The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Have you ever starved at an all-you-can-eat restaurant? You can in Montreal, at Odaki Sushi.

The menu is divided into two sections - "sushi" and "kitchen". The sushi section is in plain view and was staffed by two of the most leisurely chefs I've ever seen. They had no sense of urgency whatsoever. But to their credit, they managed to prepare our food within a few minutes. No, the sushi section wasn't the problem. The kitchen section was the issue.

The sushi chefs were sprinters on cocaine compared to the jokers manning the kitchen. All our kitchen orders disappeared. Odaki Sushi's kitchen is a black hole, a Bermuda triangle, the twilight zone of buffet restaurants. We watched our orders go in, but nothing ever came out. What was going on? Were our orders being left to one side, or tossed into a trashcan?

After waiting for an hour for kitchen orders, it transpired that we were not here to eat. Rather, we had paid to sit and wait. It's not "all you can eat" but "all they can cook", which was nothing.

"Is our food coming?" we asked. The waiter replied, "I'll be back for one minute". I imagined him digging through the trash to find our lost order. Then he returned and told us of a marvellous coincidence. Our food would only be another two minutes.

One of things we were waiting for was raw beef sashimi. Guess how long it takes to cook raw beef? There's a clue in the question, so look closely. So, what's your answer? If you said "no time, because it's raw", then you're wrong! According to Odaki Sushi restaurant, raw beef takes an hour to prepare. And that's if you complain to the waiter - if we'd stayed silent, our beef may well have stayed in kitchen limbo for all eternity.

Just who was running the kitchen? That's a bit like asking "what's the sound of a tree if there's no-one around to hear it?" I suspect there was no-one in the kitchen at all. The restaurant was clearly understaffed. Exclamation marks popped up all over the restaurant as other people asked: "Is our food coming?" The waiter started to see something was wrong and even ran at one point, but his sudden urgency was already too late. We had waited for an hour and a half for the food we'd ordered from the kitchen. It was obvious this restaurant was broken.

The service was almost non-existent. You could sit for hours waiting for your food like an idiot, while the waiters glide around, seemingly blissfully unaware of any problems. I had to ask for menus. I had to ask for water refills. Frustrated, I walked to the water jug to refill my own damn glass, but the waiter was uncharacteristically quick and foiled my evil plan. "No, I'll do that!" he insisted, snatching my glass from me.

When it came to pay, the cheeky waiter played a hilarious joke on us.  He had already included a $9 tip in the price, claiming it was the "standard tip". A $9 tip on a $32 bill is 28%, whereas 15% is the normal amount if the service is adequate. And the service here had been far from adequate. Yep, this waiter was a real Chris Rock, having the audacity not just to demand a tip, but to ask for one so high. He played his joke so straight that he didn't even wink or anything.

If you want to eat, don't come here. Or at least phone to make your order two hours in advance.

TL;DR If you're eating from the buffet menu at Odaki Sushi restaurant, don't order from the kitchen.