Akimi Japanese Cuisine

If you live in Richmond Hill/​Markham area you know how hard it is to find a good AYCE Sushi place however when you do stumble upon one which is even SLIGHTLY better than the rest, you know you have to share with others. I understand 905 FAM the struggle is real!
First Impressions: Came here for lunch on a Friday and when you walk inside the first thing you will notice are large red booths that could easily sit 6 – 8 people however only a few seats for smaller parties. The place was clean, CP24 was playing, and overall felt spacious. We had a party of 2 but they gave us a large booth anyways which I appreciated.
Food Impressions: Like most decent AYCE sushi places you are not going to get great quality in food but I must say it was better than a lot of ones that I have been to. They use the iPad system which to me is overly used now. You had your typical stuff that you’d get everywhere else plus a few nice surprises like the GRILLED SANMA. The MAKI ROLLS and SUSHI ROLLS were typical like most AYCE sushi places but it wasn’t bad, I enjoyed it. The seaweed on the HAND ROLLS was crispy. The best of their selection were the dessert choices. Not only did you get ice cream (green tea, red bean, vanilla, chocolate) but they also have COCONUT PUDDING, JELLO, FRIED BANANA and my personal favorite SESAME BALLS.
Service Impressions: Right when we got into the door we were greeted with a friendly hello. She walked up to us and brought us to our seats. Why do I mention this? Isn’t it typical for restaurants to do this? Uhh not in most Asian restaurants. Service was quick and consistent. We had no problem with food as most of it came out together. The service here I would say is consistent and I had no issues with it.
Opportunities: I would like to see AYCE places include Akimi who uses iPads as an ordering system use it as an extension of their service and not solely rely on it.
Overall Impressions: It is what it is. An AYCE sushi place that isn’t bad but also isn’t OMG material. It is slightly better than most in terms of service, their bigger selection of food, and their taste on certain items. Overall this place to me is better than a lot of places in this area.

When did they start to add 10% tips on the bill. I always pay tips but let me choose what amount to give dont just add it yourself. A tip should be your choice and not mandatory. If you feel the service is good tip any amount you like dont just add it. Not only that they don’t give you the right amount of pieces you order. They short you on your pieces. Lets say if you were to order 20 pieces of sashimi when it arrives its only 12. And its expensive $ 32.75 after taxes. With their mandatory tip of 10% at the end your bill is $ 36.02 each person. That’s way too much.

Good AYCE place near Costco if you’re hungry for sushi after «shopping»
Good quality stuff, fair pricing and fresh. Not poorly crafted like the other Markham/​Richmond Hill restaurants. Just off 404, not bad for selection (big menu) and lots of items to choose from. Apparently they’ve been open for 6 years, and they’re pretty solid but they’ve recently rebranded and added the ipad ordering.

Tasteless fish… Even for an all you can eat place. Charge like a premium ayce, but the service is slow (one waiter, one chef, even the iPad ordering doesn’t help speed things up), the flat wooden booth benches are back breaking, and every dish tastes and feels the same.
Was hoping to find a decent ayce sushi place close to home, guess I’ll keep looking…

Their sashimi came 1 hour later (despite asking for them many times). They only came out with other orders (although very slowly as well). I think their tactic was to stuff your stomach with carbs and then the sashimi arrived. Most places will serve their sashimi first. Would not come here again. There are much better choices in markham. 2 stars only because quality of food isn’t bad.

Don’t come this place. Waste your time!!!
I understand I shouldn’t have any expectation for AYCE place. But this is the worst experience I ever had. If possible, I rather give ZERO instead of 1 star. They worth nothing!!!
It was a Monday night, We ordered the sashimi right we sat down, but it served after an hour!!! The fish is not fresh and watery. I asked the servers 3 – 4 times in order for our first sashimi came.
The service is horrible and they are short of staff. It is like a family business which the father, son and grandson all came out to serve you. They may try their best already but with this quality of food and service, I doubt how would they survive!
Don’t waste your time, I rather eat the $ 1.50 Costco hot dog right across the street!

