jina sushi

disgusting. i ordered a spicy salmon roll after reading the reviews... the thing had barely any meat in it, there were literally 3 pieces with no meat at all just that crunchy crap that most places only put on if you order the crunchy spicy version. the other pieces with meat had one or two of the tiniest pieces ever. this place is a total ripoff, not to mention it was covered with a gross combination sauce. i'd avoid this at all costs unless you enjoy paying for rice and seaweed covered in a gross sauce. this place has gone downhill very bad judging by the reviews from a few years ago.

i wanted to love it. i really did. the reviews on google were quite positive and i had read that the portions were great and the food was cheap.

well, you get what you pay for. the place definitely caters to university students. the server was nice, i suppose, but as soon as we sat down we realized the tables and the menus were sticky. i mean there was only one other table being served, so you would think a waitress would do the things that they are paid to do, like cleaning the seating area. my husband looked at the wall directly beside our table and it was covered with soy and other dried bits of... well, it was nasty. i felt bad because i had chosen this place and my husband was totally grossed out.

also, i want to mention that the smell in there wasn’t great either - part antiseptic, part cat pee perhaps? i don’t know.

ok, so now the food. as other reviewers have noted, they definitely used a lot of sauce on the rolls. i like tasting the fish, so it was disappointing that the roll was dripping with sauce. we both felt like we ate more sweet potato at our meal than anything else. it was the majority of the tempura basket items and it was easily half the sushi roll we shared. i had wanted to get some butter fish sashimi but that wasn’t on the menu.

our tempura was unceremoniously dumped on the table and came out in a steam basket, which i thought was cute until my husband noticed that the edges were full of black mold between the wood slats. ugh. when the tempura came out we were left to eat it on the table (or use the tiny soy sauce dish) since we weren’t actually given plates. for the entire meal. it is such a small thing, and so silly i almost want to laugh, except that we ate there yesterday so the actual memory of the experience is still a little painful.

although i thought the taste of the actual sushi roll was ok, it was really too big to eat. i have a big mouth (lol) and can usually fit sushi pieces in with moderate ease but i needed three or four bites for one sushi slice. you know what happens then. yes, it went all over the place. i had to use the black moldy tempura basket to cradle the remains of my sushi (yea, i know, why didn’t i just ask for a plate! well i had no idea where the server had disappeared).
i know this is a pretty scathing review and i don’t mean it to be taken as hateful or anything. i have tried to be descriptive but objective.

had one of the worst experiences at jina sushi today. we started off with finding a strand of hair in our sushi. the server came over, grabbed the plate without apologizing, and walked away. we then proceeded to sit for 5 minutes (i’m guessing they were dna checking to see who’s hair it was) without anyone coming to take care of us. we had to raise our hands for 5 minutes to get the server to notice us. note that throughout this entire process, the manager of the store (or owner) never thought for one second that he needed to address this situation. once the server came over, we had to ask her what the solution for that hair was. she then said “do you want a new roll or not” but no apology. she then proceeded to call the manager to our table, and that’s when things really went downhill. that guy came over, and started yelling. “it’s not his hair, it’s not his responsibility!” then rudely grabbed our plates, and yelled again. “just don’t pay, is that okay? is that okkk?” honestly, no one expected a store owner/manager to throw a tantrum like that at his own restaurants fault. we did not deserve to be treated like this, and are not a target for rage like that. we have been to jina before, multiple
times, with good experiences. but the treatment we received today is just mind-blowing. everyone please avoid that place if you can, and if not, check for hairs. if anything, bring a club with you, so you can protect yourself from a raging manager.

visiting from ottawa our cousin's got us take out. delicious. we got california rolls, spicy salmon rolls, philadelphia rolls, avocado/salmon rolls and the dynamite roll. the dynamite roll was huge and saucy. very good though. we asked for the cali rolls to be spicy and they put the spicy mayo annnnd sriracha. amazing!! we will be back for sure.

don't order the salmon rolls. when the waiter warned the $5.90 salmon rolls were small. it means a lot if my expectations were better than what actually came out of the kitchen. the salmon slices were 3 extremely thin cuts, that were literally 1cm height, and perhaps 2cm diameter. with a lot of rice. 
the spicy salmon roll had basically no salmon at all, and it seemed to be a mash of sweet potato. i was only able to see a tiny piece of salmon in the corner of one roll. this is my first time being disappointed in a sushi restaurant in kingston. 
i couldn't finish the food because of how disappointing it was, and the lack of freshness it was.

i've been there once and never returned afterwards... their sushi rice is really sweet and there is just way too much sauce on the rolls....

the portions are very good! for the price, the taste is there too if you don't mind sauce on your rolls. the chicken teriyaki that came in the box was surprisingly quite big!

love it. amazing sushi and great portion sizes! each order comes with soup and salad, which gives you lots of food for the amount of money you pay. definitely my favourite sushi place, especially given how close it is to campus. service can either be really good or lackluster depending on who is your server and how busy they are.

i have heard great things about jina from fellow students and honestly, i was not disappointed with the food. however, improvements could be made to the service.