I love Japanese food and can honestly eat sushi all day every day! When I used to work in a restaurant that served sushi, I once Googled, “How many times a week can I eat sushi without getting mercury poisoning” because I love this stuff so much! Don’t worry, I never got mercury poisoning from consuming too much sushi!
Since I love sushi so much and it is never cheap to get a great sushi meal, I often satisfy my cravings at ala carte restaurants to get the best quality but I always want more! I have tried many all you can eat places, but the fish quality is always really bad, selections are not great, and the service just really suck! I am sure we all had scenarios where we ordered a dish that just never comes, right?
I recently discovered August 8, an all you can eat sushi and dim sum restaurant! They opened in 2008 and have 7 locations, the latest one they opened is in China Town Toronto! They were originally called just “August” but for some reason, their customers started calling them August 8 and with “8” being a lucky number in the Chinese culture, the name stuck and now the official name of the restaurants are August 8! When they first opened in Hamilton, they served only Chinese food but with Japanese cuisine really taking off at that time, they decided to incorporate Japanese cuisine into the menu as well. Since there weren’t too many restaurants serving authentic Japanese and Chinese food in Hamilton at that time, they became an instant hit and developed quite the loyal customer following.
When I originally heard about August 8 I was a little hesitant at first since I was worried that it would be like most all you can eat places. But I am happy to report, I was pleasantly surprised!
First off, the quality of the sushi and dim sum were amazing! The fish was fresh and the ingredients were high quality. Their dim sum are all made fresh daily in house so the quality is also really good on these dishes. Which brings me to the next point, August 8 has amazing selection in terms of their food. They offer not only your regular sushi, sashimi and dim sum, they also have new items like sushi tacos, daikon rolls , torched and smoked sushi! If you haven’t had torched sushi, you are missing out! They use a flame to torch the raw fish which really elevates the taste of the sushi. As you can see, the menu is quite extensive and you can really find something for everyone here.
They are always busy in there, so make a reservation whenever you can. Once you get seated, you order all your food on an iPad which makes things so much faster and easier. You can also see pictures of most of their menu items so you don’t have to guess what you are ordering. The team working at August 8 are all very friendly and helpful which makes a world of difference in my opinion! They also have a very modern decor in all of their locations which sometimes all you can eat places lack, a nice touch that they considered the ambiance of the restaurant too!
I really enjoyed the torched sushi and that is probably one of my favourite dishes there. It was so full of flavour and I liked that I can indulge and order as many as I wanted without having to worry about racking up a huge bill! The cost for the all you can eat meal at August 8 is about $20 for lunch and $30 for dinner depending on which day of the week you go. They also have senior and children prices. The children price is actually charged by age, so the child’s age multiply by $1.20 for lunch and multiply by $1.30 for dinner which is pretty cool since some kids might not order that much food! It is definitely a nice touch that they went the extra mile to create a price like this for children.
Overall, I highly recommend August 8 if you are a big sushi and dim sum fan like me! This is a great place to bring a large group too!
What is your favourite sushi restaurant? Have you been to August 8 before? Comment below! I would love to hear about it!
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