So, two Italians walk into a Japanese restaurant on St. Patrick’s Day. Oh, it’s no joke. See, when the urge for sushi hits you, it’s nearly impossible to shake it even if it was St. Patty’s Day. Yeah, we should’ve been eating corn beef and cabbage and throwing back some beers.
We wanted to try a new sushi spot, so Danny threw out the idea of Sushi X II: a sushi lover’s paradise that is all you can om nom for $19.99 or $21.95 on weekends. Immediately, I resisted. Sushi…all you can eat? Um, yeah, I wasn’t convinced it would be any good. But, I felt daring and adventurous so I agreed. After all, we had to be lucky, it was St. Patty’s Day.
How it Works
You can order all you can eat sushi from their paper menus or you can even order a la carte (or 品料理 in Japanese – yeah, we can copy and paste from Google translator, what?) off the kitchen menu. If you’re lame, you order a la carte. If you’re awesome, you order all you can eat:
1) There are two paper menus that you can order from. Start by writing the number of each appetizer that you would like. For example, if you want two crab wontons, write “2.” Give your choices to your server.
2) Pick up the sushi menu and circle your order of sushi, sashimi, rolls, and speciality rolls. Give that bad boy in to the server.
Space it out however you’d like, but don’t take more than you can eat. First of all, it’s a waste, but second of all, they’ll charge you for whatever you have left on your plate at the end. We actually like that they do that so we were sure to finish everything on our plates. Aw, our moms are so proud of us!
The Food
They’ve got salad, sushi appetizers, more appetizers, fried goodness, soup, and teriyaki dishes. We went with some spring rolls, shumai, crab wontons, bbq ribs, and bbq squid. The crab wontons were cream cheese-erific, had bits of crab, were not too crispy–a nice start to the meal. The shumai was also great, but the same can’t be said about the bbq squid. The flavors from the sauce were too overpowering and it came out tough and hard to chew. The bbq ribs were similar, kind of tough and dry. They were the kind of ribs that you needed to literally tear apart, not fall off the bone with a light tug like they should be. So, half of the apps were good, half weren’t. But, you go to a sushi palace to get sushi, not just apps, right?
Now, the sushi. The fish here tasted fresh, smelled fresh and looked good too. If you just want to try some fish, order some sashimi to get some slabs of yumminess. If you want a bit more, you can order from the sushi portion of the menu. If you like more of a flavor and texture mixture, stick with the rolls and specialty rolls. We had some white tuna and red snapper sashimi and a peanut avocado roll because we were feeling HUNgry. All the rolls were actually pretty decent, but our favorite was the Winter Roll. It had mango, cucumber, and avocado, topped with spicy crabmeat, crunch, and mango sauce. The contrast of flavors and textures is what made this roll so great. As for which rolls you should pick, that’s a personal matter that we need not pry into. I, for example, will not have any eel or eel sauce because the texture freaks me out. But, you, ya weirdos, might like it. hehe I kid.
Wrapping Up
If you’ve got a serious hankering for whale-portioned amounts of sushi, this is the spot to hit up. You’ll pay one flat rate, pick out your apps and pick out how you’d like your sushi. Granted, some of the appetizers can be avoided, but some of them are good. You’d be wise to try a great variety of sushi and rolls rather than some of the apps. Yes, this isn’t going to be the most amazing sushi that you’ve had (it’s no Fin for example) but for the price and the portions it’s actually decent. Shockingly.
Sushi X II
Noms: 3.25
Cost: $$
Address: 109 Atlantic Street
Stamford, CT
Phone: (203) 327-6888
Dan and Kristien Del Ferraro
Another fine sushi place is on Hope St, kiku sushi and it is a must try.
For years i went to Kotobuki, which had a few years of trouble a while ago and now seem to be back on their feet – that is the other place to go
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I’m really shocked at your rating of Sushi X II. Went there and think that the sushi was sub par and the soup was gross. Their all you can eat locks you into eating whatever is on your plate or be charged which is nuts, especially if you’re with a group. The service is lacking as well. Maybe you got them on an awesome day, but to me, this is by far the worst sushi joint in Stamford.
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Well, it wasn’t a super high rating and we didn’t enjoy all of the food that started off the meal. I’m sure if we had the soup that you speak of we’d feel the same way. The sushi was decent and if you’re not looking for anything super fancy, it works. We’re certainly not saying it’s the best sushi out there, definitely not…we’ve got Fin II and lots of other sushi places that are more creative. As for the charging you extra, we think it helps people not to create needless waste. We did have to be super careful about what we ordered, though, because of that.
We did have some pretty bad sushi by delivery in Stamford. To be honest, it was about 2 years ago and we can’t remember the name…too many sushi places here in Stamford that start with K or sound the same. :) When we want sushi delivered, now we just stick with Fin II.
What sushi places do you like the most here? We’ll have to hit those up!
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what you describe here is familiar to me – maybe on the order of what Kam Pei does ? Still if i think sushi, i would rather go to Fin II or Kotamoki or the place way up on hope street – i can’t get myself to go here (Sushi XX) yet
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We have never actually “been” to Kam Pei, we’ve only had delivery, so it would be cool to check out the restaurant and see what they have to offer. We’ve got to agree about Fin II. It’s one of our favorite spots! :)
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Whitemist, be daring! Live life! :)
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