Suki Sushi (Orchard Cineleisure)

Ambience:
Terrible. You can tell that this place has withstood the test of time and poor upkeep that's equivalent to Malaysia's resorts. The initial concept failed terribly with one to two shades of orange splashed carelessly on any surface you set your eyes upon. Sake bottles on counter tops next to sushi belt were covered in dust. This is the only time I was grateful to the scratched reused plastic plate covers. At least I won't get dust on my food. If you're in a group of friends who are too involved with exchanging conversations to realise your surroundings, then all this shouldn't be a bother at all.

Food:
For 21.90++, the buffet from noon to 5pm is a good way to burn cash on less than average food and a terribly perfect waste of calories to put into your body (for weight watchers).

Essential ingredients to sushi. The rice and the nori (seaweed). Both, Suki failed to deliver at even an edible standard. My family and I found another use for the dusty-top plastic covers, as a rubbish bowl. Most of the time it was filled with overly-cooked, overly-compacted, mushy, room temperature rice. To my horror, there was no difference in the quality of rice when I compared the ones running around the restaurant belts and the made-to-orders ones.

Not only was the rice soggy, so was the nori. Terrible. Watching my mother wrestle with the damp green canvas wrapping the handrolls was painful. Sadly similar to the rice, the quality did not change when we had freshly made-to-order handroll and makis.

The sashimi was stale. They almost tasted like defrosted raw fish. Our first round of sashimi was frighteningly watery. The salmon had no body, it was squished in my mouth rather than bitten. The tuna had so much water in it that I didn't need the white radish to cleanse my palette before taking another slice. There was simply no taste in the tuna, like the salmon, it lacked body. Another squishy morsel downed. The squid sashimi had a smelly slime to it that tells me that it's almost a week old. Scallops were also squishy, an utter disappointment. On the upside, the only reasonable sashimi were the tako (octopus), tai (red snapper), and the hokkigai (surf clam) sashimi. The nama-ebi (shrimp) sashimi was 86, couldn't try it.

Since the rice and nori were disappointing, I was hoping the other entrées could redeem the dining experience. It didn't. The bacon wrapped asparagus was disgusting. The bacon was cold and dangerously hard to bite on. The asparagus shoots that were wrapped in it were all the woody ends of the stalk. I was abhorred. How can any chef let their cooks put the woody fibrous ends in their menu! The grilled squid was unimpressive, the teriyaki chicken was easily forgotten. The tempura items were the only decent hot items. However, the batter was dense and tasteless, the dipping sauce was dilute and bland. I regrettably had the shishamo and shrimp tempura. I've had so much better at lesser prices. Most of the mains were a disappointment. Only the miso soup, and the mussels were good. The miso came in a pleasant bowl on a fire filled with ingredients enough for 3. The ingredients were nothing special, but this was one of the better ones already. The mussels were good. Creamy and clean tasting. I wouldn't say they were succulent. But they were good nonetheless.

Desserts. Not much to choose from. Mochi was easily available on the belts. At this point, we didn't care for ordering from the waiting staff. I found the green tea flavoured ones were too sweet. Red bean was my favourite; not too sweet. The peanut paste was a little too dense, it tasted like the ones used my jolibean pancakes. It'll be good if they had more filling and less mocchi. The redbean pancakes were dry. My brother steamed it warm over the miso pot, it was a little better after moistening it a little. Profiteroles were upsetting. They were inconsistent. Some were from the freezer, and we found ourselves biting on ice-cream hard custard. Some were nice and creamy. If they were all consistent and creamy, this would have been a decent desert. Don't count in the ice cream, they're normal mama shop cups that can be bought at 80 cents. But hey, they're free flow here, go ahead, have a couple more of each flavour (chocolate, strawberry, vanilla).

Service:
The service was prompt and quick. Initially the food took quite a while to come. However when there were lesser people, it was impressively quick. Polite and respectful, they were excellent staff who ensured our meal was a smooth one.

Value:
Unless you don't know of other places to have a buffet, or you die-die have to eat a sushi buffet in town in the afternoon, this is not the place to go for satisfactory Japanese cuisine. It will only be worth it if you stuff yourself silly without biting or tasting your food. If I were Japanese, I'd be furious. How would you like if imposters in America served mushy chicken rice and claimed it authentic? You'd be pissed, no?

