Pearl Sushi

High quality fish used in the sushi. The sushi chef is excellent. The tempura is remarkably good. I eat at Japanese retaurants regularly in numerous cities and this ranks among the best for quality of food.

The restaurant appears family run and the staff are friendly. A very welcome addition to Stratford's wealth of restuarants.

We have eatten here several times since this place opened in the fall of last year. We stopped in last night.

The place is located a couple of doors down from Fosters in on Downie Street in what was Iona Fish and Chips/Woolfy's/Globe Restaurants. The place is minimalist in terms of decor with a dark stained hardwood floor, cheap hanging paper lights and very little else. The Sushi bar at the back has 4 or 5 seats, two of which had menus pilled up on them. I guess the Sushi bar is for show not for go.

In the 3 or 4 times we have been in we have never had the same wait staff, aside from what I assume are the owners. Perhaps it was just dumb luck that we missed the same waitress...or perhaps it has something to do with the owner snapping his fingers at the our waitress last night. Speaking of which, the wait staff wear a Japanese robe over their street clothes. A nice touch perhaps, but it looks oddly uncomfortable. She also seemed uncomfortable with the act of bowing everytime she showed up at the table. It all seemed a little contrived. (our server was not asian)

We ordered the "Lovely Boat" last night. An assortment of sushi, sushimi and a spicey tuna roll and the usual california roll. We also asked for a large sake. The waitress asked whether we wanted it hot or cold....hmm...a sign perhaps...but we of course had it hot. A large sake is not very large by the way but also not expensive.

A small salad came and was ackward to eat with chop sticks. Huge pieces of lettuce that really needed to be broken up to properly eat. The salad was dressed with a soy/ginger vinegrette. Very nice. I remarked that usually the "dinner" is preceeded by some miso soup. Not here. It is served with the meal. I suppose that is fine as there isn't much chance of your sushi getting cold..so to speak.

The sushimi was yellow tail and tuna slices served over thin sticks of cucumber. Nicely presented on the board and the fish was excellent quality. The two rolls where pretty standard fare. The sushi was Yellow tail (again), Salmon, Tuna (again), Squid, BBQ eel, and Shrimp. It was nicely presented and very good quality. I would never order shrimp sushi on its own as I find it is usually rubbery and tasteless and this goes for some of the best Sushi places on the west coast....Pearl Sushi lived up to that constant in my mind.

All and all the food quality and presentation is very good. As sushi goes it is well above par. Service and atmosphere are a bit spotty....but that seems to run as typical for most sushi places.

It is worth a visit and it is nice to see we have a sit down place for Japanese food. The sushi take out at Zehrs and the General store on Ontario street are the other alternatives.

They are open for lunch and dinner monday through saturday, dinner sunday and closed the first monday of each month.

I was visiting from London when I came across Pearl Sushi. Having been to every sushi restaurant in London, I am pretty particular when it comes to Japanese food. This place is really amazing. The sushi is unlike anywhere else - great quality, and with a really different and unique taste. The service is very friendly, and the girl (who I think was very new at the time) who served us was so over-the-top courteous and polite that it was really cute. I'll definitely be visiting this place every time I go to Stratford from now on.

Wait staff are a bit hard to understand. We ordered a glass of red wine twice before getting it. Not a big deal for us though. Food consisted of a very large platter of sushi, sashimi and california rolls, included was soup and a salad(never recieved the salad.) The platter was fantastic great assortment, great presentation. Didnt really need the salad as the platter was enough on its own.

Didnt know mind you what everything was, only noticed after the meal there were these picture place mats explaining what everything was. Would recomend. Don't let staff throw you off.