Ajisai Sushi Bar

We love to try out new restaurants and bakeries, but this comes at a price. We often neglect our tried and true favourites. One of them, Ajisai Sushi Bar, is a legend, offering up the best sushi in Vancouver that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. As a bonus, it's within walking distance!

On a weekday lunch outing, we arrived early enough to get seated immediately, and ensconced ourselves next to the window, with plenty of natural light for photographs.

Advice to raw fish lovers: if you're in a sushi joint and you see a list of chef recommendations, pay serious attention. Sure, some of those dishes are there because they're new or underappreciated by customers, but often, they feature the freshest fish available.

We asked our server about the fish on the recommended list. She immediately pointed out that two of them hadn't arrived yet, and then in response to our questions, explained the unfamiliar fish to us and guided us in our selections.

There's nothing wrong with beer at lunch, is there?

We ordered a couple of exquisite sunomono salads, the wakame, which actually came a few different seaweeds,

and the kani. The real crab in this makes all the difference. In fact, if you aren't going to use real crab, don't even bother.

The featured yummy yam roll was a new roll: it combines satsumaimo (sweet potato) with yamaimo (mountain yam), and it worked well. Our nigiri was also wonderful, from the delicate hirame (flounder) and isaki (grunt fish), to the robust Japanese saba (mackerel), and ending with the intense katsuo (skipjack or bonito tuna).

We finished with something warm. The broiled marinated gindara (sablefish) was extremely moist and flavourful.