HEART SUSHI

Heart Sushi is the latest AYCE Japanese restaurant to open in Mississauga. From the same owners as 168 Sushi, the restaurant is fully equipped with the now standard Ipad ordering system and I had high hopes based on early reviews. My family and I stopped by for Father’s Day lunch this year and it was pretty much chaos.

Atmosphere: Located at Heartland Town Centre, the decor of Heart Sushi is sleek and modern. The furniture is monochromatic with black leather benches, white granite tables and glossy white walls. Pops of colour show up in a cherry blossom mural behind the sushi bar and on the interior of large lamp shades. Being Father’s day, the restaurant was packed. People were waiting for tables inside, outside and just about everywhere. Servers moved at a frantic pace and it didn’t slow down until after the lunch menu ended (at 3:30pm).

Service: I’ve learned over the years that any “holiday” weekend always translates to long lines at restaurants and reservations are a must. Even armed with a reservation, walking into the restaurant and seeing the crowd of people at the hostess desk, I knew there would be a wait. Our reservation was mostly honoured and we had a table 30 minutes later. Not the best, but better than a walk-in would have been. The server who seated us explained how the Ipad ordering system worked and left us to browse the menu. The app itself is easy to navigate and we placed our first order. After that, the service hit quite a few bumps.

1. The app doesn’t track what items have been delivered and what’s still outstanding
2. There’s no “call for service” option, with busboys madly delivering plates to tables, there were only a couple of servers working the floor who could check on orders and answer any questions
3. While the kitchen items were quick to arrive, items from the sushi bar were painfully slow. I understand they were backed up, but our BBQ eel from the very first order took the entire 2 hour meal to arrive, and only after inquiring 3 times. During the entire lunch, I did not see a single order of BBQ eel nigiri being served at any table around us. Then at the very end of lunch service, we finally received our orders along with all the other tables around us.
4. When we asked if we should re-order missing items or wait, different servers had different answers.

Food: The menu selection at Heart Sushi was standard with some nice additions of Thai (pad thai), Chinese (sweet and sour pork) and Korean (bulgogi) entrees. For lunch, sashimi is not available but there was a wide variety of rolls and sushi items including tobiko and mackerel. I was a little disappointed that they had run out of tiramisu for dessert. As or quality, every dish we ordered was on par or above other AYCE restaurants. I really enjoyed the sweet and sour soup, the grilled pin mackerel was very crispy, the tempura was lightly battered, not oily and all of the raw fish was fresh. The rolls were bite sized with an excellent rice to filling ratio. Note that drinks are not included in the AYCE menu and need to be ordered at an additional charge.

With a lunch buffet menu priced at $16.99 for adults on weekends and $14.99 on weekdays, I was happy with the menu selection, quality of the food and think it’s well priced. With all of the missteps in service though, it will be a hard sell to convince my family for a return visit when they’re already big fans of Yang’s and K&B Sushi.