Sushi Bay Oyster Bar: New sushi and oyster restaurant in Burnaby
We noticed there was a new restaurant called Sushi Bay & Oyster Bar that opened in South Burnaby so we decided to check them out for happy hour because they had raw oysters for $1.50 each 🦪! It has been awhile since I found raw oysters at this price (sad, I know 😢).
I actually prefer not to go to newly opened restaurants until some time has passed and they are more settled in. Usually this is because I find they still need to work out some kinks in their service or food, and I think this time was no exception 😬. Here is how our experience went.
Sushi Bay & Oyster Bar
6360 Kingsway, Burnaby, BC V5E 1C5
The vibe
Sushi Bay’s happy hour runs from 3:30-5:30pm and is dine-in only. We got here around 4:30pm and got the last table after waiting a few minutes. Shortly after, people had to wait until a table left.
The restaurant is not super large but I think it could fit a few more tables if they re-arrange the layout a little bit. It was nice to see the congratulatory wreaths in the entrance for their grand opening.
They had oysters on display in a glass shelf, which was kind of exciting. However, only the fanny bay oysters are available for the happy hour pricing.
Food review
Here is everything we ordered for 2 adults – some are from the happy hour menu and some are from their regular menu. Prices are in CAD and rounded to the nearest dollar for simplicity.
Bay omakase box ($28)
This is the first thing on Sushi Bay’s menu and it was actually the thing we liked the most out of everything we ordered. Note that this is not on the happy hour menu.
This is an omakase box – “Omakase” means “leave it to the chef” so essentially this is a box of 6 kinds of appetizers. The box is different every day depending on the chef.
On the day we went, we got these items in our box:
- Sesame gomae (spinach salad)
- Tuna tataki
- Seared salmon sashimi, shrimp sashimi, tamago (egg)
- Salmon fried in a seaweed roll
- Braised beef and carrots
- Fried chicken
All the appetizers were good quality and yummy with a mixture of Japanese and Korean influences. Our favourites were the sashimi and surprisingly, the sesame spinach salad! We felt it was quite unique and flavourful 👍.
I am also not sure if you can tell from the photo as there isn’t a hand for size comparison, but these were not too small of a portion and large enough to share between 2 people. I think if I ate this by myself, I would actually be full so $28 is a reasonable price.
Oysters ($1.50 each)
They call themselves an oyster bar so we had to order some oysters! We ordered 14 fanny bay oysters and they actually took awhile to get to our table.
Having shucked oysters myself, I know it’s not as easy as it looks. But when I eat at other oyster bars like Rodney’s, I do find those shucking guys to be very quick.
I also noticed many of our oysters were quite small and looked a little mangled 😕. I am not an oyster expert but by mangled I also mean that when I ate it, I could taste little bits of sand which made it unpleasant. I felt like that could have been more carefully shucked and prepared.
Izmidai crudo ($8)
I like crudo but I have to say I really didn’t like this one. I’ve never had izmidai fish as a crudo before so maybe it was supposed to taste the way it did, but ultimately I didn’t want to finish it.
I found the fish to be quite tough to eat and the ceviche dressing that went with it was too sour and also slightly bitter 😖.
This dish was on the happy hour menu for $8 and regular price is $12 for 6 pieces.
Volcano roll ($15) + Ikura gunkan ($4.25)
For sushi, we ordered the volcano roll, which came with crab meat, prawn tempura, avocado, cucumber with spicy tuna on top, negi, spicy sauce and unagi sauce. For $15, I think this is pretty standard and a generous portion. It was quite yummy and had a nice kick to it from the spicy sauce.
For sushi, my husband randomly ordered an ikura (fish roe) sushi. It came out larger than expected and tasted quite fresh and good quality.
Both of these items were from the regular menu.
Creamy ebi mayo ($12)
This ebi mayo is on the happy hour menu for $12 for 4 pieces and on the regular menu for $16.
I love ebi mayo and I think this one was alright – big shrimp inside the tempura and nice sauces. Although I think it could have been fried a bit better (the batter fell apart and wasn’t sticking as well to the shrimp inside). I did like the small green salad it came with as it helped me feel a little healthier.
Breaded oyster ($14)
My husband loves fried oysters so we had to order this even though we had a fried item already. This is on the regular menu and comes with 3 pieces.
The oysters were fried well and were delicious. We also liked the sauce it came with as it cut through some of that grease. The oysters were juicy inside.
It also came with some yam fries which were just ok and not fried as well as the oysters (a little soft or soggy, lacking some of that crunch).
Final thoughts
Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️
So as you can see, there were some hits and misses with our experience at Sushi Bay & Oyster Bar. I do feel bad giving 2 stars as they just opened but if there is a dish I actually do not like/will not finish like the crudo, I cannot give it 3 stars 😣. And also who cares what I give them, right 🥴? I am just a food blogger for fun.
But all in all, I do feel bad usually if I go to a newly opened restaurant and it doesn’t meet my expectations. I was very excited to have an oyster bar in Burnaby and I don’t have to go all the way downtown for $1.50 oysters, but sadly I don’t think the raw oysters were prepared well either because I could taste some of the sand. So for a place that is branding themselves as an oyster bar, I think that area can also be improved.
The sushi seems fine and decent quality, albeit a little pricey but the portions seem to be also on the larger side. Out of everything we ordered, we liked the appetizer box the most.
Service-wise, the food took awhile to come out and it did not come out quickly. There seemed to only be 1 server and maybe that was why, and then it looked like a second person started helping with the serving which helped improve the service time.
Before tax and tip, our dinner was slightly over $100 which I didn’t think was worth it for the quality of food we had 😟. We may not return for awhile but I will give them another chance later on to see if there are improvements.
Sincerely, Loewe