Derm and I decided to skip dinner at St. John's on Thursday night in favour of Sushi Challenge #5.  Our continuing mission is to explore strange new all-you-eat-sushi restaurants; to seek out new sashimi, new maki...and to boldly gorge down more fish than anyone has ever managed before.  We have already encountered Tanpopo, BC Sushi, Shabusen (Granville), and Tomokazu.  Kisha Popo was the venue for Sushi Challenge #5.  Below are the current rankings. 

1. Tanpopo (Denman & Davie): I like the fact that the restaurant is on the second floor and that those waiting to get inside line up on the stairs out of sight of the tables.  This allows for a clear separation between the people waiting to get in and those already seated.  I hate it when the line up spills into the eating area.  I find it mildy unsettling when people are standing around me when I'm eating, and I hate drafts from the door opening and closing.  By the way, I don't like sitting in the back row of a plane either.

Tanpopo was the venue for the first sushi challenge, and is alone among the sushi restaurants in that I have been there multiple times.  It remains my favourite all-you can eat sushi experience.  I am especially fond of the spicy tuna sashimi (which is the best I've had) and the bacon-wrapped scallop skewers (I have yet to find this item anywhere else).

Another dimension to the Tanpopo experience is the mind games they play with you.  They try to fill you up with rice and tempura.  Often they play subtle tricks like being slower to bring expensive items than cheap items and/or bringing huge portions of something like vegetable tempura and small portions of sashimi.  Sometimes they are not so subtle and will bring big plates of filler that you didn't even order!  After they've decided that you've had enough, they will also slow way down.  If you want to order three or more rounds, be prepared to be there for hours.

Winner: Tyson

2. Tomokazu (Broadway & Spruce): I'm a sucker for second floor restaurants.  I like looking down on the street carnival outside.  Despite being on the second floor, however, the line-up still spills messily into the eating area.  In addition, because the stairs are outside, a large number of tables are within draft range.  The booths are sweet though; if you're lucky enough to get one.  The quality of the sushi was uniformly high here, although nothing stood out as particularly exceptional like Tanpopo's spicy tuna sashimi.  The fact that our table was the only one at which English was being spoken is an excellent indicator of Tomokazu's quality as well.

My only complaint is that it is really hard to judge portion sizes here.  This is a problem with all-you-can-eat sushi restaurants in general, but Tomokazu is even worse than most.  For example, the "steak" turned out to be so small you could swallow the whole thing without chewing.  We could have easily ordered 20 of them per person.

Winner: Draw

3. Shabusen (Granville & 14th): Shabusen is unique in that it is the only restaurant with Korean BBQ that we've encountered so far.  Unfortunately, our experience was tainted by the fact that we made an ordering mistake with the BBQ.  We ended up with 3 huge bowls of BBQ meat: pork, chicken, and beef.  One bowl would have been more than enough.  The staff kept a close eye on us, smirking at us the whole time.  I wonder if they had wagered on whether or not we would crack under the pressure.  Knowing that we would have to pay for anything that we didn't eat added a bit of stress to the challenge. 

It was tough, but we eventually succeeded, although without much help from Derm.  This was by far his worst showing.  I pwnd him.  He just couldn't handle the stress.  At one point he started to hyperventilate, and tears welled up in his eyes.  I tried to reassure him that we could always just put stuff in a napkin and make an extra deposit in the bathroom.  Luckily, I was able to calm him down enough so that he could eat a couple more pieces.  The BBQ meat is definitely more filling than the sashimi.  Overall I think the BBQ (in moderation) adds a nice dimension to the challenge because it prevents fish saturation.

Winner: Tyson (no contest)

4.  Kisha Popo (Davie & Thurlow): We made the worst ordering mistake of all the challenges to date here.  We ended up with an Elvis Platter of sashimi.  There was enough to satisfy a table of 8.  It was hard to eat that much raw fish.  I didn't think it was possible to get full eating nothing but sashimi.  I was wrong.  I hit the fish saturation point about 20 pounds in.  We must have each eaten a whole tuna fish and Salmon.  If it weren't for the side of spicy sauce, we would not have been able to make it. 

I have never eaten so much fish in one go in my entire life.  Even the individual pieces of sashimi were huge.  We would have to cut them up before eating them.  One day we'll have to go back so we can sample a few more of the non-sushi items.  The baked oysters were excellent, as was the steak tataki.  This is the only restaurant where we did not even order a second round.  It shames me, but we were both soundly defeated.

One reason to go to Kisha Popo is the character of Davie street itself.  What a street carnival.  There is always something interesting on the go.  We couldn't tell if the Hobo we stepped around was a man or a woman.  The assortment outside the Starbucks included a lesbian couple (one was enormously fat), a scruffy-looking old man, a guy singing to himself, another lesbian couple, and about a half a dozen dogs.

Winner: none (nobody wins in a pure sashimi challenge)

5. BC Sushi (Broadway & Arbutus):  There is nothing wrong with this place.  It's just a bit ordinary in every way.  It doesn't get much cheaper though: $10 for lunch.  But there was a limit of 6 pieces of sashimi per guest and $1 charge for every 6 additional pieces of sashimi.  Still you cannot beat the price.