Howard Pascal
Google
As is our tradition, my son and I were looking forward to a wonderful sushi experience (his treat for my birthday 🥳) at Kazumi. I had been looking forward to eating there since falling upon this restaurant on Facebook. The images I saw were tantalizing and we were prepared to make the drive to the east end all the way from the West Island.
Getting to the point, we couldn’t have been more disappointed on every level.
If you check the menu, this is not an inexpensive restaurant so expectations may have been unrealistically high. Kazumi is located in a nondescript strip mall, no problem finding parking. We arrived on time for our reservation Sunday night at 7pm and were promptly seated. The decor is dated with 70’s globe light fixtures and drab leaf wall paper. Speakers protrude from the walls but the music played throbs and is indistinguishable. A white tablecloth covers each table and is then topped with a paper table topper. When a table was vacated, the hostess would simply swap out the paper topper even though the previous topper had clearly been soaked through to the linen with food, drink and soy sauce.
It took 20 minutes before we even received a pitcher of water and only after asking for it. We then asked the pleasant, young waiter for some suggestions and began the wait. One waiter for, by my count, 20ish tables. Our first dish arrived after exactly 1 hour and 5 minutes from our arrival.
It was the tuna steak and it arrived looking NOTHING like the menu picture. Five slices of cold tuna drenched in sauce. In fact, I was so disappointed that I got up from the table to question the lone waiter at which point I was addressed by the owner who told me that since they were out of the deep, rich coloured tuna part like the picture, he had substituted the tastier and more expensive but darker belly section. I went back to the table without any satisfactory explanation of the cold tuna or the soaking sauce that smothered it.
The next two dishes were fresh, the correct temperature but unremarkable and both sitting next to a puddle of the same thick sauce, no ginger, no wasabi. My son then received his shrimp tempura roll and after we each had one piece, we returned it as it was served ice cold, as if the entire roll had been sitting in a refrigerator, unacceptable. They replaced it with a fresh one and along with the last dish, a kamikaze. The kamikaze, a Montreal staple, was also served cold (or its ingredients in deep-chill) and I was unable to so much as taste a single bite that had any tempura flakes in it. While tolerating the last two dishes, a smell of sewage wafted through our section which was noticed by both of us and the couple at a table next to us, the female at that table dining while wearing her winter coat because our section was so cold.
This restaurant seems to invest more in social media images, which is certainly what drew us in, than delivering a great dining experience. There is so much to dissect that it’s actually pointless. Under no circumstances would we return, even for free.
