Thursday, February 5, 2009

A Sushi Buffet

Jonathan's colleague from Cape Canaveral, Li, was out in Sunnyvale for a week with some LM employees, and we were able to get together for dinner. We headed out to Cupertino to go to Todai, a sushi buffet. It's a nice place for being in the Vallco mall, near Sears and the AMC movie theater. It's set up like a Golden Corral, with the buffet being mostly along a counter that spans the back of the restaurant.

Aside from chicken teriyaki and some pork chops, almost every dish was seafood or sushi. There were some noodles and rice though. The sashimi only offered salmon and tuna, both of which were decent, but not the freshest/most flavorful. There were about twelve nigiri options, the ebi (shrimp) weren't the greatest, and the eel was not good. Tuna and salmon were good, and I believe Jonathan tried a few of the whitefishes without complaint. Now, there were probably twenty different rolls, ranging from your California to spicy tuna to a "fruity roll" which was crab with banana and kiwi. There was a spicy scallop salad roll, which tasted just like it sounds, and a chicken salad roll, which was a little like liver. None stick out too much in my mind, but that's okay since I chowed down on tuna sashimi. I also tried the Hawaiian Poke, but the tuna in that was too fatty to make up for the delicious marinade on the salad. The crispy calamari was among the most delicious I've ever had (and far more delectable than any I've tried off of a buffet), but the grilled calamari was rubbery - neither Jonathan nor I cared for it.

The dessert options were plentiful. Chocolate and vanilla soft serve, creme brulee, cream puffs, three types of cheesecake, chocolate cake, pumpkin pie, butter cookies, sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, green tea cook, several gelatins, mango yogurt, and a few fruit tarts. Allegedly they have wonderful crepes, but we did not see any. The cookies were pretty bad (and hard), and the cake was a bit dry. Jonathan loved the creme brulee, and the cheesecakes would be enjoyed by those who like that particular pastry.

This little balloon guy to the right was sitting on the cashier's counter. I thought he was cute, and the cashier made a joke about it being his boss.

[update: 4/16/11: Todai is closed]

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