Matsuyama 松山

I was never tempted to try Matsuyama because I've heard from many friends that the food isn't that great. But my coworkers suggested coming here for lunch since they said the lunch boxes are pretty good value, so I decided to keep an open mind and give the place a try. Almost everyone went for the lunch boxes, but I didn't want a mound of tempura, 3 pieces of boring California roll, and a few limp leaves of a salad. I figured I would be better off with the matsu combo ($11.95), a tuna maki roll with a variety of nigiri sushi. The presentation was not bad, and I was actually slightly hopeful. However, I learned that looks can be deceiving, as I found the taste way below average.

The sushi rice was a huge problem to begin with. It was packed very densely and tasted strongly of vinegar. The unpleasant sourness overwhelmed the taste of the fish, so the only item that was ok was the unagi (eel) since it was strong in flavour and wasn't dominated by the sour rice. And the unagi was cooked with lots of sauce, so there was no freshness issue there. Everything else did not taste very fresh, especially the raw shrimp. It was the worst shrimp I've ever had with an extremely slimy and mushy texture and no shrimp taste at all. It basically felt like it was on its way to decomposing. Other raw fish had that weird fishy taste typical of non-fresh seafood. I was not impressed and definitely will not be coming back.