Lava Rock Grille & Sushi

Had a business lunch here. It was great for this purpose, food and service were good, it was quiet (you could have a conversation) and the location is convenient lots of free parking.

I stumbled upon this place after seeing that Sushi Garden wasn't open at noon during the week, and I was pretty excited to see a restaurant with something different going for it. 

I tried the 8 oz strip loin on the rock grill and an order of spicy salmon rolls.

I was really surprised that a steak was only $11.75 so of course I had to try it, and for the price I would definitely say it's worth the cost. The steak comes in a few different options for sauce, I went with garlic and sesame and was not disappointed! You cook the steak on a rock so you can decide how much it is cooked, the server gives a bit of a rundown and some tips for how to cook it properly. The only thing I didn't like about the food was that the spicy salmon rolls were poor quality. The fish wasn't very fresh but it was a lot cheaper than most places ($6) so I suppose I can't complain. I'll definitely return for the steak, but I won't be coming back for the sushi.

Awesome concept, awesome place

I went on the weekend for lunch after confusing the lunch and weekend price (weekend lunch is basically the dinner price, they don't have the lunch price on weekends, although they do have bento boxes that are cheaper than the AYCE). But I decided to try it anyways.

You start off with a protein (steak, shrimp, fish or lamb) and it comes out accompanied by a hot slab of stone to cook the meat on. If you're unsure of how to do it, they will gladly show you how to properly, just be careful of a few things like ensuring your meat is cooked, don't burn yourself and keep track of what has touched raw meat and what hasn't.

I had the steak and the lamb (you can get extra meat via ordering a drink, not sure if it's lunch only or also with dinner) and both were tremendous! You are given a 6-8 oz sirloin that looks pretty decent, not the best looking steak but still pretty good. The hunk of lamb I got was delicious and the steak wasn't bad at all, the doing success you can order were all pretty tasty. I was contemplating on maybe getting a bit more of my money's worth and ordering a another steak but that would definitely be too much.

As for the sushi and side orders, there's so much to choose from. We had a little bit of everything on menu from sushi to fried items, everything was prepared very well, the sushi is just as good as any standalone Japanese restaurant which is pretty good for AYCE.

Overall, the restaurant has a really neat concept and style, the food is delicious and the experience is pretty unforgettable. The price is high but it is worth it for sure, just make sure you come hungry.

This place has a pretty unique concept going on, grill your own protein on a hot stone. Sounds intriguing but is it worth the price? First off it's all you can eat sushi. I went on Black Friday and they had their special going on; unlimited steak! Pretty sweet in my opinion. It's roughly $38/person for their regular 8oz and $43/person for their filet option. The restaurant itself is very open, no walls or anything to hide from. And at the time the place was pretty empty, only 2 other tables. The atmosphere was quite dull & dry, luckily our server throughout the night was very informative and funny. Also ice in the water would be a nice addition, I'm not fond of lukewarm water.

As with most all you can eat places, you order off a piece of paper. You get a choice of sauce with your protein, there's the different options/amounts for sushi and they even tell you the penalty for extra food. $1/piece so be respectful and order accordingly. But to the food, before you get your food they'll bring out the "Lava" stone out so you can of course cook your food. It's just a large cooking stone heated in the oven. Your server will give you a crash course in how the cooking process will go. Besides the unlimited steak, we were limited to only 1 order of shellfish so we got prawns. They butterfly them for you so it cooks evenly & quickly. Now for the steak you salt the stone before hand and you slap it on. The only truly bad thing is that the stone is no where near hot enough to get good colour/caramelization on the steak. If you attempt so you'll just boil your meat and over cook it, and no one likes over cooked steak. The shrimp is simple but they don't offer oil to cook with, so the shrimp had a tendency to stick.

Putting the proteins aside let's get onto the sushi. It's average at best. With all you can eat places, it's difficult to find amazing quality. As it's always quantity over quality. The spicy tuna & spicy salmon rolls were probably the best out of the lot we had. Their unagi roll was decent. And the California roll was average. I however did not enjoy their salmon sashimi. They used a wild salmon for the sashimi/nigiri and this type of salmon has very little fat and is super bright red/pink almost like raw steak. As opposed to the light fatty orange salmon everyone is used to. I much prefer the regular salmon at most places. We also had deep fried scallops, seaweed salad, nigiri and more different rolls. Their selection for sushi is slightly more limited/smaller compared to other places. You also get a nice spot of ice cream as dessert to finish off your meal.