This joint is outdated and doesn't deserve to stay in cineleisure if it continues to serve food at such low standards. Even if this hang out if for the young, I, a 19 year old, thinks my fellow peers deserve better. Even Sakae would beat this joint hands down. I recommend R E&S taking over and putting an Ichiban Sushi outlet in Suki's place. At least they can get their rice and nori right.

One of reasons why we decided to eat here was purely because it has a BUFFET :D Being unemployed students with meager allowances, we were tempted by the option to stuff ourselves with jap food but only pay a fixed price.

The buffet menu is rather extensive because other than sushi and the usual fried items, it had a good range of other dishes like asparagus w bacon, teriyaki chicken etc. This is my personal favourite section! I also agree with another reviewer that they are generous with the salmon slices (: Dessert was limited but I'm not complaining as it is the norm amongst such sushi buffets.

However, the quality of the food is another story altogether. Some of the fried items like fish skin was circulated on the conveyor belt for too long and was cold and tough. The miso soup's presentation was good as it came in a hotpot with a flame below, filled with greens and mushrooms. The miso tasted predominantly sweet rather than tasty (kind of artificial if you ask me). The bacon w asparagus that i so wanted to try turned out unsatisfying as the asparagus was hard and tasted raw + the bacon was dripping with oil. Other food items were average, with nothing being particularly impressive.

Service was efficient and the staff patiently translated parts of the menu for us who don't quite understand jap.

We were seated at the first table at the entrance beside the cashier, which did compromised the dining experience (lack of privacy from the passerbys, interested diners browsing the menu, people paying..)

In conclusion, the buffet was filling but not satisfying.

Being the Japanese food Monster that I am, I had to eat Japanese that night. Not wanting a full teppanyaki supper, I just chose the next best thing (I'm not a Shokudo person sadly - Ok I still stand by this, read my Shokudo review.)

1st thing that caught my eye was the rude and snotty faced waiter standing at the service counter wiping and washing some tea cups.
1st turn off for the night. But the hungry me just pulled my boy in and we sat down at beside the miserly looking kaiten offering posing the same few pieces of sushi and what looked like mush on some of them.

My stomach craved ramen. So I ordered a teriyaki chicken ramen.

What's with the grubby old dog-eared menus we were given. I'd give credit to the attentive foreign waiter that attended to us but not that snotty faced waiter who kept stealing glances at us with the why-more-customers! kinda look. Go Home if you ain't happy.

2nd failure of the night was the EXTREMELY LONG WAIT and by LONG I meant watching the SAME sushi moving ROUND the Kaiten countless times. Wait. I'm getting sick just looking at the same mush.

The BF fared better. At least he got some passable sushi.

A glance at our foreign waiter sent him running to the kitchen for a look (good boy, he know's I want my food). The second glance, he said it'd be coming. And finally, after like, half and hr, my ramen arrived, with a plate of ONION Teriyaki chicken. so-so, rather tasteless and not very savory. Ramen was off. I cook better miso-soup.

What else should I say?

Waited 25 minutes for my food to come and it wasn't as if I ordered anything fancy. All I ordered was a bowl of soba noodles and a plate of saba fish. The food was disappointing. I've eaten better instant noodles than the soba they served. The saba fish was excessively oily and quite tasteless.The service was good though, a waitress came to my table even when I accidently made a hand gesture that resembled a wave. Good service but the food needs to be improved. I think I'll stick to Sushi Tei for now.

I love its buffet! Totally worth the money. Paid only $22 (around that amount) and be entitled to free flow of drinks (orange, guava, free tea) and enjoy the endless $1.80 - $4.90 plates of yummies!

Must try items: I love the ika tempura and their soft shell crab and not forgetting the salmon slices! Thick, cold and yummy! The gyozas are superb!

I enjoy the cold tofu (now not available at Sakae at $1.90) and never fail to have at least 3 bowls! They do have desserts but i dont think its good, but i like the cream puffs thats so chilly and nice!

Overall, i felt the restaurant is very generous in giving thick slices of fresh salmon, still having cold tofu at $1.80 (cheap!) and the soft shell crab is definitely better than Sakaes'.

But of course, their chawanmushi & kakiage isnt a match to Sakae's.

It's a must-go place for me whenever i feel like eating loads and loads of salmon and tofu!