When I learned that Vancouver had a restaurant where your sushi is served on trains, I immediately wanted to go. I asked a couple of my friends, but many of them had already went and their review was the same: the sushi was not great. So I decided to ask my friend and her young daughter to accompany me instead. Regardless of how the food tasted, the experience will still be fun for a young family.
Although the location of the casual sushi shop is not convenient, located downtown Vancouver closer to the beach, it is a trek for anyone out of the city’s core. And parking is a gamble with street side meters and ticket booths for lots.
The restaurant is pretty plain in terms of decor. You are seated in one of the many booths, each lined by tracks for the motorized train to travel along. Don’t be fooled like I was, this isn’t one of those restaurants where various trains carrying various sushi travel around the room on a single track. This isn’t one of those restaurants where you can take what you want off of said moving train, as you want.
Instead, each row is serviced by one train. Once the kitchen completes your order, they send it out via train. Each dish is safely secured under a plexiglass cover that is lowered to seal. This train then travels and stops right at the booth that ordered the dish. From there, diners help themselves, removing dishes from track. For many, this becomes the responsibility of any young children in attendance. Play and dinner all in one, especially seeing as you order off of a tablet adhered to the frame of the booth, and there is a mini game to play for prizes.
The menu was easy to navigate with clear categories and the ability to see photos and click for ingredients. For every $25 spent you get a change to play their hockey shoot out mini game on the tablet, for a chance to win prizes. We spent over $50 so had two attempts to win. The first round came and went without explanation. The second round had myself and my friend’s daughter tapping the screen vigorously in order to win; which we did.
The prize wasn’t a dish or something that would be served by the train. After playing, a live action server comes to your table asking you to choose a card, any card. Each is a scratch a win ticket. In doing the above it reveals your award. We won and would redeem $2 off our meal immediately. A small prize but a fun one, also serving as a great way to get clients distracted in their wait for food to come. The following is what we shared as a table.
Not just sushi, they also serve and transport hot food like crispy fried Chicken karaage. It came with a dollop of cream for dipping, but we needed more and more with spice.
The California roll is a popular one for young children, imitation crab meat in a sweet and creamy Japanese mayonnaise, rolled in a wrap of seaweed and rice with avocado.
Similarly, Dynamite rolls prove more popular for younger children. The ones here are basically California rolls, but with 2 pieces of shrimp and slivers of cucumber added in, along side the imitation crab and very little avocado. It was more a crab roll than a shrimp one.
Little did we know, majority of the rolls we would order we start off as a California Roll or a California roll with shrimp, and build on it with a variety of toppings and sauces.
Like the Yammy roll, which was a California roll with imitation crab and avocado, topped with yam tempura and teriyaki sauce. The yam added more substance to the roll, and the sauce made it more salty than sweet when contrasting the mayo crab.
The Melting Cheese roll starts off as an imitation crab meat, tempura shrimp, and avocado roll; it is topped with a mozzarella cheese, a cheese sauce, and tobiko. The lot of it is baked until it is warm and gooey. Having it heated with toppings and sauces over rice, reminded me of a solid seafood rice bowl, but all rolled and cut up for easy consumption.
The Deep Blue Sea roll starts off as a fancy California roll, but is prepared with real crab meat. It is topped with blue fin tuna, house mayo, pickled radish, and wasabi mayo. The menu declares it a must try, and I concur. The seafood in this is incredibly clean and fresh. You leave this roll having a new found appreciation for quality ingredients, being able to compare it with the other funky combo rolls before.
The French Kiss roll is an explosion for taste and texture. There was a whole lot of everything in this and it all worked together. Where the roll before and the ones to come were crisp and clean, this was heavy and saucy-rich. It begins as a prawn tempura roll with Philadelphia cream cheese, spicy tuna, smoked salmon, and avocado. It is then sliced and laid flat so that it can be topped like a cake. A generous mound of crispy potato flake, tobiko, unagi sauce, and spicy mayo. A mouthful that is salty and sweet, crunchy and chewy.
The Pinky Pink roll was the most memorable for colour and refined taste. This is a delicate roll of blue fin tuna topped with mayo, tobiko, and shiso leaf. The fishiness of the tuna was off set by the herbaceousness of the shiso. You had to really enjoy the quality of both and the care taken to set them up harmoniously, to fully appreciate this unique roll.
In conclusion, I agreed with my friends and their review of Sushi Aboard, but know that the sushi itself is not the only reason to visit. You are here for the trains, the experience of having them whizz past you all meal long, and the ability to see them being filled and set off for delivery.
Sushi Aboard
1047 Denman St, Vancouver, BC V6G 2M4
(604) 423-9797
sushiaboard.ca