We left full, mostly from the sushi though. The concept of cooking your meat on a hot stone is interesting one but the results in my opinion is less then satisfactory. It's cool and flashy at first but at the end result of your product is not what I was looking for. The quality of the sushi is decent but that's good enough as that's what most folks will
be loading up on. Would I return, yes and they were gracious enough to give us $5 off coupons.

Woo - An All You Can Eat (AYCE) sushi and tapas buffet.  Time for another one to open up in Edmonton right?  I'm sure most of you are now sick of Sumo Sumo, Watari, Sushi Garden and the long forgotten Zen.  A round of applause for Lava Rock Grille.  This place is different from all the other AYCE places in that it kicks off the meal with a choice of a protein (steak, fish, or shrimp) grilled on a 400 degrees C lava rock.  This instills meaning in its name.  Lava rock grille is no joke.  Although it is something you grill on your own, you are tutored by an excellent server who will use one of the diners as an example and he/she will show you how to cook your steak!  We overcooked ours because we were so excited with salting and peppering and cutting the steak on the lava rock that medium rare became well done.  Please follow the instructions carefully and be sure not to touch that rock!  The heat radiates from a couple feet away and it feels nice. 

I chose an 8 oz steak and while it was satisfying and fun, I took a hit before I could get started on the sushi and appetizers.  First things first, be very careful when ordering the sumomaki rolls.  They are enormous and do not taste all that great (maybe beside the rainbow roll and the dragon eye).  There is a reason why they call them sumo.  I thought it was just a way of calling something but no they were gigantic.  What turned me off the most about these rolls is the amount of tasteless and dry rice in them and last but not least, the iceberg lettuce replacing avocado in a california roll.  To me, that is a crime, but for iceberg lettuce lovers out there, why not?  We should have paid more attention in analyzing the pictures in the menu before ordering.  Don't just order the food based on the food order sheet.  You have been warned.  

The must-have items for me were the chicken wings (marinated with garlic and deep-fried to perfection), shrimp tempura, and deep fried scallops.  Salmon sashimi was unlimited (Yes, you read that correctly) but it was tasteless to me.  The salmon tataki was to die for because it had a smoky taste for it along with an aburi (blow torched texture).  The beef tataki was OK to try once to see if it is your thing.  It tasted like slabs of raw meat that resembled beef balls in dim sum.  The tuna nigiri was nice.  The rice had a good vinegar taste to it and it was held together nicely.  Too much rice once again but still tasted way better than the sumomaki rice.  I ordered spicy salmon and spicy tuna hosomaki but it might not landed on the other side of the table.  I really recommend the hosomaki's here because they had a very thin layer of rice (almost resembling that of sushi garden) but it was very tasteless (tuna this time).  The wasabi was very watered down too so there was no kick to help with the taste.  Use more soy sauce I guess.  The volcano roll was deep fried but tasted very good.  They do deep fried foods very well here.  I would come back just for the steak, salmon tataki, wings, shrimp tempura, and hosomaki's.  

On the day we went there were 7 of us and 15% gratuity was charged for a party of 6 or more.  Unlike Kobe Sushi Ramen, the server courteously told us about the 15% gratuity and how it was added into the bill already.  He then divided that by 7 and we ended up paying $42.10 per person.  The dinner was $39 but there was a 10% discount because of grand opening, thus making it $35 + 5% GST +15% Tip.  To me, given the 8 oz steak cooked on a rock (it was worth $20 in my mind), the sushi buffet was just $15 to me.  The service was also above and beyond good.  I loved the presentation of how to use the lava rock to make my own steak.  I also loved how we were almost charged $1/piece for not finishing our food.  He was assertive yet nice about it.  He kindly reminded us to attempt to finish our food some more before he can bring out dessert.  We gave it a last ditch effort and attacked those sumomakis that we should have never over-ordered (especially the ones with iceberg lettuce in it omg).  We were not charged overage in the end.  Phew.  But maybe we won't be so lucky next time!  Please order responsibly!