things at Sapporo that made up for them, so all in all it wasn't a bad experience. However I'm focusing on my own cooking now (as can be seen where I am able to see the flaws in commercial cuisine my having made the same) so I'll probably be taking a break from AYCE reviews for a little while.

Rating: 7 – 7.5 / 10