WOW —- all you can eat lunch for $ 15.00 just what we wanted for a Saturday Sister lunch.
The restaurant is new (February 2015), and the have a nice relaxing modern design going on with a large sushi bar and about 8 really large booths for big groups and about 10 other tables. Good size place
The menu is either a la carte or all you can eat. Ordering on an iPad was wonderful, so so easy
We ordered a large number of items to check it all all — tempura; pumpkin, yam, shrimp (all types were fantastic), grilled eggplant (yummy), chicken teriyaki, seafood ramen (was just ok), salmon hand rolls (yum), aged tofu (too mushy)…the salmon avocado rolls were wonderful… the California rolls lacked some flavour.
All in all, we will come back here !!

This is good sushi restaurants. It have a lot item to order. The salmon fish is fresh. rocking roll is best sushi roll.

This ayce sushi restaurant is only getting a 2 stars from me because the service is very poor. I have been here a couple times for dinner and I have noticed that they are always understaffed.
This restaurant has the ipad ordering menu which is nice, but every time I have visited they have always messed up my orders. Whether it is missing or wrong orders. The last time I came here for ayce with my friend we ordered 3 sushi rolls and had waited almost 30 minutes and still didn’t come out. I had to ask the waiter who then told the sushi chef. Then I saw the same waiter change into a chef uniform to help make the rolls.
Although service is poor, the food is pretty good. One of my favorites is the torched salmon and butter fish sushi. Not sure if I would come back again though.

First time here and all I can say is I won’t be coming back.
This AYCE place appears to be family owned and operated. Came on a Thursday and the service was slow as they only had two servers for the entire restaurant. The food service was also either REALLY slow or missed. Many of the items we ordered never came. Or did not come in the full amount we ordered. We always had to ask the server for things such as wasabi, tempura sauce, tea refills. The only good thing I can think of is the use of iPads for ordering.
In terms of the food, it was not great– but passable. Quite a variety they offer but I’ve definitely been to better AYCE restaurants. The food like mentioned came out really slow or just never came at all. They bring out one food item at a time, literally. The sashimi we ordered all came separately and I didn’t like that. We placed several orders and some items from our first initial order came out when we were ready for dessert.
The service was friendly but slow, we always had to ask the server for things. And also since its family operated, there were young kids running around the restaurant, whining and screaming. Not the best ambiance.
There is definitely room for improvement.

This place used to be Kaze, but I guess they changed name and management. The interior looks the same, exactly the same. The things that have changed are the plates and soy sauce dish (I think) lol!
Coming here tonight made me realize I have another pet peeve — soy sauce dishes with 3 legs. Boy was I pissed tonight. I thought their slow service was bad already, but the dish totally pissed me to a whole new level. I have never had a dish with 3 legs. The balance of the dish totally blows. I dip my sushi in it and it tips to one side. I spilled the sauce couple times and it was only the beginning of the night — annoyed beyond all measure. As for service, it was unbelievably slow. I would understand if I was at a 5 star restaurant because they need to cook my food to perfection. But it’s AYCE, they’re not perfecting anything except for stuffing customers faces! If I were running this place, the first thing I would work on is the speed. Perhaps I should endow on them the Speed Force LOL.
On a positive note, the food was decent. Quality isn’t the priority I look for in a AYCE place, so I won’t be hard on them for this. Food was passable for sure, not great. If you’re looking to stuff your face, feel free to come in a group! It’ll be better to have friends with you to keep you company since it’s so slow.
Took off 3 stars for slow service and ridiculous choice of soy sauce dish. I would rather have a practical dish over something flashy.

I have eaten at so many AYCE sushi restaurants that I have learned not to have high expectation. In other words, most AYCE restaurants earn a 3-​star/​OK rating from me. Akimi does not. It does not because the fish fillets on the sushi were too thin and the rice was too big; I cut all the rice in half. Some of the sashimi were fresh, but the salmon was not (yeah, this was odd). The grilled eggplant was barely pan fried, almost raw. The seafood stir fried noodle was meh. The saving graces were the maki rolls, the butter mushroom, and the seaweed salad. They were good.
The venue is nicely decorated. The restaurant uses iPad for ordering which is very helpful. I hope Akimi can get the words out that they are new in business. Hopefully, they would have more profit to improve the quality of the offering.
2.5 stars for now.