Sushi Kui (Japanese)

Sushi Kui is located at 2 Orchard Heights Blvd. in Aurora, a municipality bordering Toronto two to the north after Richmond Hill, located in an outdoor mall. Sushi Kui has a cozy classical interior like an Italian restaurant, and was nicely air-conditioned on a warm day. Ordering is done on old-school paper menu templates. Disposable chopsticks are used unfortunately, so I'm always sure to bring my own. All of the soy sauce at Sushi Kui is low-sodium green-lid, and it really tastes that way. Pop is canned and not AYCD, but only $0.99. We went for weekend lunch. There were plenty of other patrons.

Mishy loved the miso soup; I liked it a lot but thought it was missing something, but was still very good... it may have been slightly dilute but still good enough to be a pass. Salad dressing was excellent wasabi/ginger and we both loved it. Cheese wontons were very good and we both loved those as well, however they were listed as being "complimentary" with a small coupon so may not be part of the regular menu. Vegetable fried rice was absolutely gorgeous with a smoky BBQ like flavor and we both adored it, Mishy ended up ordering seconds which I don't think she's ever done with rice before. Chicken teriyaki was awesome: smoky, savory and we both loved that as well, and it was certainly not "rubbery". Salmon nigiri was excellent, rice was of a good consistency and salmon very fresh. Crab sushi/nigiri excellent and fresh.

Sweet and sour chicken was the only let down; although it was tasty and had a good sauce, it been over-fried and dried out to the point of mummification; sad as it was the only subpar item in the meal. (I let the headwaiter know, so perhaps this was a rare oversight by a normally very quality-conscious chef and won't happen again.) "Philly" roll was excellent with all ingredients everything was very fresh and flavors well-balanced. Avocado cucumber roll was also excellent, with the avocado at perfect ripeness. Vegetable Dragon Roll Mishy loved (one of her favourites) indicating it was crunchy, fresh and also had its avocado at perfect ripeness.

The several "Kui Rice" and "Kui Noodles" dishes have regular and spicy options which is nice. I chose the spicy option for the chicken fried rice and beware as it is very hot, but very tasty as well. Kui spicy beef noodles were excellent and not as hot as the rice. Pumpkin squash and yam tempuras were very good and the sauce was excellent as well. Gyoza were excellent with a very flavorful filling and good sauce. Scallops were also excellent and had a very good sauce.

For dessert, fantastic coconut ice cream with an amazing exotically indescribable flavor is available. The strawberry ice cream had large pieces of whole strawberry, and was very flavorful and fresh. Mango ice cream also was perfectly fresh and delicious. Even the banana tempura tasted amazingly good. From what we expected to be a fairly typical lower-priced establishment, we ended up with one of the best Japanese AYCE lunches we've had in a long time for only $15.99 (coupled the excellent price of $0.99 for canned pop.) Were it not for the overcooked sweet and sour chicken (which has doubtless been remedied) Sushi Kui would be getting a ten and deservedly so. Even without sashimi, all-beef dishes and shrimp tempura, the menu sacrificed the quantity of dishes available for the quality of almost all of them being done just about the best we've ever experienced.

Rating: 9.5-10/10