Yen, welcome! As mentioned, we can go to great extents as to the merits of each one but I won’t… As for freshness and authenticity, I believe there is always some wriggle room. Take, for example, the aburi sushi from Miku Restaurant (which, coincidentally I recently visited). Now, here is an interesting note about freshness: most of the fish sold nowadays are seldom caught “fresh” and, more often than not, it is flash frozen (we can double check that with Jessica of Yum-o-Rama, she is an expert on this topic). So, the fact that that itamae knows how to handle the fish would now be even a greater factor!

Zud, park across the street in Metrotown! Funny enough, the items you listed are mostly non-sushi items (except the scallops)! If it was for those only, I think the sushi factor can be scrapped.

Sherman, amen.

hands down sushi garden is cheap and fresh and i have grown to like certain menu items. i find the tako yaki tasty, chicken karaage, sushi salad which is unique, and spicy chopped scallop is nice. same agedashi tofu.

parking can be a pain, the place can be SUPER LOUD, and they cut the dynamite and veg tempura rolls too thin. two ppl can eat for 18$ and be full

I’ve been working in Japanese/Japanese fusion restaurants for as long as I’ve been old enough to work. Let me tell you, Japanese food is more disappointing to me than a raining Christmas/winter season (Oh wait..). There seems to be a cap. Your fish can only get so fresh. Your presentation can only be so clean. And then what? What do you do with raw fish and rice? Anything to spruce it up a bit and it’s not ‘authentic’, anything less than completely fresh, and you’re criticized.
I still think sushi is tasty, but I’m thinking the sushi trend may be on it’s first steps towards dying annnyy minute now.