Tokyo Sushi Buffet and Grill

Dec27, 2008
Tokyo Sushi Buffet and Grill
4801 Mcknight Rd
Pittsburgh, PA 15237

Environment & Service: 75
Food Quality: 85
Price: 80
Average: 80

Detail Review:

After a few hours of driving, I finally come back to Pittsburgh. Why? Because I quitted a hopeless research lab and move to MD. In the next couple days, I will stay at Pittsburgh to clean up my house and return it to the landlord, so I have chance to visit one of my favorite restaurant again which is Tokyo. Tokyo is a city name in Japan, it also sound like "Todai" which is a chain japanese restaurant. The closest Todai from MD is at VX, I plan to go there with my wife for her birthday at the end of the month, and I will report that visit in this blog . Let's talk back Tokyo, the business was started half year ago. The selling points of the restaurant are cheap and variety of food. There are around 40 different types of sushi & roll; and 30 different types of cooked seafood & meat. The price is only around $20 for dinner.

The sushi quality is good, becuase there are more than 10 types of raw fish to make the sushi. Moreover, they provide ~5 different types of all you can eat sashimi. It is very different than other sushi buffets which only provide "extremely thin cutting fish" on the sushi and not provide any sashimi. Tokyo also use some cooked ingredients to make sushi and roll, like cream chess, salmon skin, scallop, etc. They also have some cooked japanese dishes, like tempura, crab legs, mixed seafood, steam fish, etc. To be honest, not all sushi and cooked dishes are good, but at least 50% of the sushi and dishes are delicious and the rest are considered fair (at least that is what I think). Well, I still have a variety of choice from the delicious dishes, so I give the food quality a very high score. The buffet area looks very nice and many decoration on the food, so the environment score is very high too. Overall, Tokyo is very good and I will introduce it to my friends.

Szechuan Wok

Dec26, 2008:
Szechuan Wok
11414D Reisterstown Rd
Reisterstown, MD 21136

Food Quality: 50
Average: 50


Detail Review:

My wife suddenly wants to eat chinese food, but she is so lazy to go out. She asks me to buy her a chicken fried rice. Why chicken fried rice? Let me teach you something. Almost 80% of chinese restaurants in US are not selling "real chinese food", they are selling American style Chinese food. As an Asian, we don't like those "fake chinese food". So, what can we order if we go to those American style Chinese restaurant? Fried rice. Why? Because almost no cooking skill is needed. As long as chefs don't paint the lily, almost no mistake can be made. Then a "pass' grade will be given.

It is very difficult to find a chinese restaurant in US to make a surprising fried rice. The quality of the american style chinese fried rice is really based on the types of ingredient. This fried rice is made with a few types of ingredient, like chicken, egg, green onion, and bean sprout. so I give this chicken fried rice a "Pass".

Phillips Seafood Express

Dec24, 2008:
Maryland House travel Plaza

Environment & Service: 45
Food Quality: 70
Price: 50
Average: 55



Detail Review:

Me and my wife traveled out of state to visit our friends. We were very hungry and stopped at the travel plaza. I was trying to find something to eat; and did not expect any good fast food restaurants there. It was my first time to see Phillips Seafood Express. I chose to try this restaurant because I am a seafood lover. Crab cake is a famous dish in MD, Phillips Seafood Express also used crab cake as a "chef's suggestion" dish. OK! Why not to try!

It was a bit expensive for a 9 dollar burger; and I thought the 3.25oz crab cake was too small. The taste of the crab cake was good, but not the bun. This restaurant put the good crab cake with a cold bun, it destroyed the seafood burger. Overall, the burger was better than a McDouble, but the price was much expensive.

Edo Sushi

Dec23, 2008:
10347 Reisterstown Rd,
Owings Mills, MD‎ ‎

Environment & Service: 75
Food Quality: 65
Price: 60
Average: 67


Detail Review:

The decoration in this restaurant. I like it because I can have a clear view of the sushi bar even if I am sitting 10 feet from there. Moreover, there are many decoration on the wall, and they are very nice. However, the television makes the japanese restaurant not japanese. No sushi restaurant in Japan will put a big TV in front of customers. Japanese go to sushi restaurants to enjoy the shows by chefs, not by CNN. Overall, the enviroment is OK!

They have their set dinner. Only one choice per day; and you always see the same dinner at the same day in the following week. The cooking skill is not every good, the coatings are too thick on both spider roll and tempola. However, I want to mention the soft shell crab from the spider roll is fresh and big. The taste from the sushi is OK, because the sushi rice is pressed too hard and lack of vinegar. The price is reasonable, and the service is very good.

Hikari Sushi Restaurant

Dec21, 2008:
Hikari Sushi Restaurant
9613 Harford Rd
Parkville, MD 21234

Environment & Service: 75
Food Quality: 40
Price: 60
Average: 58

Detail Review:

Around 6pm, Me and my wife went into this Japanese restaurant. There were only 4 customers inside and 2 waiters. I noticed that it may not be a good restaurant because the number of customers at dinner time, but we had driven 20 miles to come to try their buffet, so we still stayed to have our buffet dinner.The environment was nice, but do you know where the buffet dish was? The answer is that many trays were set in front of the sushi bar, all the trays were covered by plastic wrap. One chef was making the sushi, but he was not busy because there were only 8 customers from 6pm to 7pm.

The food quality was terrible. You can see how thin was the salmon on the sushi;the abnormal ratio between fish and rice of the sushi made me feel that it was a "pingpong ball sushi". Some sushi were made with fired squid. The squid was sitting too long, so the coating was very wet and soft. You can see how dry of the eel. The food quality once again was very bad.And I could not finish my 2nd plate. There was not too many types of sushi and dish. I was so disappointed.

You know what? I did not ask how much it costed before having the buffet, I thought it should not be more than 15 dollars per person. However, I was wrong. The buffet was $18.95 per person plus tax. It was too ridiculous of charging that much. I am not saying that because of the food quality, but the number of different kinds was in the buffet. Me and my wife will not go there again.