CLOSED - Sushi Mountain Ajax

Update 2017-Jul-22 - Sushi Mountain appears to be closed for good, but there is another location in Whitby.

Sushi Mountain is located at 15 Westney Road N. at Kingston Road in Ajax; there's a Westney Road exit from Hwy. 401 and it's north of there so easy to find; it's in a plaza facing Kingston Road. 

Mishy kept saying how much better it was than a couple of the other places we went to recently, and I remember it from many years back before I was doing writeups, so we took the opportunity and returned. It has a darker interior with booths and half-booths and there's a sort of "party room" that had no one in it plus an unused buffet table was still present in one area, a remnant of the older self-serve times (not many sushi AYCEs like that and for good reason: it has to be fresh.) Mishy doesn't like the decor, but, hey, that's not what we are there for.

The soy sauce, ginger and wasabi were excellent so we were off to a good start... but it didn't last unfortunately; something had changed. The miso soup was dilute, lacking in flavour and character; just a colourless white cloud rather than golden, clumping and savoury. Green salad wasn't bad but had Thousand-Islands-style dressing.

Things picked up a little with the hot and soup which was better than expected with a strong and enjoyable flavour. Salmon sashimi was excellent and fresh. Salmon sushi was also excellent and the rice had a good consistency. Shrimp tempura was super flaky with a great sauce so very enjoyable. Red dragon roll was very good and chicken skewers tasty in a good sauce. Cheese wontons were delicious and not oily.

On the downside, Mishy had previously wished that other places had the agedashi tofu that Sushi Mountain had, but when we tried it the sauce had changed to something seaweedy and we didn't like it. Chicken teriyaki wasn't bad but the sauce was bland and lacking something. Beef teriyaki had a watery sauce with not much flavour, and beef udon soup was otherwise good but the broth was too sweet.

For dessert, the chocolate, green tea, ginger, mango and vanilla ice creams were fresh with no freezer burn (ginger ice cream is always a nice bonus.) Unfortunately Mishy detested the banana tempura and I tended to agree; it had not much flavour and the sauce did little to help it.

After Mishy's glowing previews, Sushi Mountain was a bit of a disappointment. We conclude that as the quality wasn't there in some of the entrees that used to have it, and they had changed, that there may be a new chef. The weekend dinner price is $22.99, and while not the most expensive, for this I expect better. Still, there were some good items, and maybe we'll give it a retry, but if it doesn't improve it's really not worth going that distance.

Rating: 7/10.