Aki Japanese Restaurant

Happy Birthday Q!

A bunch of us went to Aki Japanese restaurant for Q's birthday dinner. I've been here once before and  from what I could remember this place had pretty good service. Q chose Aki because the place is reasonably big enough to accommodate a group of 12 comfortably. I was the last one to show up but lucky for me they only ordered drinks and a few sushi rolls.

It's really hard to share tapas, especially with such a large group of people. It's also really hard to take pictures of every dish because there's probably 20 plus dishes. So I decided to just share with the birthday girl, J and P, this way I also make sure I could have more then one bite of each dish.

The four of us shared the Hamachi sashimi (Yellowtail) and it was delicious. I was tempted to order another portion for myself, but Q reminded me that there's still a lot more food to come.

The Steamed Clams in White Wine was a crowd pleaser, it was so good that I had to order 2 more portions and P even drank all the sauce! Next came the Grilled Salmon Belly which was tiny, and P was the only one who was a fan of it. Well lucky for him, he got to eat it all.

I love oysters and I think Aki did an excellent job with their raw oysters. The oysters were served on a bed of ice with a Ponzu sauce and fresh green onions. My only complaint is that they should of given us more then one wedge of lemon, and maybe some Tabasco sauce too. J and I practically ate three dozen between the two of us. The Ebi Sunomono and the Grilled Squid was probably the least of my favourite dishes of the night. The squid was too rubbery for my liking and the shrimp in the sunomono was very mushy. I could of done without any of these dishes but at least now I know.

Overall, the service was friendly and our food came at a reasonable pace but they were slow at serving us our drinks. I enjoyed myself and I think Q had a great time at Aki too. I would probably dine at Aki again just for their raw menu, but I think their cooked food needs a little bit more work. Price-wise they are a tad bit expensive, I think it would be awesome if they had a happy-hour menu for all the oyster lovers out there!

The good thing about eating small plates is that there 

will always be room for dessert!

Anyways, Happy Eating!